Deloitte establishes Future of Work Centre of Excellence in Singapore
Big Four consultancy Deloitte has launched a three year $20 million project, in collaboration with the Singapore Economic Development Board to establish a Future of Work Centre of Excellence. The facility is aimed at addressing skills mismatches amid a digitalising labour market, while identifying future job requirements to help businesses meet demand for new tech-savvy workers.
Deloitte has launched its Future of Work Center of Excellence (CoE), a first-of-its-kind platform to create solutions, created to anticipate market disruptions, address the skills mismatch challenge, and identify future job requirements. The new CoE, based in Singapore and supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), will help develop a suite of data analytics, automation tools, and workforce-planning cloud models for businesses and governments to address clients’ current and expected workforce needs. The EBD is currently hoping to build a movement for lifelong learning in the region, in order to combat the rapidly evolving nature of work amid digital disruption and the altering work-practices that accompany it. With only 11% of business leaders reportedly confident they are prepared to build the organizations of the future, Deloitte’s CoE will look to work with clients to reinvent how both established corporations and innovative start-ups leverage emerging technologies to adapt to new ways of working.
Singapore has long been found to be one of the best hubs for Financial Technology (FinTech) along with London and New York, with the innovative new technology able to be tested quickly in the growing Asian financial market that the locale has direct access to. The booming FinTech industry, which in 2015 alone saw investments totalling $19 billion, is leveraging low barrier technologies to create financial services offerings that may disrupt the markets of traditional players, or open up whole new ways of doing business.
The locale is also becoming increasingly attractive for consultancies looking to exploit the possibilities of new technology in other more general ways. Earlier in 2017, McKinsey & Company launched a Digital Capability Centre in Singapore among a number of other global locations, to present businesses with an opportunity to witness how technology might develop Industry 4.0. Over the next three years, Deloitte will invest $20 million (approximately $27.6 million) in its own CoE, in one of the firm’s largest investment partnerships with any other organisation, fostering a relationship with the Singapore government which may become increasingly lucrative in the future, as the economy there continues to expand. The firm hopes this will be the first in a series of Singapore-based, digital solutions-focused centres, which Deloitte will establish with public and private sector players.
Starting immediately and over the following three year period, this first CoE will train and employ local and global talent in highly sought-after areas such as data science, UX, HR analytic, actuarial science, and natural language processing, among others. This Singapore CoE will meanwhile serve as a global flagship, with Deloitte also planning to launch CoEs in the US, UK, and Canada to advance global Future of Work solutions.
According to Punit Renjen, global CEO of Deloitte, “Cognitive technologies, robotics and accelerating connectivity are all elements of a seismic shift impacting how and where work is performed. Almost every job will be reinvented as personal expectations of work evolve and essential human skills are augmented by technology. This transformation will require organizations to reconsider how they hire and reskill workers and develop new operational strategies for a more mobile and autonomous workforce. Through this new Center of Excellence, Deloitte is committed to helping organizations navigate these challenges successfully.”
Dr Swan Gin Beh, the Chairman of EDB meanwhile commented, “Companies in Singapore have a good track record in using technologies, such as analytics and IoT, to solve real-world business problems. They are also able to collaborate with consulting and technology providers to innovate and develop new services and solutions. We welcome the setting up of Deloitte’s Future of Work Center of Excellence in Singapore as this will foster even more partnerships and strengthen the ecosystem for technology innovation.”
