Wah, number one again!
Others may laugh at our kiasu attitude, but it has propelled us towards some great successes. For example, very recently, not only did we come in top for being the most online city in the world, we also emerged first place as the most “digitally competitive” economy, ahead of Sweden and the United States in a first-of-its-kind report published by Swiss business school IMD.
What Is Digital Competitiveness?
Digital competitiveness measures our economy’s ability to adapt to and adopt new technologies. One of the barometers includes the government’s support in technological innovation, and with $19 billion invested in Singapore’s research and development efforts—the biggest budget to date—for the next five years, it is safe to say that our government is not holding back.
Ranked First In Knowledge And Technology
There are two key areas of digital competitiveness that our Little Red Dot ranked top in: knowledge and technology, which include factors such as talent, training and education, regulatory framework, and investment in technology.
“Singapore and Sweden have developed regulations that takes advantage of the talent they have by adopting, for instance, a regulation that facilitates the inflow of overseas talent which complements the locally available pool,” said Professor Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Centre.
Always Room For Improvement
However, Singapore did not fare as well in future readiness, particularly in business agility, coming in at just 14th place. With 1 out of 5 of us afraid of losing our jobs to automation, it’s not hard to see why. But CIMB Private Bank’s economist Mr Song Seng Wun also felt that people in Singapore are not hungry enough for technological innovation.
Perhaps, we are so comfortable living in our own bubble that we view certain change as disruption instead of improvement. Either way, we’re on an inevitable trajectory towards unprecedented technological advancement, and that is something we’re going to have to learn to embrace as it increasingly intertwines with our lives.
