Max is the EY Managing Partner for Singapore and Brunei. He leads and manages their business and operations, providing strategic leadership on market and people development. With years of audit and business advisory experience, his clients span a broad range of industries including technology, food and beverage, construction, manufacturing, trading, hospitality, financial institutions and government concerns.
Before the pandemic, the business landscape was already evolving due to disruptive forces such as globalisation, digitalisation and workforce transitions. The pandemic has further accelerated such shifts. In particular, digital transformation has become a priority for businesses seeking to innovate, drive new products and solutions and improve customer and operational outcomes.
However, being part of an ecosystem has its complexities too, such as difficulties in identifying the right ecosystem partner, balancing valuable insights with customer data privacy, overlaps in operations, and determining who owns the end-user relationship. Hence, companies should ask themselves if they want to become the platform where other players connect or join an existing ecosystem or platform.
Another consideration is ensuring that employees are equipped with the right skill sets for the job. With more companies undergoing digital transformation in the past year, redesigning jobs must also be a focus area. Essentially, job redesign seeks to create a more optimal combination of tasks in a job role for efficiency and productivity.
At the same time, the boundaries that define work, leisure and learning are blurring more than ever as norms in working hours, leisure time, retirement and learning continue to evolve. For entrepreneurs and business leaders, this poses both opportunities and challenges that are intertwined.
To better manage their capital allocation strategy, companies must look into three areas: define their future and investment road map, use the capital allocation process to drive business agility, and focus on the right metrics in the post-pandemic era. In the current business environment, there is a great opportunity to improve the capital allocation decision-making process.