The role of technology professionals in driving innovation and business transformation was the focal point of discussions at the Infocomm Professional Development Forum organised by the Singapore Computer Society in July.

“For Singapore to prosper, we need to generate more technologists,” said Mr Steve Leonard, Executive Deputy Chairman of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. In his address as Guest of Honour at the event, Mr Leonard noted that there is great potential for Singapore to harness technologies such as big data to enhance its performance in various areas including education, healthcare, transportation and public safety. “We have a lot of opportunities to improve but the single constraint we face is access to the right people. We do not have enough infocomm professionals coming out of universities and polytechnics.”

In view of this, there is a need for dialogue around how to continue investing in people, for example, through training programmes, internships and apprenticeships, and to give them opportunities to do something new, said Mr Leonard.

The need for technology professionals was echoed by Mr Bill Chang, Chief Executive Officer, Group Enterprise, SingTel, who called on Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) to take on a more proactive leadership role.

For businesses to continue to thrive in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) environment, there is a need for transformation and innovation, and a large part of this will come from how they make use of technology, he said. In line with the forum’s theme of “Developing ICT Innovation Leaders”, he called on CIOs to start thinking of themselves as Chief Innovation Officers and CTOs as Chief Transformation Officers, and to move away from technology-centricity to focus on how technology can empower their business strategies.

Mr Chang also highlighted six “hard trends” that businesses will have to respond to as they formulate these strategies. These include the rise in mobility, proliferation of smart machines, growing security challenges, the emergence of Everything-as-a-Service, the huge phenomenon of social networks and the rise of big data and analytics.

The fact that these multiple disruptive technology trends are happening within the space of a decade presents huge opportunities for the transformation of businesses and industries. To capitalise on these opportunities, Mr Chang said CIOs and CTOs will need to look at VUCA from another perspective – have a clear Vision of the future in the midst of volatility, a clear Understanding of forces that shape the future, Clarity and strategy to cut through complexity, and Agility in execution to get through the ambiguity.

In another keynote presentation at the forum, Mr Greg Unsworth, Partner with PwC Singapore, spoke about the process of innovation and the emergence of the digitally-enabled enterprise. “Innovation is a process like any other process. It involves discovering, incubating, accelerating and scaling,” he said.

CIOs have a strategic role to play in powering this innovation life cycle as enterprises seek to meet the enhanced expectations of the digital consumer.  Presenting a four-pillar approach to the digitally-enabled enterprise, he said enterprises will need to optimise their infrastructure , for example, by tapping on virtualisation or cloud services; transform their business operations to support the digital transformation; identify and capture new digitally-enabled revenue streams; and energise communities and channels through social technologies.

Mr Unsworth pointed out that the digital transformation of the enterprise is not just about adapting to give consumers what they want; the enterprise will also need to have a sustainable business model to address the new opportunities.

Besides the keynote presentations, the forum also included a panel discussion on “Riding the disruptive technology wave”. Panel members included Mr Leonard, Mr Chang, Mr Unsworth and Mr Saurav Bhattacharyya, Chief Executive Officer of Quantum Inventions. The session was facilitated by Mr Leong Mun Kew, Deputy Director, Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore. There were also three professional workshop tracks covering “The new digital economy”, “Big data and analytics”, and “Future interaction technologies”.