Managing talent key as Singapore ICT grows
Deloitte study also suggests that global telcos seize opportunities in sector weakened by sub-prime crisis, writes AMIT ROY CHOUDHURY
TALENT management will be an important area of focus for Singapore’s Infocomm industry as it continues to expand in tandem with the economy over the next five to 10 years, according to professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.
Mr Barmaky: ‘The amount and diversity of communication will continue to grow through 2008 and beyond.’
Indeed, with continuing infocomm growth, talent management ‘will, no doubt, be a matter of high priority for many technology businesses in Singapore’, Deloitte Singapore industry partner Shariq Barmaky told BizIT.
This prediction is part of the 2008 global report by Deloitte’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) industry group. The annual study, now in its fifth year, predicts how the telecom, media and technology industries will change and affect society globally.
In Singapore, according the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore, the total revenue generated by the infocomm industry grew by 19.9 per cent to reach $45.42 billion in 2006 and the number of employed infocomm professionals grew by 7.5 per cent to reach 119,700 that year, Mr Barmaky, who is the TMT Industry Partner for Deloitte Singapore, said.
‘Revenue numbers for 2007 are not yet available. However, the 2007 survey for infocomm manpower has indicated that the infocomm employment growth rate achieved a new high of 8.9 per cent to reach 130,400 in 2007.’
An interesting recommendation of the TMT report is that the global telecom industry should be prepared to confront, or even better, exploit, the possible downturn in the telecommunications sector that may result from the US sub-prime credit crunch.
Mr Barmaky pointed out: ‘Although the impact of the US sub-prime credit crunch on the Singapore economy is still uncertain, nonetheless the saturated telecom market in Singapore, where mobile penetration and household broadband penetration rates were 125.6 per cent and 78.2 per cent respectively as at January 2008, has resulted in service providers rolling out innovative price plans to remain competitive.’
The Deloitte analyst noted that bundled talk time and free SMS (short messaging service) among family members and supplementary voice plans that include free calls between parent and child are examples of such price plans introduced by service providers in Singapore.
Singapore is in the process of building a next generation national infocomm infrastructure comprising ultra high-speed Next Generation National (NGN) broadband network and a wireless broadband network to entrench Singapore’s infocomm hub status and remain competitive in the region. ‘The impact of these projects on the telecom industry in Singapore will be significant and this will, in turn, be felt in the 2010 Youth Olympics’ IT infrastructure,’ Mr Barmaky noted.
Also, the possible co-existence of both traditional TV and Internet TV in Singapore is exemplified by the issuance of the first Niche Subscription TV Licence by the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) last month to VeeV Interactive, Mr Barmaky noted.
The five-year licence enables the licensees to offer a broad range of programmes over any delivery platform for up to 100,000 subscribers in Singapore.
Unlike the nationwide IPTV (Internet protocol TV) licence awarded to SingTel in early 2007, this licence comes with more relaxed licensing requirements and caters to companies looking to offer specialised content to a smaller subscriber base.
‘With the market already dominated by free-to-air TV, cable television and the recently launched mioTV, we anxiously await how this prediction pans out in Singapore’s market in the near future,’ Mr Barmaky said. The Deloitte analyst noted that the adoption of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) as the standardised language for financial reporting is another example of how Singapore has always embraced new and innovative technologies, and ‘we expect this trend to continue’, he said.
Late last year, the Accounting & Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) launched a new system which lets companies file their financial statements in XBRL which has been adopted internationally for the electronic communication of business and financial data on the Internet and between computers.
More than 50,000 companies are expected to file in XBRL at different periods of the year depending on their financial year end.
The evolution in converging technologies is resulting in new forms of communication and this is changing consumer buying trends in the Singapore telecoms and media landscape, John Goeres, regional director, Deloitte Consulting TMT Industry practice, noted.
He added that a growing number of Singaporeans now consume their morning news on the Web, IM from their handphone, ‘Facebook’ both their friends and business colleagues, ‘Flickr’ their holiday photos to family, download music to their PDA, and catch favourite TV programmes on their own schedule through a DVR (digital video recording) or their mobile handheld.
‘The amount and diversity of communication will continue to grow through 2008 and beyond. As it does, the advertising, media and telecom sectors will need to learn new rules of engagement to actively compete for and monetise customers in this world of new media,’ Mr Goeres said.
Source : Business Times - 07 April 2008
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