Rigid business models choke Singapore's digital dreams

CFOs are pessimistic about their digitisation efforts.

Although most domestic companies have ambitious digitisation strategies, even the best-laid plans are being hindered by the inflexible operating models of some firms here.

A survey by Robert Half showed that Singapore Chief Financial Officer0 (CFOs) are the least confident in Asia of the success of their digitisation efforts, with 74% of CFOs saying that they were very or somewhat confident of their strategies.

This compares with an average of 79% for other Asian countries.

When asked what the biggest obstacles are to their digitisation efforts, the most common response was the organisational or the operating model of their company, nominated by 45% of CFOs.

This type of organisational inflexibility is particularly prevalent among medium sized firms with between 250 and 500 employees.

“It is internal barriers such as the way companies are organised that is causing the most problems for CFOs who want to digitise their finance activities,” said Stella Tang, Director of Robert Half Singapore.

Despite these barriers, the survey found that found that 98% of Singapore companies--the highest proportion in the world--were investing in digitisation of their finance functions.

This makes Singapore CFOs the most fraud-conscious in the world. 

“Singapore has a global reputation for integrity and honest conduct within its business community. This survey shows Singapore CFOs are extremely vigilant when it comes to detecting fraud. That’s why the level of fraud in Singapore is low compared to other countries. Preventing fraud is simply a higher priority for Singapore CFOs than for finance leaders elsewhere,” Tang said.