Why Singapore’s social enterprise unit is bumping up tech hires

Singapore’s National Trade Union Congress (NTUC), the city-state’s largest labor union confederation, wants to transform its social enterprise arm into a full-fledged tech- and data-driven organization. Johnny Wong, chief digital and technology officer of NTUC Enterprise, is working hard to make that happen.

The organization is looking to fill 200 digital and tech roles by the end of the year, as it lines up a slew of digital initiatives to serve Singaporean consumers more efficiently, Wong says.

NTUC Enterprise has been revving up the digital transformation of NTUC Social Enterprises – its holding entity composed of 10 social enterprises – to place it ahead of the game. This is important since it supports as many as 2 million consumers in Singapore every year in areas like daily essentials, childcare, affordable meals, continuous learning, health care, elderly care, and financial planning.

More at stake

However, the risk of disruption could be high if NTUC Social Enterprises does not transform quickly enough, says Wong.

This is clearly observed with NTUC’s FairPrice, the largest operator of physical supermarkets in Singapore. Online grocery players such as Redmart and Honestbee are disrupting the way people shop for groceries, and this is why FairPrice has invested in its On business, shares Wong, who is also managing director of digital and technology at the supermarket chain.

Entrance to a FairPrice Finest store in Singapore / Photo credit: tang90246 / 123RF

For FairPrice, more is at stake. If other online competitors were to gain major market share, then they may eventually drive overall prices up. That will not be good news to Singaporeans, Wong emphasizes, considering that NTUC Social Enterprises’ core social mission is to moderate prices to alleviate cost pressures. It’s demonstrated by FairPrice’s recently announced initiative to freeze the prices of its 100 house-brand products and reduce the prices for 50 of it.

Wong notes that gross margins at FairPrice are intentionally lower than for-profit supermarkets in other developed geographies. “We have a social mission to moderate prices of daily essentials for the Singaporean consumer,” he says. “That is why we have embarked on several digital initiatives to improve the way we operate so that we can bring more value to the consumer.”

Honestbee launched its first omnichannel outlet in October 2018 – an experiment with automatic checkout and robotic collection points – as consumers abandon queues for a more efficient shopping experience.

Not to be outdone by the competition, FairPrice now leverages its network of over 200 physical outlets across Singapore, offering conveniences such as Click & Collect and the ability to test the fulfillment of online orders directly from nearby FairPrice stores. Wong says these programs successfully traverse online-to-offline channels, so customers don’t wait for days for their groceries. In fact, select locations are offering same-day delivery in as fast as two hours.

FairPrice On’s digital overhaul was announced in March 2018. Its warehouse is a high-tech distribution center with a robotic storage and handling system. With that, FairPrice can handle larger and more complex orders coming from its online store and mobile app, which have been revamped to make payment and delivery more seamless for customers. Analytics have also been employed to make personalized customer recommendations, Wong shares.

The supermarket chain also continues to improve the in-person shopping experience. One example is Scan2Go, a device that lets users tally their shopping while picking the items off the shelf. This reduces queuing and checkout times, according to Wong. Launched in 2017, Scan2Go is available at three outlets, with plans to deploy it in more stores.

A huge undertaking

The group’s digital transformation means it is hiring aggressively in all digital and tech disciplines. Mobile engineers, front-end and back-end engineers, UX omnichannel designers, digital marketers, and data scientists are just some of the talents that NTUC Social Enterprises is looking to hire.

“We are deeply committed to this group-wide transformation. Beyond FairPrice, a slew of innovative projects have been launched across NTUC Social Enterprises to accompany the new ways people live in the digital age,” he adds.