Ng Wee Wei, the Southeast Asia Market Unit Lead and Senior Managing Director at Accenture, emphasizes the importance of continuous reinvention for businesses to stay ahead of disruption in today’s fast-paced and uncertain environment. The rate of change affecting businesses has increased by 183% since 2019, with 88% of C-suite executives expecting an even faster rate of change in 2024, largely driven by technology. With millions in Southeast Asia relying on apps for essential services, the emergence of generative AI is playing a crucial role in accelerating and enabling this transformation.
To succeed in navigating disruption in the next decade, Wei Wei suggests adopting a strategy of continuous total enterprise reinvention driven by technology and data, rather than stopping at one-time transformations. This approach requires companies to embrace continuous reassessment of their business strategy to build deeper relationships and sustainable growth opportunities. For Wei Wei, the key to success lies in becoming what he calls “reinventors” rather than mere adopters or transformers in the face of technological disruption.
To achieve total enterprise reinvention, Wei Wei outlines four key steps that businesses should take. Firstly, companies must define their ambition and strategy, ensuring collaborative decision-making across the C-suite and a clear plan for cultural shifts and new skills. Next, enhancing the digital core and aligning it with industry standards is crucial, with a focus on understanding the significance of data and generative AI. Investing in talent and skilling is also essential, with a focus on continuous learning and technology readiness, as well as forming and expanding strategic partnerships to accelerate transformation.
Wei Wei emphasizes the importance of investing in talent and skilling as part of becoming a reinventor, with a focus on reallocating talent capacity, evaluating HR capabilities, and aligning employee value propositions with company commitments. Continuous learning in a gen AI world should be integrated into daily work processes, with technology quotient training for all employees and tailor-made sessions for executives to embrace and discuss the impact of generative AI on their work. Finally, forming and expanding strategic partnerships can accelerate transformation, providing unique access and insights into new technologies and extending industry capabilities through collaboration and co-innovation with partners.
Designing a roadmap for continuous reinvention demands a deep understanding of transformative technologies such as generative AI, capable of revolutionizing every aspect of the enterprise. By aggressively deploying this technology across operations, companies in Southeast Asia can achieve and exceed new performance benchmarks, adapt to disruption, and drive sustainable growth in the face of a rapidly changing business landscape.
