Notwithstanding, the Association kept up with the order of the day and explored several innovative ideas to drive collaborations to support our members and the industry. Relentless support to members came in the form of timely dissemination of advisories from multi-agencies / authorities, as well as forge partnerships with our strategic business associates, government agencies and stakeholders to construct numerous webinars, programmes and initiatives.  These efforts aimed to boost our members’ competitiveness, help them seize new growth opportunities and develop greater vibrancy, professionalism and resilience across the industry.  

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I am glad to note that the events, outreach, masterclasses and forums organized by the Association reached 381 companies during the year. Of these, the management team facilitated 26 companies to adopt, trial or pilot various technology and solutions. One such initiative was an e-commerce project BazaarRia, in collaboration with the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce & Industry. The platform offered an unique 3D shopping experience for consumers and was developed in response to the cancellation of the annual Geylang Serai bazaar.  By pooling member companies with resources and experience in e-commerce, and coordinating last mile fulfilment through an on-demand platform, the pilot project is a step forward on digital transformation, besides creating business opportunities.  

 

Our workforce in the logistic sector too has to undergo continuous upskilling to enhance competencies and dexterity.  All through the year, the Association organized numerous capability programmes, 1-to-1 business advisory and participated in workforce studies. We reached 212 companies and facilitated 60 manpower matching or enterprise capability upgrading.  Another 16 SLA members benefitted from 2 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) online workshops in July 2020. Sponsored by Workforce Singapore and in collaboration with Singapore National Employers Federation and Singapore Polytechnic, the workshop demonstrated how businesses could redesign job roles and automate some of the internal processes to bring about an improvement in productivity and assist employees to move up the work value chain.  Another initiative is in collaboration with RecruiterPal to empower members with a HR personnel digital tool and empower their lean HR teams to simplify complex recruitment processes to reach talents easily. Besides featuring job scope which adhere to the Skills Framework, the platform ensures that the company’s recruitment data collection practices are aligned with the best practices stipulated under PDPA and allow jobseekers to manage consent easily.

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In setting the pace for digitization, the Association successfully embarked on a RPA project. With sponsorship from Gleematic, a bot was built to work on the annual membership renewal, which is both a mundane and laborious task. The Logistics Academy too conducted the entire 14 diploma modules under the Specialist Training Programmes, including all exams online. I commend all these efforts and I hope that the momentum gathered on such transformation and upskilling will be accelerated in the coming years.  

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A year on and the pandemic is still on high alert. I hope SMEs can take this chance to collaborate and leverage on each other’s strengths to expand, sustain and grow their collective market share. Come what may, our push for new automation, technologies and other forms of digital innovation will continue in 2021. Plans are afoot to also enlarge and deepen our network connectivity, elevate our industry brand via a comms roadmap and media rollout as well as develop thought leadership and attracting talent to the industry.  

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Together, let’s build strengths.

 

Dave Ng
Chairman