Tag: businesscrisis

World Economy is Suddenly Running Low on Everything

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A year ago, as the pandemic ravaged country after country and economies shuddered, consumers were the ones panic-buying. Today, on the rebound, it’s companies furiously trying to stock up. Mattress producers to car manufacturers to aluminum foil makers are buying more material than they need to survive the breakneck speed at which demand for goods is recovering and assuage that primal fear of running out. The frenzy is pushing supply chains to the brink of seizing up. Shortages, transportation bottlenecks and price spikes are nearing the highest levels in recent memory, raising concern that a supercharged global economy will stoke inflation.

Copper, iron ore and steel. Corn, coffee, wheat and soybeans. Lumber, semiconductors, plastic and cardboard for packaging. The world is seemingly low on all of it. “You name it, and we have a shortage on it,” Tom Linebarger, chairman and chief executive of engine and generator manufacturer Cummins Inc., said on a call this month. Clients are “trying to get everything they can because they see high demand,” Jennifer Rumsey, the Columbus, Indiana-based company’s president, said.“They think it’s going to extend into next year.”

The difference between the big crunch of 2021 and past supply disruptions is the sheer magnitude of it, and the fact that there is — as far as anyone can tell — no clear end in sight. Big or small, few businesses are spared. Europe’s largest fleet of trucks, Girteka Logistics, says there’s been a struggle to find enough capacity. Monster Beverage Corp. of Corona, California, is dealing with an aluminum can scarcity. Hong Kong’s MOMAX Technology Ltd. is delaying production of a new product because of a dearth of semiconductors.

Further exacerbating the situation is an unusually long and growing list of calamities that have rocked commodities in recent months. A freak accident in the Suez Canal backed up global shipping in March. Drought has wreaked havoc upon agricultural crops. A deep freeze and mass blackout wiped out energy and petrochemicals operations across the central U.S. in February. Less than two weeks ago, hackers brought down the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S., driving gasoline prices above $3 a gallon for the first time since 2014. Now India’s massive Covid-19 outbreak is threatening its biggest ports.

For anyone who thinks it’s all going to end in a few months, consider the somewhat obscure U.S. economic indicator known as the Logistics Managers’ Index. The gauge is built on a monthly survey of corporate supply chiefs that asks where they see inventory, transportation and warehouse expenses — the three key components of managing supply chains — now and in 12 months. The current index is at its second-highest level in records dating back to 2016, and the future gauge shows little respite a year from now. The index has proven unnervingly accurate in the past, matching up with actual costs about 90% of the time.

To Zac Rogers, who helps compile the index as an assistant professor at Colorado State University’s College of Business, it’s a paradigm shift. In the past, those three areas were optimized for low costs and reliability. Today, with e-commerce demand soaring, warehouses have moved from the cheap outskirts of urban areas to prime parking garages downtown or vacant department-store space where deliveries can be made quickly, albeit with pricier real estate, labor and utilities.

Once viewed as liabilities before the pandemic, fatter inventories are in vogue. Transport costs, more volatile than the other two, won’t lighten up until demand does. “Essentially what people are telling us to expect is that it’s going to be hard to get supply up to a place where it matches demand,” Rogers said, “and because of that, we’re going to continue to see some price increases over the next 12 months.” More well-known barometers are starting to reflect the higher costs for households and companies. An index of U.S. consumer prices that excludes food and fuel jumped in April from a month earlier by the most since 1982. At the factory gate, the increase in prices charged by American producers was twice as large as economists expected. Unless companies pass that cost along to consumers and boost productivity, it’ll eat into their profit margins.

A growing chorus of observers are warning that inflation is bound to quicken. The threat has been enough to send tremors through world capitals, central banks, factories and supermarkets. The U.S. Federal Reserve is facing new questions about when it will hike rates to stave off inflation — and the perceived political risk already threatens to upset President Joe Biden’s spending plans.“You bring all of these factors in, and it’s an environment that’s ripe for significant inflation, with limited levers” for monetary authorities to pull, said David Landau, chief product officer at BluJay Solutions, a U.K.-based logistics software and services provider.

Policy makers, however, have laid out a number of reasons why they don’t expect inflationary pressures to get out of hand. Fed Governor Lael Brainard said recently that officials should be “patient through the transitory surge.” Among the reasons for calm: The big surges lately are partly blamed on skewed comparisons to the steep drops of a year ago, and many companies that have held the line on price hikes for years remain reticent about them now. What’s more, U.S. retail sales stalled in April after a sharp rise in the month earlier, and commodities prices have recently retreated from multi-year highs.

Caught in the crosscurrents is Dennis Wolkin, whose family has run a business making crib mattresses for three generations. Economic expansions are usually good for baby bed sales. But the extra demand means little without the key ingredient: foam padding. There has been a run on the kind of polyurethane foam Wolkin uses — in part because of the deep freeze across the U.S. South in February, and because of “companies over-ordering and trying to hoard what they can.”

“It’s gotten out of control, especially in the past month,” said Wolkin, vice president of operations at Atlanta-based Colgate Mattress, a 35-employee company that sells products at Target stores and independent retailers. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”Though polyurethane foam is 50% more expensive than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, Wolkin would buy twice the amount he needs and look for warehouse space rather than reject orders from new customers. “Every company like us is going to overbuy,” he said. Even multinational companies with digital supply-management systems and teams of people monitoring them are just trying to cope. Whirlpool Corp. CEO Marc Bitzer told Bloomberg Television this month its supply chain is “pretty much upside down” and the appliance maker is phasing in price increases. Usually Whirlpool and other large manufacturers produce goods based on incoming orders and forecasts for those sales. Now it’s producing based on what parts are available.

“It is anything but efficient or normal, but that is how you have to run it right now,” Bitzer said. “I know there’s talk of a temporary blip, but we do see this elevated for a sustained period.” The strains stretch all the way back to global output of raw materials and may persist because the capacity to produce more of what’s scarce — with either additional capital or labor — is slow and expensive to ramp up. Read more…..
By Brendan Murray, Enda Curran, Kim Chipman, Bloomberg

Source: World economy: World economy is suddenly running low on everything – The Economic Times

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References

“Research and development expenditure (% of GDP) | Data”. data.worldbank.org. Retrieved 12 December 2017

Eight Ways To Emerge Stronger From The Crisis

With the pandemic easing, it’s time for businesses to square their shoulders and aggressively move toward a digital-first strategy, says Paul Roehrig, Head of Strategy at Cognizant Digital Business & Technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken millions of lives and triggered trillions of dollars’ worth of economic wreckage. And while news regarding vaccines is encouraging, now is not the time for the world to turn its back on safety measures proven to help slow the spread of the virus.

Nevertheless, vaccines are taking hold at various rates worldwide, and there is every reason to believe the grip the coronavirus has held on the world for over a year is easing.

Early in the crisis, we explored steps businesses should take to eventually emerge from the pandemic in a strong position. We believe that advice has held up, and that now is the time for forward-looking companies to accelerate digital initiatives.

Eight ways to catalyze post-crisis gains:

A year ago, “becoming digital” was seen by many as a desirable elective, but now — in our new world — it’s mandatory. The most common questions from business leaders from every industry and region have been: “I get the theory, but where do I start? What specific steps can I take today to ensure a healthy tomorrow?” These eight critical tactics will help:

1) Modernize data

It’s more important than ever to turn data from a liability into an asset. Companies that haven’t gotten control of their data are already behind, and the new economy will make it harder to recover. It’s no longer justifiable to pay to maintain terabytes (or more) of data and then not use it for business outcomes.

Improving decisions and experiences — and growth — with applied intelligence is infinitely more difficult (or impossible) without data that is relevant, accessible, secure and used to improve decisions or customer experiences. A data audit — figuring out what data is available, being accessed and for what purpose — was a no-regret decision 13 months ago. Now it’s a condition for survival.

2) Unshackle from legacy applications 

Roughly $3 trillion of economic value per day still runs on COBOL. That’s a staggering reliance on a programming language dating back to 1959. Going forward, business pressures will make it unsustainable to be trapped by this heritage software. Consumer relevance, faster time-to-market and cost savings have never been more important.

Many companies feel trapped by their legacy software, but there are new tools, processes, engineering methods and partners to help unlock value that is trapped in data centers. The first step is a complete software audit to understand which applications make the most sense to modernize, which should be left alone and which can be turned off.

3) Modernize how employees work

Remember going into an office? Getting on a train? The TSA pat-down? We’ll do all that again, but ideas and practices about how we work together will never be the same. The pandemic shock accelerates the imperative to be able to work from an office, the home, the car, the … well, anywhere! Today’s employees seek the same high-quality experience as a consumer using the best software.

Old, difficult-to-use interfaces and systems hinder how employees interact and collaborate, and store and exchange information. Seamless, secure connections across web, mobile, voice, collaboration systems, platforms and processes have made great strides during lockdowns. We aren’t going backward, so the time is now to extend the modern employee experience.

4) Modernize consumer experiences

In just a few painful weeks in 2020, elegant, secure, scalable online content and commerce went from critical to essential for every consumer-facing industry. Content has always been important, but with more transactions online, the ability to deliver that content to the right person, at the right time, in any place, via any device, via beautiful software is now and forever a business imperative.

Regardless of industry, expectations for engagement have shifted. The immediate reaction for too many businesses was to throw cash at front-end consumer-facing apps. A better bet is to take a step back and understand how the lifecycle of demand can be changed longer-term. That starts with deeply understanding how human wants and needs are likely to unfold in line with specific products and services.

5) Engineer software for the new economy

Every modern business needs software that can be built quickly and scaled effectively to deliver modern (human-first) experiences across the value chain for employees, partners and customers. It’s not necessary to be better at software engineering than Google or Microsoft, but it is necessary for every company to become more software-centric.

Tools, engineering methods and technologies already exist to help an enterprise become a better bank, a better insurer, a better retailer. This requires rethinking how core IT teams are structured, how they work and how they are incented, plus reevaluating the partner ecosystem critical to the business. Every major company is building software all the time, but it’s now time to explore new methods. Starting small can show near-term progress while mitigating risk.

6) Virtualize core work

The total impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will take years to become clear. However, one irrefutable shift is the new requirement for companies to modernize core process work. Middle- and back-office work that is slow, labor-intensive, expensive, opaque and unchanging is no longer allowable. Nearly every organization we know of can improve supply chain management, HR, finance and industry-specific process work.

Notably, the pandemic unlocked virtualized medical care as medical workers used technology to provide at-home solutions or even in-hospital solutions more safely and effectively. And that’s just one example. Automation, applied intelligence and worker enhancement have all moved from “helpful” to “critical” during the COVID crisis. Now is the time to begin exploring which points on the value chain make the most sense to modernize today.

7) Modernize the cloud foundation

For years, IT has been chipping away at costs by moving work to service providers and pushing centralized computer loads to the cloud, but that was really just Phase One. The unprecedented economic downturn has shone a spotlight on how much more can be done, and how rapidly. Threadbare arguments against reducing IT costs — e.g., by more aggressively moving into the cloud, deploying cost-effective software-as-a-service platforms, reducing operating costs of non-core work – must be overruled. We recommend a pivoting from, “What can we move into the cloud?” to, “What can’t we move to the cloud?”

8) Make every space smart (and safe)

For years, sensor-enabling industrial equipment has improved productivity, reduced downtime and paved the way for more “as-a-service” business models. In the post-pandemic economy — as demand evolves and our expectations and concerns about staying safe in public spaces remain top of mind — nearly every company that operates in physical space will have to adopt the same philosophy.

COVID accelerated the development of technologies that assess occupant health and help us maintain safe distances, clean surfaces, etc. This takes a coordinated solution linking sensors, analytics and software. Business leaders must continue to be proactive in applying instrumentation, analytics and software engineering to make every space intelligent, less expensive to manage, more comfortable and safer.

To learn more, read our report “From Chaos to Catalyst,” visit the Digital Business & Technology section of our website or contact us.

Paul Roehrig

Paul Roehrig

Paul Roehrig is Head of Strategy for Cognizant Digital Business & Technology. He is the Founder and former Global Managing Director of the Center for The Future of Work at Cognizant. Along with Malcolm Frank and Ben Pring, he is a coauthor of What To Do When Machines Do Everything: How to Get Ahead in a World of AI, Algorithms, Bots, and Big Data and Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business. Paul’s most recent work is Monster: A Tough Love Letter on Taming the Machines that Rule our Jobs, Lives, and Future, which he co-authored with Ben Pring. He can be reached at Paul.Roehrig@cognizant.com.

Source: Eight Ways To Emerge Stronger From The Crisis

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Post-COVID 19: Leverage 10 New Business Trends & Financial Incentives

There’s little doubt that COVID-19 has rapidly disrupted the way that small, medium and even large businesses conduct their affairs. But, like all crises and disruptions, there is never a better opportunity for moving quickly and making a profit. It is a fact that more millionaires are made in recessions than in times of ease. 

And the world was shifting to work from home (‘WFM’) before COVID hit. A survey from Global Workplace Analytics found 56% of the US tech workforce (75 million employees) have a job description perfectly compatible with remote work.

With that said, the following are 10 new business trends that can be capitalized upon. Just because things are being done differently and there is a period of disruption, does not mean that it is a complete disruptive process. Significantly, faster and more adaptive companies have been able to thrive amidst COVID, while slower organizations are suffering heavily. The following are just some of the benefits to be availed of.

Table of Contents [show]

Post-COVID 19: Leverage 10 New Business Trends

#1 – Reduced Rent

Working from home has a myriad of benefits, for both business owners and employees. Some of these will be outlined in more detail below. But, reduced rental costs are major. One of the biggest problems for all kinds of businesses is rent in urban locations. It is especially relevant for corporate outfits renting office space, which has a massive price tag. Imagine being able to completely cut all your rental costs.

Most business owners simply don’t see this. Yes, there is the issue of existing leases, but allowances have been made in the US for this, and financial help is also available. Rent is a major cost – use the funds saved from rent to foster an intimate relationship with employees who no longer meet face to face. Of course, this does apply so much with a services company such as a restaurant that needs a physical presence. But it will work for digital and certain other models.

#2 – Reduction Of Associated Costs

While rent is one of the major benefits, there are a plethora of associated costs that are also vastly reduced. If you are no longer using office space, then there is no need to pay for insurance on the premises, and no chance of having to shell out for an injury. You also have zero utilities to pay.

The cost of hiring and onboarding staff has further been drastically reduced. This is due to the fact that no longer are physical interviews possible, so more of the process will be online and automated. HR and recruitment is a very expensive process. But without a physical presence, there is less need for an HR team to settle disputes and organize activities (though HR is still certainly needed in some capacity in medium to large business models)

#3 – Mental Health As A Priority

COVID-19 has brought mental awareness to the forefront of employers and employees. This is an interesting point as it kind of works both ways. Many workers seem to experience feelings of isolation when working from home.

Their routine has been upset, and it is incredibly difficult to adapt. There are many more temptations, and it is so easy to simply leave the desk with nobody knowing, or have one too many snacks from the fridge! Many studies and prominent psychologists have alluded to mental health risks.

The fact is that people are stressed about getting the virus. According to Reuters, many COVID-19 survivors are likely to be at greater risk of developing mental illness, after a large study found 20% of those infected with the coronavirus are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within 90 days. Anxiety, insomnia, and depression are common.

Mental health is a vital aspect of worker productivity. And much of the existing mental health issues simply went unaddressed in the pre-covid era. However, it’s also worth mentioning that a significant proportion of workers are extremely positive about working from home and are adapting quite well, with significant mental benefits. They don’t have to commute from work, and they have more freedom around the home to do as they wish.

 #4 – Faster Implementations

Due to COVID-19, many organizations rolled out initiatives very quickly due to the need for speed. Because of the crisis, business executives are overseeing a wide shift in how organizations work, spanning tactical adjustments in areas such as meeting structure and cadence, and day-to-day management, as well as enterprise-wide changes in leadership and talent management, use of technology, and innovation. In most industries, 50% of more of the leaders surveyed are considering or planning large-scale changes in various sectors. Leaders are making many of these changes swiftly by necessity.

As one surveyed healthcare leader explained –  “We were able to deploy an enterprise-wide virtual care solution in a matter of weeks, because that is all we had. This rollout had been planned for over a year, prior to this.”

Many organizations realize the value of speed during these times of flux and uncertainty. Surveyed leaders most often cite the need to react more quickly to market changes as the reason why organizations have made changes during the pandemic. This need is reported significantly more often than factors such as the need to reduce costs, increase productivity, or engage more effectively with customers. If you want to take advantage of COVID, then you need to act quickly and with precision. This is an area where a business owner can make great gains.

#5 – Leveraging Technology

For decades people have been hyping up technology. But it works and has transformed the world. With the onslaught of COVID, technology is needed more than ever. People are communicating via messaging and video applications and need virtualized areas to collaborate. Security is going to get more sophisticated, with retina and fingerprint scanners to verify entry to workspaces. 

Technology can improve on speed and decision making, 2 pivotal components of any business enterprise. Many leaders view the pace of decision making as a priority for improvement, likely because many organizations find it harder to choose a path forward than to follow that path.

Communication and collaboration are 2 key areas that business leaders highlight when talking about technology. The speed at which accurate data is transferred is key. And to do this, there also has to be a clear chain of command where everybody knows their position. Superior technology can help from onboarding to payroll to learning to project execution.

#6 – Less Red Tape And Bureaucracy

With systems and management get established in a business, it’s hard to think of doing things differently. But many of these systems (and even certain staff) are surplus to requirements and make things even more difficult. In many instances, it is not the execution that is the problem. It is actually getting the sign-offs for disparate managers, all of whom have their own opinions about things. The end result is unnecessary delays.

Many business owners are finding that they operate just as efficiently, if not more so when the workers are given free rein to complete tasks on their own with only a light veneer of guidance. This runs counter to the management ethos that unless the workers are carefully managed, they will not get the work completed. A primary advantage of COVID is that it highlights what is truly necessary for a business and what was there simply nobody believed it was unnecessary before.

#7 – Sustainable Development

COVID-19 has woken the population up to the fact that sustainable development is necessary for the global economy to thrive. Sustainable development can take many forms, including:

  • Financial sustainability
  • Environmental sustainability
  • Social sustainability

How can a business owner take advantage of ‘sustainability’? There is a huge market for organic or fair products, perceived as those that have long-term value and a transparent ethos. Clients and investors do not put up with shady businesses any longer. They consider the social and wider consequences of where they put their money. This trend has been reflected in the socially responsible investing phenomenon and the emphasis on green products in recent months. The trend is only going to continue year on year.

#8 – Education and Upskilling

Never before has there been such a radical shift in the global economy at such a rapid pace. As a result, large segments of the workforce need to upskill and reeducate themselves. May college students find themselves in a terrible environment for their courses, and because change is coming so rapidly, it is just not possible to accurately predict what skills are most relevant.

But there is a definite upside to this. Some skills are definitely in-demand, such as mobile app development, AI, automation tools, supply chain management, consultancy businesses, and far more. It is the prime opportunity to pivot an existing business to make it more profitable. 

Pivoting refers to the art of changing your core business model to adapt to current circumstances. A Startup Genome study demonstrated that businesses that pivoted once or twice enjoyed far more success than those who stuck to their guns for the long-term. You and your employees can benefit from either upskilling or ‘pivoting’ to a new model entirely.

#9 – New Productivity Mechanisms

The fact is that COVID-19 has actually accelerated both employee productivity and employee satisfaction levels. The majority of independent studies are reporting this, and it goes against many employer fears of a lazy and complacent workforce. The reasons for this are unknown, but possibly in line with the fact that workers do better when they have the time and space to get the job done. 

They are also more free to do things that make them more productive and motivated, whether that is a walk in the park, a 9 AM yoga session to start the day, or simply a coffee in a local cafe. Business owners can trust their employees to work without breathing down their necks. And the need for managers might actually be reduced in a collaborative environment where workers are independent with only light-touch management.

It’s also a major benefit that employees do not have to commute an hour to and from work. This is precious mental bandwidth that can increase their productivity levels.

#10 – Direct Entrepreneurial Expansion

You can take advantage of COVID-19 in a variety of different ways. Consider the various business opportunities – hand sanitizers, masks, door deliveries, mental health, remove services, shared office spaces, the list goes on and on.

Fast-acting entrepreneurs are having a field day with all of the opportunities. Particularly, small business owners who opted for restaurant delivery fared quite well, though this option was not taken up by every outlet.

There are still many opportunities for expansion in the post covid era. Supply chains are operating differently, consumer preferences are changing, and there are multiple opportunities in niche industries including VR, AI, renewable energy, supply chain management, and far more.

Tech companies are still incredibly lucrative, according to a Startup Genome Study, with impressive job multipliers and innovations that can have incredible benefits to the wider economy. In contrast to entrepreneurs, business executives have a slightly different focus. When surveyed, business executives primarily placed an emphasis on 3 key areas:

  1. Making good decisions more quickly.
  2. Improving communication and collaboration.
  3. Making greater use of technology.

The Importance of Speed

Speed is of the essence when it comes to pandemics like COVID, where the fastest acting businesses reap the rewards. As things start to solidify, it is design, patience, planning, and longer-term foresight.

There are also many ways you can directly take advantage of COVID with financial incentives. These financial incentives are outlined below. Note that some of them, such as the Paycheck Protection Program, are no longer available. Read more…

Daniel Lewis
Daniel Lewis is an MBA accredited investment professional who wants to assist small business owners to gain access to finance. After going through many channels for funding, Lewis has found that getting the first loan right is vitally important for future success.
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Relevant sites that have important financial disclosures in relation to COVID include:

Summary of Financial Relief Strategies

As a small business order, make sure that you run through all of these financial tools, preferably in the order they are written below.

  1. SBA Paycheck Protection Program (‘PPP’)
  2. SBA Economic Injury Disaster Program (‘EIDL’)
  3. SBA Express Bridge Loan
  4. SBA Debt Relief
  5. Online Lending Options
  6. SBA Micro Loans
  7. Business Interruption Insurance
  8. Other Forms of Relief (Mortgage, Lease, Unemployment Benefits, Family, Friends).

Also keep an eye out for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which is aimed specifically to help out independent contractors and small business owners who do not qualify under the existing infrastructure. The program is not operational at the time of this writing, so check in periodically through this site.

 

Bankruptcy Cases In Singapore At 5-Year Low Amid Covid-19 Relief Measures

SINGAPORE – Even as the Covid-19 pandemic ravages the economy, the number of people who were made bankrupt last year sank to the lowest in five years.

Bankruptcy orders tumbled more than 40 per cent to 965 from 1,645 in 2019. Figures from the Law Ministry’s Insolvency Office website showed more than 1,600 bankruptcy orders were made annually between 2016 and 2018.

Experts said the drop in numbers could be due to the Covid-19 (Temporary Measures) Act and government support schemes which provided temporary relief for financially distressed individuals.

Lawyer Chia Boon Teck of Chia Wong Chambers said: “Pre-Covid-19, the law allows a debtor 21 days to pay up on a statutory demand. However, the Covid-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020 extends the 21 days to six months. This in effect puts a five-month moratorium on outstanding debts.”

The Covid-19 law also raised the minimal debt from $15,000 to $60,000 so debtors owing less than $60,000 are not exposed to threats of bankruptcy, he added.

Last year, bankruptcy applications fell to 2,833 from 3,473 in 2019, reversing an upward trend since 2014.”The twin measures probably account for the drastic drop in bankruptcy applications,” said Mr Chia.

Maybank Kim Eng senior economist Chua Hak Bin said bankruptcies could have been far worse if not for the fiscal support and relief measures that also saw “the freezing of creditors’ rights to commence legal action for default until late 2020”.

Figures from the Insolvency Office website also showed corporate insolvency numbers fell, with 206 applications filed for winding up between January and November last year, down from 368 in the same period in 2019.

Said Dr Chua: “We expect the number of bankruptcies to increase in 2021 as the fiscal support and temporary relief measures are wound down.”

He added that such measures can help only firms suffering from a temporary liquidity crunch, “but cannot save firms which are no longer viable in this new normal”.

Among the high-profile bankruptcy proceedings last year was a bankruptcy bid filed against local hardware chain Home-Fix’s founder Low Cheong Kee and his younger brother by paint manufacturer Nippon Paint (Singapore) over a debt of $500,000.

Political party Peoples Voice’s leader Lim Tean also faced bankruptcy claims totalling about $1.45 million.

Mr Nelson Loh, who was behind an audacious bid to buy English Premier League football club Newcastle United last year, was adjudged a bankrupt by the Singapore High Court in December. He had failed to pay an outstanding debt of over $14 million to DBS Bank.

His cousin Terence Loh is also facing bankruptcy proceedings filed by Maybank over a $3 million debt.

George (not his real name), a 50-year-old bankrupt, said: “The government relief measures only helped to delay the proceedings. Financially distressed individuals would still be struggling to raise enough money to pay their debts amid the pandemic.”

He said he filed for bankruptcy as he was unable to pay his debts of over $100,000 to various banks.

“Some people may think I had chosen the easy way out, but it’s not. It was a difficult decision to make. Many companies will not hire me because I am a bankrupt. And I also can’t manage a business or act as director of a company.”

As at Dec 31, there were 10,269 undischarged bankrupts.

A bankrupt may try to have his bankruptcy status annulled after paying off all outstanding debts. He can also apply to the High Court to grant him a discharge or the court-assigned administrator may discharge him after at least three years of good conduct, provided his debts do not exceed $500,000 and his creditors do not object.

By: Joyce Lim Senior Correspondent

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How To Keep Sustainability At The Forefront Of Decision-Making

In times of great upheaval, it can be difficult for businesses to see the big picture. Sure, making quick, data-driven decisions to reach the right customer at the right moment is important, especially when business is uncertain. But bigger aspirational goals are still essential—maybe more so.

This dynamic can be especially true when it concerns corporate sustainability—sometimes referred to as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals that measure the societal impact of a company or business. ESG goals are designed to allow businesses to meet their present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. And ignoring those longer-term goals in the service of the here and now can undermine the future health of both the company and their customers.

In many ways, deprioritizing ESG goals in times of crisis is understandable. When economic strains are great and the business future looks cloudy, leaders often hunker down with a laser focus on the bottom line. But they must also continue to focus on the soul of their corporation, and what differentiates their products and their people.  

Today, sustainability should be front and center for companies. Business leaders increasingly see sustainability as a key facet of their mission and build it into their principles and strategy to ensure business resilience. Further, they need to acknowledge the business risk of ignoring sustainability, whether through supply chain disruptions, public perception, or lack of investment in upcoming technologies. 

A plan for progress

First, let’s define our terms—what do we mean by “sustainability”? A good place to start is with the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a collection of 17 interlinked goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.”

The SDGs include decreasing hunger and poverty, combating climate change, creating clean water, reducing income inequality, and forging better educational opportunities. They were set in 2015 by the U.N. General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by 2030.

Today, we hear quite a bit about climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions, but sustainability is much broader—including environmental and societal impact. Not all management teams and boards are up to speed on what their company can and should do to improve their footprint, even if employees have good data and solid proposals. Here are six things business leaders can do to stay on track to meet ambitious ESG goals.

1. Make the business case 

Sustainability makes business sense. A focus on ESG can help management reduce capital costs and improve the firm’s valuation. That’s because as more investors look to put money into companies with stronger ESG performance, larger pools of capital will be available to those companies. According to a study by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture, “between 2013-2019, companies with consistently high environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance enjoyed 4.7x higher operating margins and lower volatility than low ESG performers over the same period.”

“Over the past several months, when global markets have faced tremendous pressures and volatility, companies with high ESG scores have continued to outperform, experiencing a cumulative relative return 6.3% higher than bottom performers and facing lower volatility.”

– Accenture report, “The green behind the cloud,” September 2020

Additionally, according to a 2018 global survey by Accenture of nearly 30,000 consumers in 35 countries, 62% of respondents wanted companies to take a stand on current and broadly relevant issues, including sustainability. And 42% of consumers walk away from the brand in frustration if the company doesn’t align with customer beliefs.

2. Keep an eye on the data 

Everything around us is affected by big data today and your work on sustainability should be no exception. Keep a close eye on measuring your goals, performance, and operational changes with data. Be especially mindful of the sourcing and reliability of the data collected.

One big tire company, for instance, uses data generated by sensors in their tires globally to reduce waste, increase profits, and reduce the number of defective tires going to landfills, thus doing their bit for the environment. Small improvements in efficiency due to resource optimization can result in big savings.

Related: Unlock the transformational power of information you’re already collecting. Get the “CIO’s Guide to Data Analytics and Machine Learning.”

3. Make sustainability a key part of your executive structure 

Organizations should have a chief sustainability officer and team working closely with line-of-business and tech leadership. The chief sustainability officer needs to be in board meetings and other gatherings where the long-term health of the company is considered. They must be a bridge between technologists and business strategists, pushing them to look at sustainability through a new lens—a technology lens—and asking how technology can help a company build a more sustainable world.

4. Expand your ecosystem 

Reaching your sustainability goals doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires an ecosystem of both government and nongovernment organizations, researchers, scientists, technologists, and businesses, for example, who share the same views. Establishing this ecosystem enables collaboration through the sharing of knowledge, data, analytics, and technologies. Seek to collaborate with others who support and foster similar goals.

Throw out your regular playbook. Sustainability is not just about technology—it is about enabling change to the business processes. It requires us all to think much more collaboratively. We are in this together.

Google Cloud and Unilever, for instance, are working together to fight deforestation through sustainable commodity sourcing. By combining the power of cloud computing with satellite imagery and AI through Google Cloud and Google Earth Engine, Unilever is building a more holistic view of the forests, water cycles, and biodiversity that intersects their supply chain—raising sustainable sourcing standards for suppliers and bringing them closer to their goal of ending deforestation and regenerating natural resources.

This will allow Unilever to provide a better picture of the ecosystems connected to their supply chain, and create a better mechanism for detecting deforestation. Ultimately, it will lead to greater accountability while simultaneously prioritizing critical areas of forest and habitats in need of protection. 

5. Be an internal evangelist for change

As a business leader committed to helping the organization meet ambitious ESG goals, being an internal evangelist and continuously championing the importance of sustainable practices is key. Make it your mission to reinforce the mindset that sustainability is not optional—it’s imperative not only for the success of the organization but for much broader, purpose-driven motives beyond that. Work on collaborating with other managers to propose and execute on initiatives to “green” operations within each department. Commit to following through on these initiatives, measuring the impact, and improving the effectiveness as you go.

6. Make bold commitments—even if the path there isn’t clear

As Accenture underscores in this September 2020 report on how a thoughtful cloud-first approach can help boost your profits and benefit the planet, “the greater the ambition, the greater the reduction in carbon emissions.” Broaden the scope of possibility by setting ambitious sustainability goals and timelines for your organization. You might not know how to get there, but making bold, transparent commitments opens the door for increased collaboration and sets the direction for others who might be able to help find a way.

For example, in September Google announced a new goal to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy in all our data centers and campuses worldwide by 2030. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet was candid, saying, “this is far more challenging than the traditional approach of matching energy usage with renewable energy, but we’re working to get this done by 2030.” Establishing executive buy-in, setting shared goals, enforcing accountability, and consistently measuring and evaluating your progress will make all the difference when it comes to moving the needle.

It may be hard to do, but I believe that now, even during a global crisis, sustainability should be at the center of a business’s decision-making. Sustainability is not only good for your bottom line, but it’s also good for your top line and good for the planet—the perfect trifecta.

Keep the momentum going: Reduce your environmental impact with Google Cloud. Explore tools and technology for sustainability at scale.

Jen Bennett

Jen Bennett

Jen is a Technical Director in Google’s Office of the CTO where she collaborates and co-innovates with Google’s strategic customers. She has spent her career leading engineering and product organizations leveraging data and analytics to transform a number of industries from sports and media to manufacturing. In her free time, Jen reached the pinnacle of soccer (football) as a FIFA referee refereeing several Women’s World Cups between 2002-2010. Jen holds a MS BioEngineering from University of Pittsburgh and a BSEE from Cornell University.

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Churchill College, University of Cambridge

Businesses are under pressure to become socially and environmentally sustainable, but this creates difficulties in decision-making, as executives need to reconcile competing social, environmental and economic demands. Most of the solutions proposed to this problem have focused either on improving information and analysis (Zapico, 2014), on cognitive approaches (Hahn, Preuss, Pinkse, & Figge, 2014) or on organisational issues, such as shared values (Epstein, Buhovac, & Yuthas, 2015). However, there has been very little work looking at the integrated set of capabilities that organisations might need to be able to address multiple tensions. We therefore set out to understand how executives experience the conflicting demands of sustainable business, and how they resolve these tensions in decision-making.

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