Making Business a Force for Good in Singapore

Where profit once dominated conversations in the boardroom, businesses are increasingly operating with purpose in mind - to build a better world for future generations.

Central to that ambition are global challenges including genetic diseases, food security, climate change and uneven access to financial services. If left unchecked, future generations will face devastating social, economic and environmental circumstances. Hence, an urgent collective response across society is required and businesses play a leading role in addressing these challenges.

By pursuing long-term value creation over solely short-term profits, many businesses are becoming a force for good with products, investments and initiatives that make a lasting positive impact.

Co-Founder of Grab, Tan Hooi Ling discusses how the company puts business for good at the heart of its everyday operations.

Driving Positive Impact

“Business for good is really important,” says Francis deSouza, CEO, Illumina. “It's the idea that businesses are not only agents for jobs and driving the economy, but also can be agents for improving life on this planet.”

The drive to do good is central to Illumina’s mission. For over two decades, Illumina has focused on unlocking the power of the genome to improve human health.

Illumina has over 1,300 employees in the city-state, which is home to its largest manufacturing operation globally. It’s the only facility in the world that produces the full suite of Illumina products including reagent kits, consumables and sequencing instruments. Singapore also hosts Illumina’s first R&D center in Asia.

“We need extraordinarily talented people in areas like manufacturing and operations, but also in areas like molecular biology, machine learning and AI,” deSouza says. “Singapore is unique in that you have access to all that talent, not just locally, but from all around the region because Singapore is a very powerful hub for talent. That allows us to attract the people we need to build the machines that attack some of the world’s biggest problems.”

Building a Sustainable Future

One of the biggest problems we are facing is climate change. If we do not act urgently, rising temperatures could wreak irreversible damage on our planet. To tackle this, collaboration is needed across a broad range of industries, including transport. To that end, Hyundai Motor Group established the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center in Singapore (HMGICS), due to open at the end of 2022.

“We are dedicated to ensuring that we take better care of the environment for future generations,” says Dr. Chi Young Cho, President & Chief Innovation Officer, Hyundai Motor Group. “We know that Singapore has an ambition to have all vehicles run on cleaner energy by 2040, which is aligned with Hyundai’s vision of progress for humanity. Given its dedication to building a sustainable future, Singapore was an obvious choice for our innovation center.”

The innovation center will combine AI, Internet of Things and other Industry 4.0 technologies, creating a smart manufacturing platform to produce electric vehicles and other automotive solutions. The facility will have the capacity to produce up to 30,000 vehicles per year by 2025.

“Singapore has an ambitious strategy for autonomous and electric vehicle development, which is enabled by its collaborative and transparent government, robust data infrastructure and strong academic institutions,” Dr. Chi says. “It also has a reputation as an advanced manufacturing and logistics hub with a vibrant ecosystem of researchers and technology partners.”

Such strengths will enable Hyundai to drive tomorrow’s innovations. HMGICS will be a stepping stone for Hyundai to develop future mobility solutions through collaboration with innovation ecosystems in Singapore.

“Hyundai intends to partner with universities to conduct R&D,” Dr. Chi adds. “As a first step for collaboration with Singapore's universities, we recently announced an extensive research partnership with Nanyang Technological University. We look forward to partnering with more startups and universities in Singapore to find and validate new mobility business models.”

Fostering an Inclusive Digital Economy

New business models are also emerging in the fintech sector, as our lives become inseparable from technology. Global businesses are turning to Singapore’s top talent to deliver innovations that accelerate digital payments and foster an inclusive digital economy.

For instance, fintech company PayPal established its regional headquarters in Singapore fifteen years ago. It leverages Singapore’s dynamic ecosystem to make good on its mission to democratize financial services.

“One of the most important things about innovation is that you need to be willing to take some risk," says Dan Schulman, CEO, PayPal. "Innovation is two sides of a sword. One side cuts cleanly, and it's helpful for consumers and merchants. And the other side is that, because you're taking brand new risks by innovating, the risk of failure is higher. So, you need to have an environment that can embrace failure, because you can't innovate without that.”

Over the next three years, PayPal plans to grow its workforce in Singapore by 25% to support rising demand for digital payment solutions across Southeast Asia. This will create job opportunities that span areas including product management, software engineering, cybersecurity and data science.

“Being able to innovate with a regulator that is working hand in hand with you—that can drive all sorts of things that can help people, not just in Singapore, but throughout Southeast Asia, throughout Asia and throughout many parts of the developing world that really need that kind of innovation,” Schulman says.

Addressing the world’s biggest challenges require tremendous commitment and collaboration at the government, business and individual levels. Together, we can balance purpose and profit, making business a force for good. Illumina, Hyundai and PayPal are among many companies doing just that in Singapore.