In Southeast Asia (SEA), the Internet economy that has been growing at breakneck speed is poised for even bigger things. A report by Google and Temasek has projected this market will hit S$240 billion (US$176.89 billion) by 2025, exceeding an earlier forecast of S$200 billion.
Technology startups, businesses and investors have taken notice. In less than four years, the region has attracted S$24 billion (US$17.69 billion) in funding, with more than half going to startup unicorns in the likes of ride-hailing firms GoJek and Grab, and e-commerce company Lazada, among others.
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One critical enabler for this internet economy has been the 100,000 highly-skilled professionals it employs in the region – a talent pool growing by 10 per cent each year.
Even then, SEA hasn’t been immune to the global tech talent crunch. Many companies struggle to hire the right talent with the skills they need – if they even manage to hire at all, in such a fiercely-competitive environment.
Two experts from professional services firm PwC’s South East Asian consulting arm, Management Consulting Leader Nicole Wakefield and South East Asia Digital Services Leader and Experience Centre Chief Technologist Pierre Legrand share their insights on SEA’s talent challenge, and what companies can do to look for the right opportunities in the right places.
SEA is home to some of the fastest-rising names in the tech startup scene. What is behind this buzz?
Pierre: There’s a lot of what I call “leapfrogging”.
In some of the developed countries, because certain technologies have been around for some time, there is a need to maintain those predominant technologies and related skillsets. But this creates big bureaucracy constraints around emerging technologies – and it’s almost like the older technologies squeeze out some of the newer ones by default.
In contrast, a lot of companies in SEA are able to move past this legacy construct because they operate in the digital age, with many of them focused on customer-centricity. We see this in brand new digital banks, or companies that are working on technologies for traditional industries like mining and telecommunications that are related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
The opportunities are there because SEA is a big market. The unbanked population, for example, has huge potential. Adding to that, governments are investing a lot in physical infrastructure, like Jakarta, which just put in place their version of the MRT. Thailand is trying to deal with its infrastructure crisis in traffic, and Singapore is driving the Smart Nation initiative. All of these developments present very exciting opportunities for companies and talent alike.
It’s only a matter of time before these markets develop their core skills. And possibly at some point in time they may say, “We want to be the Silicon Valley of SEA”?
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But like in many other parts of the world, the region also faces a tech talent crunch. Tell us more about the challenges companies here face in finding and retaining the right tech talent.
Nicole: We’re in one of the most exciting regions in the world – one of the fastest-growing – and demand for digital skills and capabilities has been exponential. But one of the biggest constraints to growth for these economies is the lack of talent, and within that, a specific need for digital talent.
Many companies also face the major challenge of whether to invest in home-grown talent – which can be hard to come by – or incur the costs of flying in expensive foreign resources with global or regional acumen.
Businesses need to adopt a balanced approach of upskilling local capability with the right mix of foreign talent. This will bring the global insights and experience required to develop local talent to the point where the experience starts to spread into the local ecosystem. It’s all about training and upskilling the workforce – how we deal with the workforce of the future.
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What kind of talent or skillsets are most in demand today?
Pierre: In terms of specific skills, we would be looking at high demand for solution architects, integration architects, business analysts, data scientists, automation specialists, product managers, scrum masters, and product owners.
Nicole: To be clear, this digital talent that we talk about today is not just “techie” talent, but also people with the ability to be able to execute using technology and the digital realm. They have some of the softer skills, such as agility, collaboration, creativity and being able to lead a group of tech specialists.
Too often, when companies try to implement technology and thinking about how to deal with the digital age, there’s too much of an obsession with talent that is technically-enabled, like coders. And they forget about the softer skills that are required to get these things implemented.
To be successful, a company has to double down on both the technical and the softer aspects when it comes to skills and hiring.
How does tech talent in SEA stack up globally?
Pierre: To be honest, it’s like comparing apples and oranges because the markets, regulations and environment are all different.
But the big difference that sets talent in this region apart from others would be their ability to cut over to the emerging technology space – like I said, this is a leapfrog market. So the people here have an ability to adapt in an environment that is close in proximity to a large-scale, highly-connected and mobile-enabled population, therefore driving technology for that consumer base. The level of dynamism and multiculturalism here – I don’t think you get in the other markets as well.
Increasingly, many individuals who have worked for multinationals overseas at the senior level are going back to their home countries. They see the potential back home, that it is a good time, and they’re bringing their wealth of experience from having worked abroad back into the market. We’re definitely going to see more of this happening.
Let’s zoom in on some of the up-and-coming countries. What do they each offer in terms of tech talent?
Pierre: Vietnam stands out because it’s going through a period of hyper-growth, although it did start out from a smaller base. It has a talent pool that is very smart, highly tech-enabled, with a strong pipeline of university students with the relevant digital skillsets.
Then there’s Thailand, which is known for its use of QR codes for cashless payment and web-based app development. The Philippines is geared toward the adoption of cloud services, and is a good environment to develop technologies to be sold outbound into the region. The fact that it has a lot of large corporates with back-offices and development centres based there, and an English-speaking population, are advantages that can be leveraged.
For blockchain, Singapore is the go-to city, mainly because of the various sorts of financial services or FinTech companies based there.
Nicole: I certainly see is Singapore doing all the right things today with its infrastructure, ecosystem, and having built a position of trust within the region. I see Singapore playing a critical role as a hub that attracts & develops top digital talent & businesses and takes a leadership role across SEA to support the region moving forward as a whole.
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