Companies must move fast to take advantage of digitally skilled population in the mainland and Hong Kong | South China Morning Post

Photo: Gianfranco Casati

"A high level of digital readiness displayed by both male and female undergraduates is the new weapon of choice to foster growth, according to several shining examples on mainland’s corporate horizon" says Gianfranco Casati, Accenture’s group chief executive.

Executives should act quickly to tap digital skill set of their staff 
Photo: Nora Tam

Hop on a mainland-bound train in Hung Hom station and you are likely to see the same thing you would see on any other MTR commuter train: people sat hunched over their mobile phones, engaged on WeChat or playing Honor of Kings, one of the mobile games by Tencent Holdings, listening to music or reading work emails.

Herein lies a weapon for corporate growth – digital readiness.

The mainland’s digital readiness, internet technology expertise, use and investment will serve as a powerful base to spur growth. For example, by harnessing the power of digital, China stands to grow its gross domestic product by 3.75 per cent by 2020, the equivalent of adding US$527 billion to the economy during that time frame.

Consider the fundamentals. Earlier this year, we commissioned research on women in the workforce with an eye to see what skills are needed to help women attain pay parity with men.

One of the ancillary insights the research yielded was that in many emerging markets, particularly the mainland, women tended to be as schooled in IT as men, creating a much larger potential pool of candidates for such work.

We found that the digital capabilities of male and female undergraduates in the mainland were fairly equal – 96 per cent of the undergraduate women surveyed said they had taken computing/coding module classes (against 100 per cent of the surveyed men), and 73 per cent of the women students said they thought they adopted new technologies fast, as compared with 79 per cent of the men. A graduate base of nearly universal tech savviness is an essential building block for future ready businesses and nations that can rotate to the new world order.

Managers need to harness this digital strength. Offering corporate training on mobile phones, to be finalised when an employee chooses, gives staff the option to use their commuting time for continuous learning. It makes retooling and refining skills more flexible.

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Source: South China Morning Post