In the most recent rankings by Swiss business school IMD, Singapore lost its top spot and dropped to second place within the digital competitiveness index of 63 economies, overtaking the United States from third place last 12 months.
However, Singapore topped the list when it comes to knowledge and technology, but was only fifteenth when it comes to future readiness.
According to the report, despite a digital-friendly environment and high levels of coaching and education, Singapore society’s approach to technology adoption and enterprise agility towards digital transformation were rated relatively low, rating twentieth and 18th respectively.
Singapore remained the one Asian country to crack the highest 10, with closest rival Hong Kong falling from seventh place last 12 months to eleventh.
Overall, several listed Southeast Asian countries also showed slight improvement in overall performance in comparison with the previous 12 months, as detailed below:
This 12 months, most (29) countries surveyed showed an improvement of their digital competitiveness levels, but Southeast Asian countries comparable to Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia saw a decline, based on a report by the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Center.
“The results show that several countries experience ‘adaptive imbalance’, or a mismatch between high levels of coaching and education and approaches to digitalization; amongst these economies we distinguish Austria, Malaysia and Russia,” we read within the report.
The overall rating was based on three aspects: knowledge, technology and future readiness.
This 12 months, 29 countries surveyed saw improved levels of digital competitiveness. About 40 percent, or 26 countries, showed a decline, while only eight economies remained the identical.
The IMD Global Center for Competitiveness is a research group on the IMD Business School in Switzerland, with 30 years of research experience in the sector of national competitiveness.
Source: Free Malaysia Today and The Straits Times
