As the world economy recovers from the pandemic, businesses now face another challenge – the ‘Great Resignation,’ a phrase coined in 2021 to describe the trend of millions of employees worldwide leaving their jobs.

In the Philippines, for instance, resignation was the top reason for unemployment in 2021. In its Mission: Rebooting Economic Activities through Community Engagement (RACE) program survey, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said that 85,045 of the over 2.39 million unemployed workers resigned from their work last year.

Meanwhile, in Metro Manila, the country’s capital, the labor turnover rate, which refers to the difference between hiring (accession) and the rate of job termination or resignation (separation), has implied negative growth in employment in the first half of 2021.

The Labor Turnover Survey released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported a labor turnover rate of -3.1% in the first quarter of last year. It continued to weaken during the second quarter at -1.2%. These numbers translate to reductions of 31 workers in the first quarter while 12 workers in the second quarter for every 1,000 persons employed in establishments.

How is this trend affecting SMEs?

According to a study released by SAP SE (NYSE: SAP), the Great Resignation is real and impacting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region today.

The study, “Transformational Talent: The impact of the Great Resignation on Digital Transformation in APJ’s SMEs,” surveyed 1,363 SME owners and decision-makers across eight countries in the region, including Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand.

Nine in ten (91%) SME respondents in APJ say workforce volatility, including the Great Resignation, has directly impacted their digital transformation plans. These plans are critical since 69% of SME respondents say that digital transformation is significant to their organization’s survival over the next year.

Meanwhile, four in ten (40%) respondents agreed that more employees are resigning now than just 12 months ago, while almost two-thirds (64%) of SME respondents said they are not finding it easy to cope with the impact of the Great Resignation.

The talent crunch is impacting organizations’ ability to transform their businesses digitally. According to the study, the lack of skilled talents also ranks as the top challenge to achieving successful transformation for SMEs across APJ. It topped traditional obstacles, such as cyber security, lack of budget, and lack of understanding of available digital solutions.

 

“This study shows how the “Great Resignation” can be an existential challenge to organizations. At SAP, we believe that having the right people is important to ensuring digital transformation success. As part of retention efforts, SMEs must invest in talent as much as they invest in innovation to thrive amid these uncertain times,” said Rudy Abrahams, Vice President, Head of SAP SuccessFactors, South East Asia and interim Managing Director SAP Philippines.

How are SMEs mitigating the effects of the Great Resignation?

To alleviate the Great Resignation’s effects and boost their organizations’ ability to deliver digital transformation, SMEs across APJ are investing in their workforce.

Survey respondents said they are improving their financial incentives (43%) and introducing flexible working arrangements (43%) to ensure talent retention over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, four in ten (40%) SME respondents said they would provide upskilling opportunities to retain key talents.

SMEs in the region also focus on training, with more than two-thirds (68%) of the respondents noting that upskilling to support digital transformation is urgent, leading to 72% of SMEs who will focus on digital training throughout this year.

Despite these challenges, SMEs in the region remain optimistic. Having managed significant challenges over the past two years, they are looking beyond a focus on resilience. Almost half (49%) of the respondents say that their organization is highly or fully resilient in weathering the pandemic’s impact. On the other hand, 4% believe they are not resilient.

The confidence in their ability has also resulted in optimism about their growth prospects. 81% of the respondents said they are moderately, very, or extremely confident in their growth over the next 12 months.

“The Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) sector accounts for over 97% of all businesses and employs over 50% of the workforce in the region according to Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. By harnessing their growth potentials and optimism and combining it with innovations that help foster talents and a strong partner ecosystem, we can help ensure their success in the years to come,” said Abrahams.

The full report of the Transformational Talent study is available on this link.

Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @SAPNews.

TPV Technology Limited, the global manufacturer of leading PC Monitor brands AOC and Philips Monitors, is #1 in the Philippines in the Unbundled Market in 2021, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker, 2021 Q4.

In its Fourth Quarter report, the International Data Corporation revealed market figures capturing the performance of different monitor brands in the Philippines. The data shows that for the entire 2021, TPV leads the market as the #1 monitor manufacturer in unbundled sales in the Philippine Market.

TPV, which manufactures AOC and Philips Monitors, sold over 155,000 units in 2021, representing 18.46% of all unbundled units sold in the Philippine market for the year. This large market share is a testament to the continued trust that consumers put into monitors made by TPV – showing how many users still prefer AOC and Philips Monitors over other brands, especially coming from a very unprecedented time in global events these past few years.

Many users continue to trust TPV-manufactured monitors because of the consistent high-quality products that TPV produces. Both AOC and Philips Monitors offer products that showcase innovation on different use cases. AOC and Philips Monitors are known for innovative features that make their products more productive for work like the SmoothTouch-enabled Philips Monitors 242B9T, and give a better entertainment experience for gaming and movies, like the entire line of AOC AGON Gaming Monitors.

With this recognition, TPV will not be resting with its laurels. Being #1 inspires TPV to continue bringing to market innovative monitors designed with the users’ experience in mind as the first and primary consideration.

To keep up with an increased demand for timely, efficient, and effective customer service, enterprises are now tapping contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) solutions. Through this cloud-based method of managing customer relationships, businesses can use a cloud contact center provider’s software instead of maintaining their own costly IT servers and manpower.

At the height of the pandemic, many Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies abroad have  moved to a cloud-based, work-from-home model. With employees working remotely, businesses had to look for ways to deploy applications that enable secure, cost-efficient, and productive work outside office premises. This accelerated the adoption of cloud-based solutions which, in turn, facilitates customer service across multiple channels such as voice, SMS, email, and even social media.

These are just some of the customer experience trends discussed in the latest episode of CLOCKWORK, a Globe Business podcast that examines the gears that make businesses tick. Hosted by Peter Maquera, Senior Vice President for Globe Business, Enterprise Group, CLOCKWORK provides listeners with meaningful and humanized conversations about business, tech, and industry insights.

In this episode, Maquera talks with Assaf Tarnopolsky, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific at Genesys, a leader in cloud customer experience orchestration. They discuss how customer experience has evolved through the years and how cloud contact centers are relevant in today’s hyper-digital world. Genesys is Globe’s partner in delivering the Globe Omnichannel (GO) Cloud Contact Center, an easy-to-use and fast-to-deploy Contact Center as a Service (CCasS) solution for enterprises.

The future of contact centers

With cloud contact centers, BPO agents get a 360-degree view of customers, and all customer interactions, whether they occur via voice, chat, email, social media, or even messaging. If a customer calls after sending an email, an agent will be able to read that email and all previous interactions with that particular customer. This allows them to become better equipped to solve customer issues within shorter call hold times, thereby increasing engagement and improving communication with customers.

Cloud-based contact centers, such as the GO Cloud Contact Center, can support today’s hybrid work setups, allowing agents to work from any location and securely access the customer information they need within a single, intuitive platform.

Young Asian businesswoman, call center, customer service with headset or headphone talking on video call conference or virtual meeting in office

Security at all touchpoints

Security is no longer a nice-to-have add-on but rather a necessary built-in feature for digital technologies, especially for contact centers handling the sensitive data of large enterprises such as banks and other financial institutions, healthcare companies, and even government offices. “Security is the foundation and must be at the core of what we do to elicit customer trust. The key is to deliver meaningful, empathetic, and personalized experiences to serve customers better at every step,” shared Tarnopolsky.

With the GO Cloud Contact Center, enterprises can trust that their customer and business data will remain secure. The GO Cloud Contact Center meets and exceeds modern security standards with external penetration testing, attack defense automation, and TLS and AES-256 encryption, the gold standard in symmetric-key encryption techniques.

Making the shift to the cloud

The work-from-home contact center model is likely to be adopted over the long term. As such, it makes more sense to invest in cloud-based contact centers rather than in legacy platforms, which tend to be more maintenance and labor-intensive. Comparatively, a cloud contact center boasts of fast deployment, easy integration, flexible pricing, and scalability.

‘’With GO Cloud Contact Center, for example, businesses can deploy customer organization systems in days, go live in mere weeks, and reach payback in no time. And with new system releases every week, you can also give customers the latest functionality with just a simple refresh, without any downtime for updates,’’ said Maquera.

Cloud-native solutions usually work in a pay-per-use model, which allows optimization features, functionalities, and services when needed. This lends more flexibility and cost-effectiveness compared to traditional, on-premise legacy platforms which tend to over-provision, wasting company resources in the process.

“It is a business imperative for a lot of companies to optimize their relationship with the customers by reimagining customer touchpoints and delivering valuable experiences throughout their journey. They must recognize how they engage with customers will impact their brand value and how customers perceive them. This will eventually impact an organization’s ability to thrive and grow in the future and differentiate in the marketplace,” adds Tarnopolsky.

As your trusted business partner, Globe Business remains steadfast in its commitment to providing compelling ICT services that move your digital transformation journey forward. Globe strongly supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly UN SDG No. 9, which highlights the roles of infrastructure and innovation as crucial drivers of economic growth and development. Globe is committed to upholding the UN Global Compact principles and contributes to 10 UN SDGs.

To know more about Globe Omnichannel (GO) Cloud Contact Center, visit our website or get in touch with your Enterprise Account Manager today.

For more business insights from industry experts and enterprise executives, listen to the CLOCKWORK podcast by Globe Business—now streaming on Spotify.