P&G to invest S$140 million to boost digital capabilities in S’pore

SINGAPORE—Procter & Gamble (P&G) will be investing more than US$100 million (S$140 million) over the next five years in its new P&G E-Centre in Singapore.

The consumer goods producer is locating its first digital innovation centre outside the United States, focused on end-to-end high-tech solutions across core areas including supply chain management, business processes and data analytics.

The company will be hiring 50 employees to take on digital-related roles and will also expand its partnerships with local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups to strengthen digital capabilities and co-develop new digital solutions, said Mr Nicolas Defauw, P&G’s vice-president of finance and accounting, Asia-Pacific.

Noting that P&G’s presence in Singapore has grown from a 100-strong sales team in 1987 to its current staff strength of 2,000, including 400 researchers at its Singapore Innovation Centre, Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) S Iswaran reiterated the Government’s commitment to partner the industry to anchor new digital capabilities and to equip Singaporeans with new digital skill sets. His remarks were made at the opening of the P&G E-Centre yesterday.

P&G works with more than 200 SME partners and aims to build a digital ecosystem for the industry in Singapore. In addition, the company trains more than 500 managers annually at the Asia Leadership Development Centre in Singapore.

Golden Wheel Industries (GWI), which provides contract manufacturing and packaging services, is one of the partners.

The local company develops sample batches of P&G’s hair, skincare and consumer products. The experience and skills GWI gained in working with digital systems have enabled the company to enhance its services to its clients.

According to Mr Lee Kwai Seng, director at GWI, there is a lot for the SMEs to learn from bigger companies such as P&G.

“The SMEs, while collaborating with larger companies, must take a longer-term view and put in place efficient processes to grow the business and make it a win-win, instead of entirely focusing on the margins. We have learnt to be more efficient besides gaining insights into how to process information to support our business and have effectively revamped our inventory management system,” Mr Lee said.

“In the digital world, it is all about the ecosystem, one company cannot drive on its own … By training and developing SMEs, we can have a much stronger ecosystem that serves the digital economy,” said Mr Defauw.

Singapore’s position as the group’s regional headquarters, combined with the talent available in digital technology and research, was a key factor that attracted the US group to set up its E-Centre in the Republic. The strong partnership between the universities, agencies and SMEs is also an advantage, he added.

Yesterday, the company hosted the second edition of its leadership development programme — the P&G Leadership College — for SMEs in collaboration with enterprise agency Spring Singapore.

Aimed at fostering mutually beneficial collaborations between large organisations and SMEs through projects involving knowledge transfer and capability upgrading, the half-day training programme this year saw more than 30 business leaders participate, gaining insights into digital and e-commerce innovations from speakers of companies such as Ematic Solutions, Google, NTUC Fairprice and Uber. Rumi Hardasmalani