Professor Tan Chin Tiong
Deputy President, Singapore Management University

Mr Tan Suee Chieh,
Co-chair, Governing Council of the Institute of Service Excellence at SMU (ISES)

Mr Ong Ye Kung,
Assistant Secretary General, NTUC

Mr Chan Heng Kee,
Chief Executive, Workforce Development Agency

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

Introduction

1. A week ago, MTI revised its GDP growth forecast for Singapore in 2009 to be negative 6 to 9 per cent. The revision was necessary to reflect the weaker-than-expected external and regional demands for our goods and services. The decline in the first quarter of 2009 affected every sector except for the construction sector.

2. How each sector performs now and in future, is of great interest to all of us. It is not just because we desire to pick up any early sign of recovery in today’s dismal economic climate, but more importantly, we want to build a foundation for sustainable growth beyond the current difficulty.

3. Given that service sector accounts for 68% of our economy, any means to increase the sector’s capacity to generate greater value add and the service workers’ productivity, will have a profound impact for the service industry, the economy and the long-term future of Singapore.

4 .Speaking of productivity, our service sector’s productivity growth has lagged the manufacturing sector since 1997. In the past two years, we have even seen negative labor productivity growth despite decent economic performance in 2007 and early 2008. We ought to understand why this is so and how we can intervene the trend.

5. This was also why the government took the subject of productivity growth in the service sector seriously. In Feb 2009, Minister Lim Swee Say launched the second phase of GEMS (Go-the-Extra Miles for Service) with a S$100mil budget. This additional resource aims to drive service excellence, with the following 3 initiatives:

• Research and Thought Leadership;
• Customer Centric Initiative (CCI) for Service Capability Development; and
• Promotion, Publicity and Recognition.

6. Under the heading of “Research and Thought Leadership”, the Institute of Service Excellence at Singapore Management University (ISES) is helping us to build and apply a matrix called the Customer Satisfaction Index:

(a) to compare Singapore’s service level with selected economies that have similar measures; and

(b) to give us an insight into the sectoral performance of our various industries.

This is so that we can contemplate solutions to raise our productivity in the sectors analyzed.

7. In just a moment, the ISES team will announce both the overall and sectoral findings of the 2008 Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore. I will let them explain to you the methodology of the research and the implications of the findings when compared to the previous year and other countries’ rankings.

8 .My focus, however, will be how we can make use of the findings, in the current downturn, to increase and build new capacity for productivity growth in the service sector. I believe we can achieve this, provided our employers and service workers take training and up-skilling seriously.

9. Under the Customer-Centric Initiative, a total assistance package is specially developed to assist companies in their service quality transformation. Companies can enhance their systems and processes to improve service delivery. Companies can also tap on the Singapore Service Star programme to assess their performance in delivering a good customer experience.

10. In the area of training, WDA’s Certified Service Professional (CSP) programme has achieved some success, reaching out to more than 2,600 workers in our service industries. Going forward, WDA will not only expand the training capacity for the CSP, but will also make available an entire suite of WSQ courses on service excellence for different levels of staff. It will also customize some of these courses to specific sectors such as retail, tourism and F&B. Already, some CCI companies have committed to sending their workers for these programmes. They will enjoy enhanced course fee funding and absentee payroll under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) programme.

11. Developing service excellence for Singapore cannot be achieved single-handedly by the Government. It requires the effort of everyone. The industry, businesses and employees all have a part to play, and all of us should take ownership of the effort. With the strong partnership of our businesses, industries and the support from various government agencies, I am confident that Singapore can achieve world-class service standards sooner than later.

12. Let us all play our part and keep pushing the pace of service excellence in Singapore. Together, we will make a huge difference.

Thank you.