Organisations in Singapore not quite ready to embrace the metaverse

While business leaders acknowledge the potential benefits of the metaverse, concerns remain over issues such as skills training, privacy, and costs.
By: | February 10, 2023
Topics: Digital Transformation | Leadership | Learning and Development | News | Singapore

While many business leaders in Singapore are considering the potential of metaverse as a platform to upgrade workforce competencies, there remains a hesitancy to deploy the technology. Despite 68% of business leaders acknowledging the significance of adopting metaverse technology, only 6% have done so and 52% are still unsure about its usage.

To embrace metaverse, 51% of business leaders reveal that their organisation needs to develop relevant knowledge and expertise, with 89% expressing a willingness to send employees for metaverse-related skills training, according to NTUC LearningHub’s (NTUC LHUB) new Industry Insights Report 2023 on Metaverse.

While business leaders see metaverse offering benefits such as improving customer engagement (50%), enhancing customer service (44%), and creating new business opportunities (43%), 36% of them expressed concern in their organisation’s readiness for a future in the metaverse. Top concerns for adoption include privacy and security (52%), high technology costs (51%), and the uncertainty of returns on investments (47%).

READ: South Korean firms explore shift to virtual offices

Despite these concerns, 62% of business leaders are confident in their workforce’s ability to adapt to the metaverse. More than half (54%) of business leaders believe that metaverse-related skills are needed across different roles and departments in their organisation, with cloud computing (53%), data analytics and AI (51%), and the Internet of Things (43%) emerging as the top metaverse-related technologies that business leaders are looking to adopt in the next two years. 

To find out how HR is entering the metaverse and how you can harness the impact of the metaverse on the workplace, join Kenneth Siow, Regional Director and GM of Singapore and Malaysia, Tencent Cloud; and Amer Iqbal, Founder and CEO of 5 Ways To Innovate, at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10, 4.30pm (SGT) and May 11 (12pm SGT) respectively, as they discuss the future of the metaverse.