Excelling in the New Digital Era
“If we are going to transform and stay competitive, we will need to enable dynamic young entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into reality as well as being a natural home for big business,” Prof. Au said in the article contributed to The Standard. Here is the full article published in the newspaper on 6 January 2015:
To a business, the internet seems to be overwhelming in its growth and transformation. We’re no longer limited to the desktop like most of us were five years ago.
And soon the internet will be connected to not just smartphones and tablets, but our TVs, our cars, our household devices as well as wristbands and eyewear.
The variety can be paralyzing and best left to big companies to figure out.
But if we stop speculating about what’s going to happen and instead focus on what’s happening right now, right here in Hong Kong, things become pretty clear.
The first thing is that the core and hub of the internet now lies literally in your hands. More than 70 percent of Hongkongers use smartphones, one of the highest penetrations in the world and higher than most Western markets. This is the key moment for Hong Kong businesses of any size.
According to a study published in March 2014, there are about 320,000 small or medium-sized enterprises in Hong Kong employing nearly 1.3 million people, almost 47 percent of the entire labor market.
Add to that a high availability of sound telecommunications infrastructure that has helped Hong Kong rank top in the world for mobile subscriber and fixed broadband penetration rates, and you have a robust e-economy that inspires entrepreneurs to launch start- ups and empowers homegrown SMEs to expand their businesses.
The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem of Hong Kong interim report published by Google and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Centre for Entrepreneurship’s Empowering Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) Programme, also shows that young entrepreneurs look at availability of business opportunities as well as supply and use of technology when launching their businesses.
A healthy digital economy can bring new business opportunities and drive innovation, but what are the key elements?
One of the elements for boosting the digital economy is a strong and forward-thinking regulatory environment. Policies and laws must be applicable in today’s rapidly changing world where selfie sticks have replaced tripods.
We should all be well prepared for rapid changes brought by technology and the new economy.
Hosted by Google and CUHK, six EYE Programme teams with great business ideas and outstanding performances in pitching just visited Silicon Valley. They not only gained valuable insights from this vibrant start-up community, but also impressed investors and accelerators like Plug and Play, and 500 Startups based there.
Once again, it proves that the SAR has a valuable pool of emerging talent and entrepreneurs, who are the best hope for Hong Kong to ride the wave of the new economy.
If we are going to transform and stay competitive, we will need to enable dynamic young entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into reality as well as being a natural home for big business.
Contributed by Kevin Au, Associate Professor of Department of Management and Associate Director of Centre for Entrepreneurship at CUHK Business School. This article was first published in The Standard on 6 January, 2015.
Please click the image below to read the article published in The Standard‘s print edition.
