The Retail and Food Services sectors play an important role in Singapore. They add to the vibrancy of the economy and contribute to the social well-being of Singaporeans. At the same time, they are often highlighted and scrutinised for their low productivity performance and high reliance on manpower. There is to date a lack of local literature that addresses the issues faced by the two sectors at the enterprise and worker levels.This timely book includes major topics in services productivity in the Singapore context, with emphasis on Retail and Food Services. Topics covered include the key productivity levers of the services sectors: holistic productivity measurement framework, effective entrepreneurship, manpower management, promotion by social media, marketing, costing process and accounting sophistication. These areas are explored through literature reviews and in-depth interviews with companies and consumers. The chapters also include recommendations for policy makers and industry stakeholders. Written in a simple and accessible manner, this book will serve as an insightful guide to researchers, policy-makers, industry practitioners and enterprises and those who are keen to learn from the Singapore experience.

Measuring productivity is often considered a difficult task for industries in the services sectors. This book offers a solution in the form of the 8M approach — Management, Manpower, Method, Money, Market, Make, Material and Message. This 8M framework is used to analyze the many facets of productivity and make pertinent solutions and suggestions to lift productivity in enterprises, especially those in the retail and food services sectors.This book consists of 10 chapters. Each chapter is an in-depth study of a specific measure, be it a technological system, a manpower strategy or a marketing program to improve the performance and productivity of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the retail and food services sectors in Singapore.Technology-driven solutions are the highlight of this book. Every study presented involves field work in terms of surveys, interviews or focus group discussions with stakeholders. The findings of the studies lead to policy recommendations and suggestions for improving the productivity performance of SMEs in the retail and food services sectors.

Singapore is recognised to be one of the most successful economies in the world given its rapid economic and social transformation. Its success is the result of a judicious blend of markets and government, high-quality governance, and public policies that are coherent, consistent and coordinated.This book showcases the contribution of Economics to Singapore's public policymaking. To illustrate the diverse areas that economic analysis has contributed to, this book comprises three sections that span the economic and non-economic policy domains in Singapore. Section I covers economic policies relating to economic growth, trade, investments, productivity, innovation, industrial development, the enterprise landscape and manpower. Section II highlights socioeconomic and security policies, and covers themes such as income inequality and mobility, families, healthcare costs and crime. In Section III, the focus is on infrastructural policies relating to the environment, housing and land transport.This book commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Singapore Government's Economist Service. As the premier service for economists in the Singapore public sector, the Economist Service plays an integral role in supporting evidence-based policymaking through rigorous economic research and analysis of public policies.

This book addresses key topics related to organization design and knowledge management in the digital economy with organizational context, particularly in Asia. Asian nations are moving fast toward the digital economy, within which the role of organization design and knowledge management is crucial to support innovative and creative ideas for meeting huge market opportunities where customers are ready for digitalization. The book conceptualizes organization design into three dimensions, people, information, and technology, and offers readers a unique valued insight, bringing new perspectives to understanding emerging business opportunities and challenges in Asia. It presents a valuable collection of 14 chapters with empirical studies from leading researchers. The book addresses digital transformation in companies and organizations in Asia, analysing how disruptive technologies can help them have more efficient organization processes, create innovative products and services, be more resilient and achieve sustainable goals in the post-pandemic time. It fills a gap in the market offering a valuable collection of chapters that combines strategic topics for companies, organizations and nations today, such as digital economy, disruptive technologies, big data and knowledge management, with a specific focus on the Asian region, providing rich examples and studies focused in countries and regions within Asia. Written for scholars, researchers and other specialists in digitalization, this book offers a unique collection of insights into the current and future situation in Asia.

Innovation of Food Products in the Halal Supply Chain Worldwide covers the fundamentals and food guidelines of halal food production. Unlike other texts on the halal food market and halal certification, this book promotes halal product innovation by presenting exciting newly developed ingredients that are substitutions of non-halal ingredients with halal alternatives, such as lard substituted with modified vegetable fats, pig with halal goat/beef/camel/fish gelatin/collagen, alternative meat substitute or even additives. Innovations in halal processing technologies cover the latest techniques in halal production and authentication, halal tracking/traceability in halal transport and logistics, a vast area at the end of a supply chain. All chapters are written by acknowledged experts in their field, thus the book brings together the top researchers in this essential topic of importance to a huge percentage of the world’s population. Helps readers understand the advancement of available halal substitutes and replacers Offers tools to enhances product sustainability and food security through innovation Fosters innovation in food science with alternative halal ingredients

This book offers effective and competitive food supply chains that are the consequence of technological innovation, collaboration, small agri-food business cases, entrepreneurial opportunities, cold chain technology management, disruptive technologies, and performance assessment through empirical analysis, case studies, and multimethod research in the food industry. The book comprehensively covers different interfaces of the food supply chain including procurement, processing, distribution, consumer, i.e., farm to fork. It provides solutions to various challenges such as globalization, food recalls, technological innovations, and consumer trust. This book will be of interest to researchers in the areas of the food supply chain, operations management, industrial engineering as well as professionals in the agri-food and allied industry.

Even after achieving the status of a developed economy, many economies face other challenges which may include economic stagnation and income inequality. The book looks at how a mature economy can continue to weather challenges and how the growth of living standards will depend on productivity growth through Singapore’s experience. After Singapore's rapid economic transformation, the nation is at a crossroads. The book explains how productivity growth in turn depends on technological diffusion from abroad as well as indigenous innovation. It also examines how the design of policy to develop indigenous innovation to promote economic dynamism may come with creative destruction and disruptive effects on jobs and wages. The Singapore Economy provides insight into how we can maintain social cohesion and establish a political equilibrium that embraces the new sources of growth through policy formulation for economic inclusion.

This book covers a variety of topics regarding environmental practices in our day-to-day lives, as well as topics concerning sustainable development as a broader concept embracing ecological, social, and economic aspects to improve the quality of life for people around the world. Starting with the traditional controversy between the neoclassical economy and sustainable economy, which may be overcome by scientific progress due to more intensive scientific studies of the sustainability paradigm, the book proceeds to discuss various problems and challenges regarding environmental protection and sustainable development in different countries and on different continents. This includes analyses of recent, sometimes fatal mining disasters in South and North America, challenges and opportunities for rural development in Africa and Australia, an exploration of the role of women for sustainable development in Palestine, water safety and water security issues in Asia and Australia, the environmental exploitation of popular tourism destinations like Acapulco, and deforestation in Malaysia, suggesting innovative approaches to turn challenges into opportunities to effectively tackle these problems. Other topics addressed involve sustainable energy creation for future generations, a research survey among Romanian students on sustainable consumption behavior, validity testing for a heat transfer model in a greenhouse, and a case study on sustainability risk management practices at Malaysia’s environmentally sensitive companies. The book closes with an examination of highly digitalized Smart Cities as a potentially valuable complement to conventional urban and rural lifestyles in connection with achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The book has 2 sections; Section A focuses on Environmental Sustainability and Green Technology and Section B covers Emerging Technologies in Environmental Biotechnology. The book introduces Environmental biotechnology as a tool to progress towards sustainable development goals and covers green technologies such as Bio-plastics, Third generation hybrid technology for algal biomass production, wastewater treatment and greenhouse gas mitigation, Green vaccination, Bio-fuels, Microbial enzymes, Bioelectrical systems, eco-friendly handmade paper production, nature based sanitation solutions, and greener ways to tackle air pollution along with the application of GIS to monitor & manage COVDI19 pandemic. The Section B covers emerging & innovative technologies such as vermifiltration, Small scale PVA gel based innovative solution for wastewater treatment, Cyclic technology based sequencing batch reactors (SBR) and role of Role of Bio-selectors in Performing Simultaneous Nitrification and Denitrification in SBR’s. It holistically covers essential information on Enzymatic Biotransformation and Biopolymer based nanocomposites for dye waste treatment, Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi assisted Bioremediation of heavy metals, Coir Retting and Duckweeds: The Tiny Creatures for Resolving the Major Environmental Issues. It is a promising book for researchers, academicians, teachers, students, industrial enterprises, policy makers, public health officials and general users. The book is closely aligned to curricula of post graduate courses in biotechnology, microbiology, environmental biotechnology and environmental science.