SMU and e-commerce firm Synagie to help adults pick up e-commerce skills
Adults hoping to upgrade themselves can sign up for new courses to learn e-commerce skills from the second half of this year.
The 60 new modules will be run by SMU Academy and Synagie Commerce Academy. The former is the professional training arm of the Singapore Management University and the latter is by e-commerce company Synagie.
SkillsFuture Singapore's chief executive Tan Kok Yam said the new courses, which aim to train 3,000 people by 2025, will help to plug manpower and skills requirements in the rapidly expanding e-commerce sector.
"The e-commerce sector, like many other sectors, will require talent and skills in digitialisation and sustainability," he said at an event cementing the tie-up on Tuesday (May 17).
"It may also need to quickly acquire manpower and talent from other sectors and be open to training Singaporeans who may not have prior experience."
The new programmes will be certified by SMU and taught by experts from SMU, Synagie and other companies.
They will focus on seven topics including personal development, marketing and creative services and customer engagement solutions.
The programmes will be available by the second half of this year, Synagie said.
"With the push for digitalisation in South-east Asia, businesses around the region are facing challenges in recruiting talent with relevant specialist expertise to meet their business needs," it said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Through holistic, scenario-based experiential learning, the programmes and modules seek to deepen the specific skillsets needed to fill the skill gaps in the digital commerce ecosystem."
E-commerce sales in Singapore are expected to grow to more than $13 billion by the end of 2026, said Meta and management consultancy Bain & Company, which released a report in August last year.
Meta is the company that owns the social media platform Facebook.
The launch event at SMU's Administration Building in Bras Basah also featured a panel discussion on sustainability in e-commerce, the role of competition and how the sector must evolve to train new talent. It was moderated by the chief executive officer of the Singapore Business Federation Lam Yi Young.
The panel comprised Lazada Group's executive vice-president Moony Li, skincare brand Porcelain's founder and managing director Pauline Ng, Dr Roh Sungjong from SMU's Lee Kong Chian School of Business, and ShopBack co-founder Joel Leong.
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