EY partner: Collaboration essential in ‘making meaningful impacts’

Andrew Lee believes such ideals amidst companies’ capabilities post-pandemic.

Andrew Lee is EY’s Partner focusing on the Hong Kong and Macau markets and accounts development in the Greater Bay Area. He leads the EY HK wavespace, which applied design thinking methodology in assisting clients to resolve their complex problems, in designing their unique transformation journey and in driving the adoption of innovation with digital and technology enablement.

He does this through collaboration and co-creation with experts across the ecosystem who have a diversified knowledge and experience base.

The EY partner has over 20 years international working experience in management consulting, where he has taken up a number of senior management positions that specialised in business transformation, digital and innovation, experience design, and business development in various industry sectors.

As one of the esteemed judges for the Made in Hong Kong and Designed in Hong Kong Awards, Lee spoke with Manufacturing Asia about how digitalisation is affecting the manufacturing sector, as well how companies can adapt to them and the opportunities that await them.

He mentioned that whilst the pandemic forced companies to close down, it also gave them an opportunity to rethink the future of their business and come up with solutions.

Now, most of the manufacturers have considered having or already have some platforms in order to facilitate them doing business within the production. These manufacturers have applied digital supply chain solutions to help clients facilitate the end-to-end production line in order to collect data and individual touch points. 

“That can provide insight and a dashboard to the real method, from the [operations] to the top management… they can have a full visibility of the efficiency and productivity of the production,” Lee said.

Given the effects of the pandemic on the market, Lee advised entrepreneurs to check on their capabilities and think about collaboration with other enterprises as he believes this is beneficial in transformation and making meaningful impacts. One example he provided is clients wanting to leverage AI for budgeting and forecasting, wherein he said that this technology can be utilised to improve efficiency in their processes.

Moreover, he observed that from the top management, the mindset of adopting the digital mindset has to be educating as the companies face the changing world. “When we talk about solutions, [it] is always there, right? I think the solutions that we tell, that will help you know, no matter what organisation,” Lee added.

The EY partner also thinks that companies need to have an open mind in order to adapt with the digital trends in the industry, since businesses have “different DNAs.”

“They can also consider working with some startup together because this is also helping the startup to some of the good potential stuff to build that case… also having been in the industry now with industry know-how, the data to provide them in order to strengthen or continue to build startup solutions,” he said.