Overview

This large-scale, year-long B2B tracking program for business digital trends was launched to understand business leaders’ perceptions, readiness, and behaviours in Singapore’s rapidly advancing digital economy. Commissioned by a major government agency, the objective of this initiative is for business sentiment tracking for digital economy and awareness solutions among enterprise decision-makers, while also evaluating how organisations perceive IMDA’s role in accelerating digital transformation trends among Singapore firms.  

Wave 1 served as the foundational milestone, measuring:

• Business leader insights on digitalisation trends

• Awareness and adoption of digital tools & government initiatives

• Perceived challenges in digital transformation

• IMDA’s brand credibility, influence, and communications effectiveness

• Readiness levels across organisation sizes and industry sectors

The study captures the evolving dynamics of Singapore’s digital economy and helps shape policy, strategy, and outreach efforts for the year ahead.

Business Challenge

Singapore’s push toward a digitally integrated economy requires a pulse on how enterprises from micro-businesses to large multinational corporations are responding to digitalisation opportunities and constraints. Key challenges lay in gathering accurate, high-quality B2B insights due to:

• Highly varied organisational structures across SMEs and MNCs

• Distinct corporate digital maturity benchmarking across sectors

• Differences in decision-making hierarchies among C-suite, senior leadership, middle management, and HR leaders

• Rapidly evolving IMDA digital transformation perception benchmarking and organisational attitudes toward digital economy initiatives, tools, and communication channels

• The need continuous tracking research for enterprise technology adoption and to capture sentiment shifts

Executing a government-led digital economy perception study demanded a methodology that could reach genuine digital decision-makers and capture strategic outlook of b2b decision makers. The idea was to ensure representative industry coverage, and maintain consistent quality and reliability across recurring waves.

Our Approach

Wave 1 was executed through Xcel Global Panel’s B2B capabilities, leveraging a high-integrity sampling design, business verification processes, and robust panel infrastructure.

1. Precise Targeting of Decision-Makers

The study focused on individuals directly involved in digitalisation activities, including:

• C-suite executive viewpoints on innovation programs

• Senior leadership

• Middle management

• HR and functional heads involved in organisational tech adoption challenges, accreditation, grants, or R&D investments insights

Rigorous screening ensured authenticity using:

• Industry validation

• Occupation and seniority checks

• Employee size confirmation

• Verification of digital decision-making authority

2. Representational Strength Across Enterprise Types

Wave 1 achieved coverage across:

• SMEs: 2–200 employees

• MNCs: 200+ employees

• Micro to large enterprise sizes

• Multiple sectors including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, retail, tech, transportation, professional services, telecommunications, and hospitality

Soft quotas were implemented to ensure balanced representation:

• SMEs n = 150

• MNCs n = 100

3. High-Quality Data Collection

• A 15-minute online quantitative survey

• Fraud-free, business-verified respondents

• Logic consistency checks throughout

• Real-time monitoring to ensure steady sample flow across sectors and enterprise sizes

4. Seamless Execution of Wave 1

Wave 1 successfully completed 250 structured interviews, setting the foundation for upcoming waves in this year-long tracker.

Results

Wave 1 delivered a rich dataset offering clarity on how Singapore’s businesses perceive and respond to digital transformation efforts.

Key outcomes included:

• A robust baseline of digital readiness, challenges, and adoption behaviours

• Clear sentiment toward IMDA’s brand positioning, strategic influence, and communications reach

• Insightful segmentation across enterprise size, sector, and leadership levels

• Identification of priority areas for policy refinement, incentive design, and targeted outreach

• A trend-ready structure that will enable longitudinal analysis across future waves

This successful wave demonstrates Xcel Global Panel’s ability to engage high-level B2B audiences, maintain strict quality control, and execute complex profiling requirements with operational efficiency.

As subsequent waves unfold, this program will evolve into a comprehensive trend-based tracker supporting national digital economy strategy, policy decisions, and communication frameworks.

Unlock deeper insights to strengthen your B2B digital transformation research. Connect with us to execute high-precision B2B studies that inform policy, innovation, and enterprise-level decision-making.