Spend a vision with me: September 2024

Monday, 30 September 2024

Analytics failure costs Singapore ~$100m

In my previous blog (1), I showed the direction Singapore has chosen to take regarding the new world of AI. Singapore chose to weaken traditional labour structures and support personal responsibility instead. I mentioned that in order for these 2 structures to be comparable, there needs to be transparency and accountability across the line, so individuals can come close to replicating informational resources the old structure (Unions) had.

I had left out the obvious fact that, if you want to adopt AI, you need to know what you are doing, else you will get hurt. Well, it only took a week for this obvious fact to slap me in the face.

One of the crown jewels of Singapore, the Mass Rapid Transit train system has had a major failure, costing Singapore around $100m (2) and the cost is still going up as the days go. And I place this failure firmly in the realm of an analytics failure.

What happened?

It is very simple.

A train broke down at 0930 on Wednesday.
In order to free the tracks, the affected train was dragged towards an appropriate area.
However, the break down had caused a part of the train be dislodged and fall onto the tracks.
During the dragging of the train, this caused damage to the tracks for at least 1.6km (3)

Why do I say it is analytics failure then?

Before I go there, let me go a little bit back in time, to the '1^st grand MRT failure'

The 1^st grand MRT failure

I am not going to go through minor issues, if you are interested you can refer to (4)(5), but to the 2011 case. Within 3 days 2 incidents occurred.

Many fingers were pointed at the then CEO, MS Saw Phaik Hwa, whose expertise lay making $ having been regional president of DFS (Duty Free Shop) Ventures – the closest she got to managing transport was probably DFS shops at Changi airport. She launched the now ubiquitous shops at MRT stations. Everyone knows she had no engineering degree, but the aim was to monetise the assets of the SMRT.

She was criticized for not prioritizing maintenance. But during the commission of enquiry on the 2011 failures, while she was accused of neglecting maintenance – the cost of maintenance rose by 3% per annum (6) – she argued that she simply approved the figures proposed by the maintenance team.

She posited a few possible reasons for the 2011 failures (that affected only around 200,000 people (8) compared to half a million now) and mentioned unexpected rise in readership.

As it can clearly be seen, Singapore population did indeed increase quite a bit leading to 2011 (9); the growth rates 2006-2011 are higher than 2001-2005. In fact, in 2009, Singapore first crossed 5m population.

My own non-expert but numbers driven opinion is that maintenance budgets may not have taken increased wear and tear due to increased ridership.

Indeed, at that time, the focus, as highlighted by expert witness Professor Lim from NTU was on strength of ‘preventive maintenance’ on the part of SMRT.

Preventive maintenance is what you do with your vehicle, you have a time (yearly, half yearly) or usage (km used) based schedule to maintain it. The basic idea is that, in most cases, most issues occur after a set period (time or usage), hence the idea is to maintain before that threshold and identify and fix issues before they become serious.

As I mentioned before, CEOs are an indication of the direction an organization is likely to take. Ms Saw Phaik Hwa was replaced by Mr Desmond Kuek, a career military man and an engineer (10)

So what has changed since then?

You can get some historical perspective by reading what the former Straits Times transport correspondent wrote (11). He highlights the recent completion of the 10 year renewal programme, and the issues that have cropped up since.

But to me, what is more enlightening is what he said SMRT does/did right, that is “In his post, Tan called for full transparency from the authorities, questioning why the incident occurred despite SMRT’s use of predictive maintenance systems designed to prevent such failures. “We have been told SMRT now practices preventive and predictive maintenance… So, what happened to that fateful train?”“

SMRT has included predictive maintenance among the tools at its disposal.

This is totally in line with Singapore adopting the best techniques, and is now leading the world in GenAI adoption (12).

In fact, the SMRT Chairman, only last year, stressed the need to balance costs and reliability, to avoid “over maintenance” (13). This is exactly where predictive maintenance can help. It is not a replacement for preventive, but an additional tool that should help manage costs better.

A couple of things I’d like to point out before I go further.

The current SMRT Chairman, Mr Seah Moon Ming is an engineer by training and had a career in MINDEF (Ministry of Defence) and ST Engineering among other government related posts.(14)

The current CEO, Mr Ngien Hoon Ping is also an engineer and also comes from an army background and is the third ex Singapore Armed Forces high ranking officer to helm the SMRT (15).

The focus is squarely on efficiency in maintenance.

So how did this incident occur?

What caused the 2^nd grand failure?

To me, it is preventive maintenance.

Yes, analytics is causing Singapore $100m and counting.

Let me explain myself.

I am not saying preventive maintenance is bad.

On the contrary, it is a potential cost and even life saver. It is a very useful tool. As all tools, how is it used matters.

Now, preventive maintenance is not new to SMRT (16); even since the days of Mr Desmond Kuek, preventive maintenance has been put in place and AI used to make more sense of the data generated.

To be clear, some highlights relevant to the current case:

“allows real-time monitoring while the trains are in operation”
“Sensors installed at City Hall MRT will also scan the entire North-South and East-West lines’ train fleet for defects such as wear and tear to the wheels or axel defects.”
“allow SMRT to tap on multiple streams of data from all of its assets to predict the need for maintenance activities”

The system SMRT installed in 2018 was from HK polytechnic university (17) and as first in the world (as usual for Singapore) (18) and to be clear the capabilities are “Apart from installing an optical fibre sensing network in tracks to monitor the trains, sensors are also installed in in-service trains to monitor the tracks on which the trains run.”

The system SMRT has ‘listens’ to the train, and to the tracks, and feeds live updates of data for processing: real time, trains and tracks.

The tools therefore do not seem to be a problem.

The 1^st thing that SMRT publicized once the incident occurred, even before any possible cause was investigated, is that the train that broke down was 35 years old.

To me, on the contrary, this means that SMRT has enormous amount of data on this type of train and the preventive maintenance models on this 35 year old train should be top notch: more accurate and reliable data means more accurate and reliable models, especially in slowly changing systems.

I am not saying the models failed. There is much much more to implementing, using and maintaining any model with predictive capabilities than simply just signing a document and taking delivery of a system.

Think 3Ps People, Product, Processes

Product

The collaboration between SMRT and HKPoly is still going strong (Dr Tan Kee Cheong (18) is still with SMRT and was even adjunct at Hong Kong Poly (19)). Hong Kong Poly is also at the cutting edge of research and application on railways (20)). Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the product, that is the predictive maintenance system from HK Poly has any major issues.

Rather, I think the issue has all to do with people and process.

Let me start with process

Process

Let’s recap what happened (21)

Train developed fault
Train was being moved to the depot
A component, axle box dropped onto the tracks
The boogie frame dropped and caused wheels to shift
This damaged rails and tracks for at least 1.6km as the damaged train was moved.

Axle box:

Predictive maintenance watches the health of axle boxes ““Sensors installed at City Hall MRT will also scan the entire North-South and East-West lines’ train fleet for defects such as wear and tear to the wheels or axel defects.””

The predictive maintenance system should have flagged potential issues with the axle and prevent axle to break.

1.6km of damage (at least)

A piece of equipment was dragged on tracks for at least 1.6km, and there was no alert from any sensor that the noise, or the vibrations coming from the track were not normal? I am pretty sure the sensors picked the issue. But why was the damage allowed to continue so long?

The slew of sensors along the track should have detected the damage as it was occurring and minimized the impact.

So what happened?

I think the issue is with the volume of data SMRT deals with, ““allow SMRT to tap on multiple streams of data from all of its assets to predict the need for maintenance activities””. The process for dealing with the volume of data is likely flawed.

And this leads me to people.

People:

An analytical system is not a fire and forget kind of thing. Its performance has to be measured, the system within which it operated has to be evaluated, and the analytical models adjusted accordingly.

This takes some organizational commitment and some skill on the part of the analytical team. This is where most models, even if properly implemented, degrade and may fail past the short run.

Let me explain a little bit.

To predict whether a piece of material will fail, simple survival analysis type models are sufficient for a single component, all the way to digital twins to account for interactions within. Every time you maintain the piece of equipment, you take data on the state of the equipment, and if possible, the waste whether exhaust, or oil/lubricant, and use the chemical analysis as input. There even are systems that do preventive maintenance purely based on the sound of equipment (22).

For those of you who have been to Ikea, remember the chair testing machine? (23).

Preventive maintenance counts when the chair usually breaks and tells you it is good for say 80% (depending on the risk) of that number, predictive maintenance looks at the wear and tear on the flexible component and advises when it is deteriorating. This is the lab (showroom) world.

Now when the piece of equipment interacts with a changing world, then the external components that affect the equipment also need to be included.

For example, let’s say this chair is at my home. If I suddenly put a large amount of weight, then my predictions regarding my chair go out of the window, the environment the chair existed in has changed, and I need to adjust my calculations accordingly.

A slightly more complex system has to be built.

And someone needs to know when the parameters within the model have to be adjusted.

This is what people are for, to keep the predictions usable.

Predictive maintenance suffers from the fact that it is hard to model to start with, given failures are (hopefully) rare; modeling rare occurrences has its own challenges. Now add to the fact that ideally you need to model external components. People are even more crucial; imagine what may affect the model, and try improving the model by testing if these features make the models perform better.

It is a continuous process.

A model is meant to represent something. As things or the environment change, so must the model. Luckily, for analytics, it is part of the process that people should follow to test the changes in the model and make sure they are successfully captured and the model improved.

Summary:

In sum, the case of the SMRT incident illustrates the importance of people continually thinking and improving systems and the processes around them.

It’s the people, not the technology.

While Singapore is leading GenAI adoption, and is putting a structure in place to go along the chosen trajectory it is crucial basic steps are not missed else the structure may crumble.

The case of SMRT has shown that even in areas where Singapore is world class (24), there still are gaps in the ability to use analytics and keep using it in the medium to long run. And in my view, this case stems from issues with people and processes.

Use of data via the application of analytical models whether pure statistical models, ML, AI… needs to be thought through and people with the right expertise and creativity are needed to ensure these models keep performing as can be expected.

Just having the IT skills to deploy a model, especially out of the box, or to follow documents to launch them is not sufficient.

“Use your blain!”

Let this be a $100m lesson.

Tuesday, 24 September 2024

Changes in the landscape of the insurance industry in Singapore are a symptom of societal changes you should be ready for.

Allianz, a Swiss insurer, is buying 51% of NTUC Income, a Singapore insurer. So far ‘so good’. But the reason why this has created lots of debate is that NTUC Income was born as a co-operative, and still has the aim “to make insurance accessible, affordable and sustainable for all”. Value, not profit, is maximised for customers.”(1) I think most people would agree that this is not really what Allianz is known for, hence the fear that the social side of the insurer; and probably even more, a decline of the role of trade unions in Singapore. And this is a big topic (2), but more on that later.

When I was younger, I was not in favour of unions, but as I started work, I realized that exploitation is real and there are enough informational inequalities that maintain the balance of power against workers. So, I am not in favour of unions losing power, I believe they exist for a reason and have proven their usefulness over time. If you think your ‘40hr’ week, paid holidays, sick leave were unilaterally given by kind employers looking after the welfare of their workers, think again.

In fact, in the USA, president Biden, on labour day, said: “Wall Street didn’t build America… the middle class built America… and Unions built the middle class”(3) Even in arguably the home of capitalism, unions are valued. So why is Singapore apparently selling off a crown jewel of the union movement?

To me, the debate surrounding NTUC Income is not restricted to just insurance, but is seen as symptomatic of the change in the role of the unions in Singapore.

This is especially relevant to Singapore, given the role that the Union movement has played in the transformation of Singapore from third to first world in the span of a few decades.

Unions at the core of the Singapore success story

When the father of Singapore wanted to decide the trajectory he would place Singapore on, he turned to Dutch economist Albert Winsemius. The latter’s concise and precise advice was two-fold (4):

“Number one is: get rid of the Communists; how you get rid of them does not interest me as an economist, but get them out of the government, get them out of the unions, get them off the streets. How you do it, is your job”

“Number two is: let [the statue of Stamford] Raffles stand where he stands today; say publicly that you accept the heavy ties with the West because you will very much need them in your economic programme.”

NTUC (National Trades Union Congress) was created in 1961 to stem the threat of communism and give workers a disciplined voice in the development of Singapore together with employers and the government “the promotion of good industrial relations for the benefit of workers, employers and the economy.”(1).

As part of this mission, NTUC started creating co-operatives: NTUC Income (INsurance COperative COMmonwealth Enterprise Ltd) with the declared aim to ““to make insurance accessible, affordable and sustainable for all”. Value, not profit, is maximised for customers.”(1). To make transport more accessible and protect the rights of drivers, NTUC Comfort (CO-operative coMmonwealth FOR Transport Ltd) and NTUC Welcome now Fairprice to “FairPrice has kept the cost of living affordable for ordinary workers by offering basic necessities at lower, stable prices.”

For the sake of brevity, I will focus on the changes that have been happening in NTUC Income and NTUC Fairprice to show how the labour market is planned to change going forward.

NTUC is slowly but surely changing

NTUC Fairprice is changing

My mother-in-law often used to laugh that we shopped at NTUC Fairprice, stating things are often more expensive in Fairprice (that was before the new and more budget friendly supermarkets such as ShengSiong). And after getting nagged enough, we found out she was right. Instead of assuming that NTUC Fairprice would be worker friendly and price friendly, we should have checked. So, to put it simple, NTUC Fairprice is probably not (no longer?) the more budget friendly supermarket in Singapore.

A second point I would make to show how NTUC Fairprice has shifted in its approach is the self-service. I have mentioned before that I am not for business shifting costs to consumers – such as supermarkets asking customers to scan and bag their purchases themselves rather than paying professional people to help customers. However, NTUC’s self-serve has a unique approach among supermarkets in Singapore. I call it the ‘no-trust’ approach.

When you use the self-serve counter at NTUC, every item you take in your basket and every item you bag is weighed. Any discrepancy in weight is flagged and a human has to verify you are not cheating and has to override the system, allowing you to continue. Even shifting your own bag as you arrange the items you bought is likely to alarm the system. Other supermarkets do not use weight as a critical parameter. Hence my description of the system as a ‘no-trust’ system.

Singapore is a country where some people leave their wallets in public on tables to reserve their slot, but where it seems NTUC Fairprice believes supermarket items will be stolen, or maybe that’s what they think of their customers specifically.

Thirdly, apart from pricing and trust, I would like to highlight the leadership changes in NTUC Fairprice. Since April 2022, NTUC has hired a CEO who previously used to be Pizza Hut International President (5). To me this suggests a more ‘professional’ ‘profit-based’ approach, quite a far cry from the ‘basic necessities as lower stable prices’ concept. It would seem the mantle has been taken over by ShengSiong instead.(6)

You may find it odd that I highlight the change in leadership, but as you will see next, leadership changes in Singapore, or at least government influenced NTUC are not random.

NTUC Income’s change is even more obvious

As mentioned earlier, NTUC Income was created to make insurance accessible, affordable and sustainable to all in Singapore. To follow up on the idea of leadership as a guide to direction, let us look at the leadership of NTUC Income. The longest serving CEO is Mr Tan Kin Lian, from 1977 to 2007.He started as an insurance clerk, becoming an actuary, and joined NTUC Income in 1970 (6). If you look into his background (7), “throughout his 30-year term as CEO, Tan flew in economy class, even on long haul flights. This management style clashed with some of NTUC Income's board members, who preferred the company to be run on a more commercial or professional basis, and even advocated it to be privatised. The board asked Tan to step down after completing his 30-year term at the helm.“(8), you can understand he is very attached to the principles that NTUC Income embodied right from the start.

He was replaced by Mr Tan Suee Chieh, who stayed in post until 2013 when he moved to NTUC Enterprise.(9) He had run Prudential before and was also an actuary as was Mr Tan Kin Lian. He had served on the board of NTUC income since 2003 (10), the same board that had clashed with Mr Tan Kin Lian. His appointment facilitated the move of NTUC income towards more professional agents for example.

He was replaced by Mr Ken Ng, who was previously chief actuary of NTUC Income (11), who then also moved to NTUC Enterprise to make way for the current CEO, Mr Andrew Yeo who previously ran a business line, not the actuary function (12).

Mr Tan Suee Chieh wrote an open letter to the MAS (13) where he highlighted his own role in major changes that took place in NTUC Income. From 2015 to 2020, NTUC Enterprise (the group) injected capital into NTUC Income, getting shares at the co-operative’s par value of $10, while diluting the shares of other co-operatives and owners of shares in the co-operative from 70% to 30%, with NTUC Enterprise effectively controlling the fate of NTUC Income. He, himself, assured the other share owners that NTUC Enterprise would hold these shares for ever. “I was the Group CEO of NE at that time and played a significant role in assuring and persuading NTUC Income’s independent directors of NE’s commitment, that NE would not redeem its capital (NE shares would be permanent). The purpose of NE making this commitment was to safeguard the social mission of NTUC Income in the long term.”

The next major change in NTUC Income’s journey was when, under the CEO Mr Andrew Yeo, it was incorporated in 2022, no more a co-operative. According to Mr Tan Suee Chieh, he asked for assurances about the NTUC Enterprise’s (NE) commitment to hold the shares of NTUC Income as he himself promised earlier “I expressed my concerns about the corporatisation of NTUC Income (see my previous letter to MAS of 13 February 2022). I also previously quoted in that letter to MAS of 13 February 2022 from the letter sent to me by NTUC Income on 10 February 2022: “You have raised two further points in your latest letter. First, you mention the reference in our 19 January letter to NE’s majority shareholding in Newco, and ask after the permanence of this… On the first issue, NE has publicly expressed its commitment to Income. It has confirmed that, notwithstanding the corporatisation, it will continue to be the majority shareholder of Newco”

However, fast forward to 2024, NTUC Income plans to sell 51% of its shares to Allianz. You can read more about the controversy, since Allianz is not known for looking after “accessibility, affordability and sustainability” but rather profits.

You can read the reactions of Mr Tan Kin Lian (14)(15) and Mr Tan Suee Chieh (16)(17)(18), previous actuaries and NTUC Income CEOs to Allianz being asked to buy a majority stake in NTUC Income.

Whether you like the fact that Allianz will take over NTUC Income or not, you should be able to understand that this wasn’t a move done in haste. CEOs have been removed, moved to group (NTUC Enterprise level), business focused CEO appointed, corporatization, and now sale.

One thing you can never accuse Singapore of is not planning 😊

My point is that NTUC as a co-operative, with aims of a Union co-operative is losing its sheen, and a group that focuses on profits for shareholders rather than social goals is an outcome you could reasonably expect.

So, what does this mean?

Before I go there, let me highlight 2 more changes happening in Singapore in 2024.

30,000 subsidised courses

Firstly, 30,000 new courses have been added to the list of approved government subsidized courses (19), yes you read correctly, 30,000 subsidised courses are available (or will soon be) to Singaporeans to learn new things, or deepen their knowledge in their areas of interest. And yes, there are some about analytics, of varying quality of course, given the number of courses.

Unemployment benefits

Yes, you again read correctly, announced during the new PM’s national day speech, Singapore is going to provide unemployment benefits (20). This is a very different direction from what most people would have assumed Singapore is taking, given the history.

The founding father of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew stated “We are mindful of the dangers of high welfare and unemployment benefits, watching the consequences of this compassionate policy on the job seeking habits of the unemployed. Visiting the major cities of the industrial countries, I am struck by this curious phenomena of high unemployment and yet a shortage of waiters, cabdrivers, nurses and garbage collectors. Some jobs are not worth doing, as a result of welfare benefits. Whatever principles may be applicable in highly developed industrial countries, for a resource-poor country like Singapore, hard work and high performance amply rewarded, is the best way to attract capital and technology into the country to generate wealth.”(21)

Mr Lee Kuan Yew PM of Singapore even from before independence, 1959 to 1990, he was followed by Mr Goh Chok Ting from 1990 to 2004, and Mr Lee Hsieng Loong, Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s son from 2004 to 2024, and the new PM who announced the unemployment benefit is Mr Lawrence Wong who took over this year. Another change in leadership; what does this herald?

So, what does it mean???

To me, it is quite simple:

Singapore doesn’t do things randomly
As seen in NTUC Fairprice, NTUC Income, and even the Prime Ministership, changes at the top show major changes in policy direction
The concept of collective bargaining/unions is not as strong in Singapore, as shown by the leaders who run businesses even amidst the Union Enterprise
The new subsidized courses and unemployment benefit point to a new direction by the new PM
The direction is that of personal responsibility.
Forget the iron rice bowl (or even the aluminum one), you will probably be involuntarily unemployed sooner or later, and may be more than once, and the responsibility to get yourself back on track is yours.

Singapore has basically decided that the Union ship has sailed. Going forward, each individual’s career is that individual’s own responsibility. There will be no established collective organization to support ‘workers’. It will be each creature for itself, with the government providing rope ladders for those who wish to climb or change the course of their lives, and small safety nets for those who fall overboard and are stranded.

What does this mean for the middle class then?

“The middle class will be made up of self-reliant people who rely on themselves to forge and stay in the middle class”. To catch you when you fall, the government is instituting some temporary safety nets. But do not over stay your welcome, else you will not be middle class for long.

Which ideology do you favour, for you, for your parents, for your children?

In Sum

I started by saying that I understand the importance of Unions, and I still do. However, I can also see what Singapore seems to be trying to do.

If I restrict myself to my field, Analytics/Data World, I do not disagree with the concept of personal responsibility for one’s own career.

I have argued before that organisations do not really need full time data scientists (22 – wah! That was 6 years ago!) Add to this the fact that Analytics is constantly evolving, knowing where your strengths reside (23) and keeping in touch is necessary. Add to this the advent of GenAI, if your ‘analytics’ job is repetitive, be afraid, be very afraid.

To me, Singapore is actively encouraging organisations to automate, use robots(24)(25)(26), use GenAI as much as possible, with Singapore leading the world (27)

To add to this, pressure on workers residing in Singapore does not come only from technology but also from workers from outside Singapore, with the recent 2024Q2 numbers showing growth in employment driven solely by employment of non-residents: “Resident employment fell by 600 while non-resident employment grew by 12,000, with the latter accounting for all the increase in Q2.” (28) and the latest population numbers 6.04m on 730 odd sq.km (29)

Hence, to me, Singapore has cast the dice, much earlier than the rest of the world, unions are going to be something of the past, and personal responsibility with some help from the government is the way forward.

What do you think of this cast of the dice?

My view

To me, the critical piece is informational asymmetry and interesting statistics used for decision making.

I mentioned information asymmetry earlier as a reason for the importance of trade unions. Whether horizontal (role based) or vertical (industry based), unions are very well informed of the conditions their individual members are in, and by the power of collective bargaining are thus able to pressure organisations to be fairer in rewarding employees. Unions have full time employees, and some of them spend time and effort to collate real data.

Without unions, this would be very hard for individuals. Sure, there is Glassdoor to try and crowd source information, but I believe unions have an edge. Add to this, individual workers would have to develop negotiation skills, not everyone’s boat would float with the tide anymore, to each his/her own. (Plug for analytics and negotiation courses!)

Another concern is data used for decision making. In Singapore, most people eat at hawker centres or coffee shops. However, according to official data, price of food has only risen by 6.1% last year (30), I had my doubts. I am an avid local kopi-o-kosong guzzler, and have seen the price rise by much more than 10%. And I am not alone (31). Furthermore, portions are shrinking (32), therefore, the items in the basket used to calculate the consumer prices are different; is like comparing ikan bilis to garoupa (anchovies to grouper), simply bad maths (and horrible analytics).

Given the direction I believe Singapore has chosen to go, it is crucial for the government to provide clear information to bridge the information gap so workers are not exploited as per the times before unions, and do something about profiteering, may be look into oligopolistic tendencies in the market that allow prices to rise way beyond costs. Kamala Harris has described this as price gouging (33) and it is not only in the USA, my kopi-o-kosong attests to that.

1 https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article-detail?cmsuuid=189c5b78-e21f-442d-8f93-c8ee64b1b515

2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIgzqaCqTho

3 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/03/kamala-harris-joe-biden-campaign-labor-day-pittsburgh

4 https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/PAP-06-2018-002/full/html

5 https://www.ntuc.org.sg/uportal/news/FairPrice-Group-Appoints-New-Group-CEO/

6 https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/SSG%20-%20Sheng%20Siong%20adds%20all%20house%20brand%20products%20on%20Price%20Kaki%20-%201%20July%202022%20-%20Final.ashx?App=Announcement&FileID=722471

7 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/tan-kin-lian-presidential-candidate-ntuc-income-chief-3713406

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_Kin_Lian

9 https://tansueechieh.com/about/

10 https://www.income.com.sg/media/income/About-Us/Corporate-Information/Reports-Publications/Annual-Report-2006Transition.pdf

11 https://www.icmifasiaoceania.coop/wp/?page_id=2557

12 https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/banking-finance/ntuc-income-names-andrew-yeo-new-ceo