SMEs
2011 in Review: Sector Development
Singapore’s efforts to use ICT to drive growth in various economic sectors have been widely lauded. In 2011, it retained its second position in the latest Global Information Technology Report (GITR) , jointly published by international business school INSEAD and the World Economic Forum. The 2010-2011 report, which was released on 13 April 2011, ranks the world’s 138 most important economies according to the correlation between ICT readiness and economic growth. Singapore also topped the 2011 Waseda e-Government Ranking for the second consecutive year.
Government
For the government sector, the most significant development in 2011 was the launch of eGov2015, the next e-government masterplan which is aimed at achieving the vision of a collaborative government that co-creates and connects with the people.
Details of eGov2015 were announced at the eGov Forum, which was held on 20 June 2011 as part of eGov Global Exchange 2011. The event brought together some 910 delegates including Ministers, Ambassadors and e-government practitioners from 55 countries.
Under the new masterplan, there has been a significant move by the Government to facilitate access to publicly-available government datasets for use by the private sector. To date, more than 6,000 datasets from over 50 public agencies have been made available via data.gov.sg, the first-stop portal for discovering publicly-available government data. Another public service that has been launched in line with the new masterplan is mGov@SG, which aggregates different types of government mobile services.
The Government also hopes to widen and deepen its e-engagement efforts and experiment with new ways to tap on the wisdom and resources of netizens, for example, through crowdsourcing.
The Singapore Government is adopting a multi-pronged approach to cloud computing by leveraging on commercially-available public cloud offerings where appropriate and implementing a private government cloud called Central G-Cloud for whole-of-government use for security and governance requirements that cannot be met by public clouds. The Government’s cloud strategy is part of a wider effort under eGov2015 to catalyse whole-of-government transformation through the deployment of a next-generation infrastructure for the public sector.
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“For me, the most critical aspect of the new masterplan is its focus on culture and mindset change. Governments have to change, and governments have to open up … and collaborate and work more with non-state actors. This is a very important trend that we see today.”
- Prof Soumitra Dutta, The Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology and Academic Director eLab, INSEAD
eGov2015 builds on Singapore’s continued investments in public sector infocomm.
In FY2010, the Government awarded 647 infocomm contracts worth more than S$1.12 billion (excluding the S$850 million awarded for the Schools Standard ICT Operating Environment project). Another S$1.1 billion worth of new infocomm tenders were lined up for FY2011.
One public sector infocomm project that is currently underway is the development of a new integrated multi-agency business licensing system, which is expected to go “live” in phases, with target completion date in end-2013. The S$30-million system will integrate more than 250 different business licences from 18 government ministries and agencies, which is three times more than the number of licences available on the existing Online Business Licensing System.
Among public sector projects that are already in place, several have garnered international recognition. For example, the Land Transport Authority won the Gartner Business Intelligence Excellence Award for Asia Pacific and the CIO Asia CIO Awards for 2011 for its implementation of the Planning for Land Transport Network (PLANET) project, while the Ministry of Education won the InfoWorld/Forrester Enterprise Architecture Award 2011.
Education
In the Education sector, the FutureSchools programme was expanded with the inclusion of Nan Chiau Primary and Ngee Ann Secondary. They joined Beacon Primary, Hwa Chong Institution, Canberra Primary, Crescent Girls’, the School of Science and Technology and Jurong Secondary in efforts to pioneer infocomm innovation in education.
Financial Services
In Financial Services, a highly-anticipated development is the advent of tap-and-go payments using the mobile phone. Enabled by Near Field Communication (NFC), such transactions are set to become a reality by mid-2012, with the award of a Call-for-Collaboration (CFC) for industry players to deploy an interoperable NFC infrastructure. The CFC award, announced in October 2011, went to a consortium led by digital security provider Gemalto. The consortium and IDA will invest S$40 million to develop the interoperable and scalable NFC infrastructure, which will be among the first in the world to be deployed nation-wide with the participation of all three local telcos.
Healthcare
In healthcare, Phase One of the National Electronic Health Records (NEHR) system went live in June 2011 with the system populated with patient data in real time. The NEHR is a shared longitudinal patient record containing relevant clinical information such as problem lists, discharge summaries, medications, allergies and laboratory investigations, consolidated from encounters across the healthcare system. A progressive rollout is underway that will see all public healthcare institutions, selected community hospitals and general practitioners equipped with access to the NEHR by June 2012.
Tourism, Hospitality & Retail
For the Tourism, Hospitality & Retail sector, a Digital Concierge CFC that was awarded in 2010 has borne fruit. Under the CFC, a whole range of common enablers – from mobile site creation and ticketing to taxi booking and remote payment – is helping businesses and mobile service providers to develop services quickly and easily, thereby reducing their time-to-market.
Small & Medium Enterprises
In a boost for SME ICT adoption, iSPRINT (Increase SME Productivity with Infocomm Adoption and Transformation), the anchor initiative of the Infocomm@SME programme, received an S$85.5 million boost from the National Productivity Fund to support SMEs in their ICT implementation till March 2016. The enhancements, announced in March 2011, include support for a greater portion of qualifying project costs for first-time adopters of ICT, as well as funding for specialised technologies that will enable significant productivity gains in specific industries.
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“Last time, when we were done for the night, my dad would sit down and write out what he had sold. He would stay up till 2 am to do his accounts – counting how much money there was and checking the balance. With this new POS system, all he has to do now is to press a few buttons to generate a report that would show him how much he has sold for the day, his cash balance, how much was paid in cash and how much using credit cards. Everything is there.”
- Mr Sherman Wong, on the difference that a Point of Sale (POS) system has made to operations at Chye Lye Curry Fish Head stall. The POS implementation was subsidised under iSPRINT
To encourage SMEs and other businesses to adopt shared services, it has also been announced that cloud computing is now included under the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) Scheme. This means that costs incurred in acquiring cloud computing resources can now qualify for a tax deduction.
Besides providing SMEs with various forms of support, IDA is also aware of the importance of role models in spurring SMEs to adopt ICT. In line with this, a four-part info-educational series called Project I was broadcast on MediaCorp TV between November and December 2011. The series portrayed the transformation of different SMEs, which saw greater efficiency, costs and time savings and better business performance after the use of infocomm.
Community
As part of its efforts to bridge the digital divide, IDA has continued to reach out to groups such as senior citizens to increase their awareness of the benefits of ICT and to provide them with access to ICT resources and training.
A total of three new Silver Infocomm Junctions (SIJs) were opened in 2011. The SIJs are senior-friendly and conveniently located IT learning hubs that offer affordable infocomm training based on customised curriculum for senior citizens. The three new centres are located at Anchorvale Community Club, Eunos Community Club and Zhenghua Community Club, and they bring to 12 the total number of SIJs set up under IDA’s S$4.2 million Silver Infocomm Initiative.
The annual Silver Infocomm Day has also grown in scale. This year, more than 5,000 senior citizens took part in the event, which was held at three venues – Nanyang Polytechnic, ITE College West and Singapore Polytechnic – to facilitate access to activities. The Silver Infocomm Day programme, which took place over 10 event days, comprised a seminar, site visits, hands-on workshops and an exhibition.
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“It is important for senior citizens to embrace IT so that they can communicate with their friends and family, and bond with them. I picked up IT when I was 62 years old. I was curious then, so I “Googled” a lot. All along I was self-taught. Now I’m running the Silver Infocomm Hotspot at the Residents’ Committee Centre, and I’m conducting classes for senior citizens at the hotspot.”
- Mr Roland Ng, 68. Active Agers Infocomm Champion 2011
In a separate initiative, a Social Media Immersion Programme was organised for volunteer welfare and non-profit organisations under IDA’s People Sector Programme. This endeavour aims to increase the awareness and adoption of infocomm and to raise the level of sophistication with respect to its use by the adult population in Singapore. Support was also provided to these organisations to develop community apps and online services.