Singapore’s infocomm industry posted its strongest growth in five years to reach S$83 billion in 2011. This represented an 18 per cent increase over the revenue for 2010. More significantly, the proportion attributed to exports grew from 66 per cent to 71 per cent or S$59 billion, close to the iN.2015 goal to achieve S$60 billion in infocomm export revenue by 2015. ( Read )

Enterprise programmes
IDA continued to build on these developments in 2012 and strengthen Singapore’s capabilities in strategic areas. Under its Shared IT Services Programme, IDA supported several multinational corporations in setting up their strategic IT functions in Singapore. An example was the opening of IBM’s new US$50 million Client Centre in September. The facility was the first of a new generation of centres aimed at creating a virtual, immersive environment where IBM could interact with its clients, regardless of geographical location. ( Read )

IDA also widened the scope of its AMPlify programme to include co-innovation platforms with global lead users and to reach out to fresh graduates and students in institutes of higher learning. New technology partners HTC, IBM, Motorola, Samsung and SAP also came on board the programme.  The announcements were made at the Smart Mobility@SG conference, which was organised by IDA in June. ( Read )

Another area where IDA focused its capability development efforts was in data and analytics. In May, IDA awarded a Call for Collaboration (CFC) for Sectoral Business Analytics Shared Services to three service providers – Manthan Systems, CyanSYS and PracBiz - to provide analytics services for the retail and wholesale sectors. The initiative was aimed at helping businesses to lower the cost of adopting business analytics, shorten the implementation time and make analytics services available on demand.  The CFC award was announced at IDA’s first Business Analytics Seminar & Exhibition which was held at the Raffles City Convention Centre. (Read Deploying business analytics shared services and Discussing the analytics opportunity )

“In the retail and distribution sector, business analytics will help the companies to develop insights into business trends which, in turn, will allow for better planning and optimisation of their resources. This is particularly important in an industry where the profit margin is very thin and success lies in the execution of high transaction volumes.”

- Mr Neo Teck Hoe, Managing Director of PracBiz, which is implementing a business analytics platform for apparel distribution house YG Marketing

IDA also continued to encourage multinational corporations to set up innovation centres in Singapore to help establish platforms and enablers for the data and analytics ecosystem. An example was the opening of the High Performance Analytics Centre of Innovation by business analytics software and services company SAS in July. ( Read )

Another initiative was the setting up of a Business Analytics Translational Centre in collaboration with the Agency of Science, Technology and Resesarch (A*STAR), to help translate advances in business analytics research and development into new products and services and advance business analytics as a growth area in Singapore’s infocomm technology sector. ( Read )

Consumer infocomm
In the consumer infocomm space, one of the biggest events in the digital media and entertainment industry took place in May when more than 1,200 delegates from close to 400 companies across 30 countries attended Digital and Music Matters 2012. ( Read )

The world’s first global digital platform for compiling social entertainment charts, starcount by All The Worlds Entertainment and its subsidiary Digitales, was also launched in Singapore in May. Starcount aggregates public information from the top 11 global social networks aims to provide the definitive measure of social media popularity for fans, talent, media and brands. ( Read )

Meanwhile, IDA continued to encourage companies in the digital media space to use Singapore as a base for growing their business in the region. Among the companies which did so was Video DNA (VDNA) fingerprinting technology company Vobile, which set up its regional headquarters here. This enabled content owners and publishers in the region to access Vobile’s content tracking, protection and identification solutions. ( Read )

Infocomm Start-ups
IDA continued to adopt a multi-pronged approach to assist, facilitate and nurture Singapore's ICT start-ups through its iSTART initiative. For example, with support from the grant scheme, local company Docunetix was able to accelerate technology commercialisation and transform its flagship enterprise content management into a service offering available on the cloud ( Read ). IDA also co-funded manpower costs for enterprise security company Sierra Solutions, which was looking to integrate an iris scanning system with popular enterprise solutions such as SAP and Oracle. ( Read )

Another programme that provided support to start-ups was the Technology Enterprise Commercialisation Scheme (TECS) administered by SPRING Singapore and IDA. For example, the company XYZ Wave was awarded the TECS "Proof-of-Value" grant  to develop motion sensing solutions for the “out of home” market. ( Read )

Another company, 2012 National Infocomm Award winner iTwin, also received support under TECS to develop Mac OS X support for its secure remote access product. ( Read )

“iTwin is a technology company focused on security. TECS was a huge help to us in getting off the ground and made a substantial difference to us as a young start-up. Our flagship product is iTwin, which provides secure, remote file access between any two computers on the Internet. In 2012, we expanded into new channels and launched iTwin SecureBox, a major upgrade that secures the files one puts on cloud storage. Another highlight of the year was winning the National Infocomm Award (NIA). The NIA was a profile-booster and we are thrilled that iTwin's innovation was recognised by IDA. It creates more credibility for the company and the product.”

- Mr Kal Takru, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of iTwin

IDA also lent its support to several start-up networking events in Singapore. It paved the way for the successful Asian debut of DEMO, a leading Silicon Valley event for start-ups and innovators, which was held here in February ( Read ). The three-day event drew more than 70 participants from across the region. IDA also supported another tech start-up event Echelon, which attracted a total of 3,000 participants in six satellite events in Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam. ( Read )

Go International
As Singapore’s infocomm companies grew, IDA provided them with support in venturing overseas to explore new opportunities and grow their market presence in the international arena. Global Market Forums were organised in February ( Read ) and June ( Read ) to provide local infocomm companies and entrepreneurs with insights into markets such as China, India, the Middle East and the United States.

National Infocomm Awards
IDA also helped identify role models of the Singapore infocommm industry through platforms such as the National Infocomm Awards. This year, the Most Innovative Infocomm Product/Service award category was won by iTwin and Puffersoft Labs. Other winners for the 2012 National Infocomm Awards included KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Singapore Prison Service for the Most Innovative Use of Infocomm Technology, Public Sector; Changi Airport Group and Citi Innovation Lab Singapore for Most Innovative Use of Infocomm Technology, Private Sector (General); and aSpecial Media for Most Innovative Use of Infocomm Technology, Private Sector (SME). ( Read )

Infocomm Productivity
Meanwhile, the productivity of the infocomm industry came under scrutiny in 2012, with the Government announcing plans to set aside S$46 million over the next five years to execute Singapore's Infocomm Industry Productivity Roadmap. The aim was to boost productivity in the software development, system integration and IT consultancy sub-segments of the infocomm industry, where labour productivity has been found to be lower than the national average. ( Read )

In line with this, the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation launched a Productivity & Productisation Programme Office with support from IDA to provide advisory and business matching services, offer cost-effective shared resources, and conduct workshops to help local ICT enterprises transit towards more productive business models.

Infocomm Workforce
To address talent and manpower issues in the ICT sector, significant progress was made in several programmes under the Infocomm Manpower Development Roadmap v2.0. The National University of Singapore’s School of Computing was appointed the first lead training provider for the healthcare industry under the Hybrid Skills Development Programme, which sought to equip infocomm professionals with in-depth industry domain knowledge and infocomm skills to help enterprises in various economic sectors leverage on infocomm for business growth. ( Read )

A new Company-Led Training (CLT) programme was also initiated by IDA to allow fresh infocomm graduates to fast track to specialist jobs. It involved collaborating with selected industry partners to recruit, mentor and train fresh professionals in fast-growing technology areas such as mobile application development and business analytics. Organisations that came on board as CLT partners in 2012 included IBM, SAS and Standard Chartered Bank. ( Read )

"It is quintessential that our customers and partners have the resources to champion their business analytics projects in order to stay ahead of their business. With SAS' strong track record of collaboration with institutes of higher learning and with our customers and partners, IDA’s Company-Led Training programme was a logical vehicle for us to co-invest in business analytics talent development. Our first batch of infocomm professionals completed their SAS training and are now working with SAS customers and partners. The majority were offered permanent positions within their assigned organisations even before the completion of the programme."

- Ms Tan Poh Choo, Practice Director, SAS Singapore

IDA also announced new Centres of Attachment in partnership with EMC and Microsoft, to provide experiential training to senior infocomm professionals through short-term project work and mentorship. This came under the Infocomm Leadership and Development Programme Expanded (iLEAD Expanded), under which IDA partners key industry players to grow and develop infocomm leaders in niche technology areas. ( Read )