Singapore expects to enhance its digital competitiveness and become a global node of technology, innovation and research capabilities in Asia.

This information was released on Thursday by Singapore Minister for Communications and Information S Iswaran at IMDA’s second SG:Digital Industry Day, which aimed to support the infocomm media (ICM) sector in capturing exciting opportunities in the future of the services ecosystem as part of its Framework for Action to develop Singapore’s digital economy.

The minister announced innitiatives for the digital future of Singapore at the event, which was attended by more than 1,500 participants from the ICM industry and over 40 exhibits showed off their advanced technologies.

He introduced the Service and Digital Economy Technology Roadmap (SDE Tech Roadmap), which is the culmination of months of consultation with industry and government agencies.

“It outlines our response to help Singapore capture opportunities created by emerging technological trends,” said the minister.

“Our industries have embarked on their digitalisation journeys and are making the transition to the new normal of operating in a digital world. It’s important to develop a refreshed technology roadmap that identifies technological engines that will be key to Singapore’s development over the next three to five years.”

The service sector is a key enabler of Singapore’s economy, contributing nearly 72 per cent of the country’s GDP and up to 74 per cent of the total workforce. It encompasses a broad spectrum of enterprises, including startups and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A report from the Singapore Department of Statistics shows that the country has 220,100 businesses, 99 per cent of which, or 217,899, are SMEs. About 85 per cent of SMEs are local businesses, while 15 per cent are foreign.

Service providers have evolved from providing manual services (Service 1.0) to efficient services enabled by automation and the internet (Service 2.0), and to more productive self-service models enabled by mobile, wireless and cloud technologies (Service 3.0).

Iswaran said the next generation of service providers must be able to anticipate and empathise with the customer and take proactive, automated actions to allow the customer to seamlessly fulfill their needs on one platform.

“These are the defining features of Service 4.0 – our vision for the next generation of Singapore’s services sector that is end-to-end, seamless, empathic and anticipatory of customer needs,” he said. “The next generation of services involves emerging technologies that enable companies to innovate and better meet the changing needs of their customers.”

As emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and advanced interfaces become more accessible, services will be designed around customer needs, allowing customers to enjoy a predictive and seamless service experience.

This will also allow business to innovate and create new value quickly. Service 4.0 is a vision that puts people at the centre – harnessing technology for workers to have more fulfilling work, enabling businesses to innovate nimbly to capture opportunities in a digital marketplace and delivering a superior experience to customers.

According to IMDA’s Chief Executive Tan Kiat How, leading business-to-consumers enterprises have already started their Service 4.0 journey.

“Businesses of all sizes can benefit from the technology shifts, and IMDA’s programmes will provide support to help every business become a digital business,” said Tan.

To support companies’ participation in the Service 4.0 ecosystem, IMDA has initiated several projects including GoCloud for ICT SMEs, which enable them to unlock the benefits of cloud computing and rapid software delivery, create services that are more flexible, scalable and adaptable and significantly reduce their time to market.

Another programme, Pixel, will help ICM companies combine digital technologies, engaging content and human-centred design to build great experiences for their customers. Digital Services Laboratory brings together research communities, ICM players and end-users to engineer solutions across multiple domains from the early stages to deployment, addressing digitalisation challenges and national strategic interest areas which could benefit from faster intermediation.

Cloud Native Architecture is seen as a way to build and run apps on the cloud with flexible modular components, allowing companies to amend their apps quickly and to scale up or down as required.

Smaller enterprises, such as SMEs, can also enjoy higher revenue and cost savings by deploying solutions more quickly and readily tapping on emerging technologies.

According to a representative of tessaract.io, Cloud Native Architecture is the core of the infocomm media ecosystem and tessaract.io has pledged its support by joining the pioneer batch of the DG:Digital Cloud Community in order to promote the adoption of Cloud Native Architecture.

Cloud Native Architecture helps the company reduce its time to market and cut costs. The company has saved almost 80 per cent in costs by not having to deal with the ongoing cost of hardware setup and maintenance, allowing it to focus on its core business of software development. Substantial cost savings are then passed on to clients.

The solution has also enabled global business opportunities as users with internet can access tessaract.io’s solution from any part of the world.

IMDA leads Singapore’s digital transformation in infocomm media. To do this, IMDA will develop a dynamic digital economy and a cohesive digital society, driven by an exceptional ICM ecosystem – by developing talent, strengthening business capabilities and enhancing Singapore’s ICM infrastructure. — VNS