Singapore SaaS project bears first fruits
Singapore's ICT regulator the Infocomms Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has greenlighted 13 projects targeting six sectors to provide them with sector-specific software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools to help local small and midsize businesses (SMBs) increase productivity.
In a statement issued Thursday, Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore's minister for communications and information (MCI), said since the IDA issued a call-for-collaboration (CFC) in June 2012 for SaaS-based proposals, a total of 84 were received. The 13 proposals approved will offer tools for six sectors, namely early childhood, real estate, food and beverage (F&B), travel, private education and retail, he added.
Other projects catering to sectors such as construction, logistics, professional services and other services will progressively be awarded by the second quarter of 2013, the minister noted.
Ibrahim said: "In total, this multi-agency collaborative effort is expected to support over 600 companies, mostly SMBs, in subscribing to sector-specific SaaS solutions. Through mass adoption, user companies will see significant increase in productivity through the reduction of man-hours required and more streamlined business processes."
He noted in the real estate sector, for instance, the SaaS implementations will help companies to increase operational efficiency and provide mobility tools for sales agents. These will support more than 80 companies in the sector, and help them save up to 20 percent in administrative and processing time each year, he said.
The government had set aside S$21 million (US$16.5 million) for the SaaS CFC in June last year, and IDA steered the project in partnership with other agencies such as Spring Singapore, e2i, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports, now renamed as Ministry of Social and Family Development.