Here's another reason to cheer when doing business with the government

A $1.2 billion worth of e-services and the like are coming your way soon.

The Singapore Government plans to call S$1.2 billion worth of new infocomm tenders in the Financial Year (FY) 2012. In FY2011, the Government awarded 638 infocomm contracts worth more than S$1.12 billion. This was revealed by Mr James Kang, Assistant Chief Executive, Government Chief Information Office of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), at the Industry Briefing 2012 on Business Opportunities for Infocomm in the Public Sector.

The Government’s continual infocomm investment in the public sector will help to enhance operational efficiency and productivity within the public sector and improve public service delivery to citizens and businesses. For the infocomm industry, this presents business opportunities to provide innovative solutions and services to the public sector. The opportunities are in areas like learning management system, data analytics, e-services and portals, and business process management. 

In encouraging co-creation with the infocomm industry, the Government will be piloting a process to acquire innovative ICT solutions. Known as Call-for-Solution, the process calls for proposed ICT solutions with working prototypes for evaluation by IDA and participating agencies. Contracts will be awarded to selected proposals for pilots and implementation. This process will allow government agencies to collaborate more closely with the infocomm industry on ICT innovation.

To encourage and catalyse the development of applications using government data, there will be a “Harnessing Data for Value Creation” Call-for-Collaboration (CFC) inviting the industry to create value with government data. Businesses can use the data to develop impactful solutions to enhance productivity, aid in analysis and planning or create new business value. 

The CFC is a multi-agency effort led by IDA and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in collaboration with other government agencies such as the Department of Statistics (DOS), Energy Market Authority (EMA), Health Promotion Board (HPB), Land Transport Authority (LTA), National Environment Agency (NEA), National Library Board (NLB), National Parks Board (NPARKS) and Singapore Land Authority (SLA).

Mr Kang also said that the Government will be looking for innovative infocomm solutions for other projects. One such project is the Workplace of the Future that aims to transform the public sector workplace and capabilities, with a view to improve productivity and empower public officers to proactively share knowledge, work smarter and faster together, across agencies for better service delivery. 

Another project is the Government Cloud, G-Cloud, where the Government plans to have the G-Cloud Infrastructure as a Service ready by end of 2012 to provide efficient, scalable and resilient cloud computing resources designed for Government requirements of performance, governance and security. IDA will be seeking to enrich the G-Cloud with various Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Similarly, for the Social Service Sector ICT MasterPlan jointly undertaken by IDA, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) and the National Council of Social Service (NCSS), there will be key projects such as demand aggregation of common ICT packages for VWOs; development of an ICT Blueprint to achieve holistic view of clients, and implementation of systems/services for integrated service delivery; and enhanced mobility for social service personnel to access data on the move; and improvement of information management within the sector. 

More Infocomm Projects in FY2012

Among the public sector infocomm tender projects are those from the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), Central Provident Fund Board (CPFB) and Ministry of Manpower (MOM). MINDEF’s key projects are aimed at enhancing its operational effectiveness through the development of corporate IT systems. These projects include the continued roll-out of LEARNet progressively over the next five years to some 80 other units. Substantial investments will be made in content development and infrastructure for servicemen to access learning resources through portable devices. Separately, the Access Control for Enterprise Systems will be developed to enhance the management of access control.

One of CPFB’s key projects is the re-development of the Member & Employer Systems which aims to improve the Board’s business agility and enhance operational efficiency through streamlining of business processes. With this project, CPFB will be able to meet the needs of the Singapore government to use the CPF Systems to implement policy initiatives and new schemes to meet national interest and achieve CPFB’s mission. CPFB is also revamping the CPF website and eServices to enhance customer service experience and streamline business processes. In addition to these 2 projects, CPFB is also developing an integrated enterprise data warehouse system that will help to improve data governance and management, thereby enabling the Board to strengthen its strategic and business analysis.

MOM shared its 3-year plan to integrate, simplify and enrich its online digital experience. MOM will also be implementing two key projects, namely the Work Pass Integrated System (WINS) and a business analytics platform (INSIGHTS@MOM). The WINS aims to deliver an enhanced digital experience for online work pass services as well as enable effective, efficient work pass processing and operations. The INSIGHTS@MOM is MOM’s next generation business analytics system that will enable MOM to gain insights into data to enhance MOM’s decisions and operations. In the presentation, MOM also shared plans to acquire a resource management system to support effective resource planning and allocation for its operations; a computerised examination system to support its various certification process as well as to establish framework agreements to develop business and mobile applications.