Banking, public sector, and healthcare segments most promising for IT services vendors

Melbourne,  29 May, 2009. According to a new report from Ovum, there will be an increased uptake of IT services in Singapore as various initiatives are launched under the intelligent nation 2015 (iN2015) plan to convert Singapore into an ‘online economy’.

The report titled “IT services in Singapore: domestic demand defies the downturn” reveals that demand for IT services in Singapore is being driven by the overarching goal of the iN2015 plan to convert processes across the public and private sectors into online services and provide seamless access and connectivity across systems and agencies, for turning the country into an online economy.

“The iN2015 plan, laid out in 2006, outlines a roadmap for the decade-long process of improving Singaporeans’ quality of life by employing technology and the highly proactive Singaporean government is directly dictating initiatives across verticals with an aim to adopt a completely online delivery model for all services by 2015. Moreover, the small size of the city-state, the advanced technology already in use, and the affinity of enterprises and government to adopt innovative technologies make the execution of initiatives much easier”, Hansa Iyengar, analyst at Ovum and author of this research report, elaborates.

Apart from the government’s initiatives under the iN2015 plan, there are several other initiatives across verticals that will offer lucrative opportunities for vendors in the medium to long term. For instance, the banking segment is overhauling its core banking systems and plans to introduce pure online banking services, which will increase the demand for networking, business continuity and security services. Similarly, IT investments in healthcare are being spurred by initiatives such as the three-year, $300 million National E-health Record System which aims at improving the quality of health outcomes as well as streamline existing health records systems across public and private sector healthcare providers.

Singapore’s penchant for innovations can also be seen in several unique technologies being trialled here. One such technology was the biometric ATM, which eliminated the need for carrying ATM cards and remembering passwords, introduced by Citibank’s Singaporean operations in 2006. However, the collapse of the bank’s payment processor was a spanner in the works for this initiative. Other innovations include TradeXchange that aims to consolidate the supply chain systems of logistics service providers with related government agencies and trade information systems; the private travel assistant (PTA) technology which provides real-time information on bus/train timings on mobile phones and PDAs; and RFID shopping carts that would reference the shopper’s position on the shop floor to provide information on the location of various items and deliver targeted advertisements through an LCD monitor mounted on the cart.

“IT services vendors in the region can look forward to demand for services such as integration, security and business continuity which will increase due to these initiatives”, added Iyengar based in Hyderabad, India. “Willingness to innovate and customise solutions plays an important role in winning business in Singapore, as there is a preference for vendors who can think ‘out of the box’”.