The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) is earmarking S$21 million to increase adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS) among small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in Singapore.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Infocomm Media Business Exchange today, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts, said the IDA will issue a call for collaboration (CFC) to develop “high-impact” industry-specific SaaS products.
The IDA is also roping in partners including Spring Singapore, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, Ministry of Education and NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute in the CFC.
Through SaaS, SMBs can lower their IT expenditures by taking advantage of pay-per-use pricing models for software hosted by service providers in the Asia-Pacific SaaS market that is set to rake in US$1.7 billion in 2015. Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea are the leading SaaS adopters in the region.
Going by IDA’s list of potential applications, the SaaS apps to be developed through the CFC are highly localised. For example, those developed for the cleaning industry should include restroom utilisation monitoring, as well as rating and feedback tools.
For the real estate industry, the shortlisted consortia must work with the Institute of Estate Agents, Singapore Accredited Estate Agencies and Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers to refine project details and to encourage adoption among real estate agencies.
In all, the proposals submitted for the CFC should increase productivity of SMBs, improve customer engagement, or develop new lines of businesses or alternative business models. For more details, check out IDA’s website here
