S. Iswaran, the Minister for Communications and Information, said at SG:Digital Industry Day in Singapore that the country plans to provide Services 4.0 as the future of services as part of a framework to develop the digital economy.

He said that Services 4.0 was identified through the Service and Digital Economy Technology Roadmap (SDE TRM) as a potential engine of growth for Singapore’s digital economy. The services industry accounts for 72 per cent of Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 74 per cent of national employment.

The technology roadmap was put together in consultation with local and international business leaders and technology experts, and provides a scan of digital technology landscape in the next three to five years, identifying the impact of key shifts and technology trends.

The Services 4.0 scheme envisions Singapore delivering next-generation services that are “end-to-end, frictionless, empathic and anticipatory to support customer needs”.

Iswaran said the scheme will be designed around customers’ needs, allowing customers to enjoy an improvement in services experiences, offered predictively and seamlessly.

 “The next generation of service providers must be able to anticipate and empathise with the customers, and take proactive, automated actions to enable the customers to seamless fulfil their needs in the one platform,” said Iswaran.

“The next generation of services are emerging technologies that enable companies to innovate and provide services that better meet the changing needs of heir customers. Meanwhile, SMEs can also enjoy higher revenue and cost savings by deploying solutions more quickly and readily tapping on emerging technologies.”

He said that to drive small and medium-sized enterprises to shift their businesses into the digital economy, the government has developed the GoCloud initiative that provides ICT for SMEs with funding support and expert coaches to help them learn about the benefits of Cloud Native Architecture. They can develop Cloud Native applications with expert coaches or consultants. GoCloud will be rolled out in early 2019.

The Department of Statistics Singapore reported the country has around 218,000 SMEs, with 85 per cent of them being local enterprises.

Tan Kiat How, chief executive officer of Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), said that with the Services 4.0 scheme, the IMDA aims to enable every business to transform itself into a digital business.

To drive the Services 4.0, the IMDA has a strategy to accelerate digitalisation of existing sectors so that every business can be a digital business, to grow Singapore’s competitiveness by fostering new ecosystems enabled by digital technology and to develop the next generation digital industry as an engine of growth. Emerging technology will enable service providers to provide more human-centric services.

IMDA is amplifying these benefits and making them accessible to many more companies in two ways. First, by enabling ICM solution providers to deliver more cost-effective, agile, and scalable solutions that are premised on Cloud Native Architecture. Second, by better matching companies and their problem statements with solutions providers by piloting a two-year programme, the Digital Services Lab, to bring together industry and research partners to solve sector-specific digitalisation challenges.

He said the tech roadmap outlines nine technology trends that will impact the digital economy in the next three to five years. Among them is the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). This technology will become sophisticated, with more context and common sense awareness, and with more empathetic and affective behaviour.

Third is man-machine interactions and collaborations, which will rapidly expand in many new ways and technology interfaces are getting more natural. Fifth is more deployment of cordless development tools, digital platforms and everything-as-a-service architecture to enable seamless services. Seventh is cloud deployment matures with hybrid and multi-cloud, blockchain helps to decentralise trust and enable the API economy to take off.

“Services 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 superior experience to customers,” Tan said.

“Leading business-to-consumer enterprises have already started their Services 4.0 journeys. Businesses of all sizes can benefit from the new technology shifts, and IMDA’s programmes will provide the support to help every business become a digital business.”

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Moreover, he added that ASEAN’s digital integration can bring US$1 trillion uplift in GDP by 2025, e-commerce market in South East Asia (SEA) has doubled in value from previous year and will exceed US$100 billion gross merchandise volume (GMV) by 2025 and SEA tech companies alone have raised US$24 billion venture capital (VC) funding since 2015.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/Economy/30359107