Accelerate the growth of new digital capabilities and scale digital innovation for enterprises and workers.
COVID-19 has reinforced the imperative for businesses and workers to seize digital opportunities for growth and be digitally ready. As Singapore positions itself to emerge stronger, transforming our economy through digitalisation and innovation will continue to be a priority for the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) in 2021.
Singapore will focus its efforts to accelerate the growth of new digital capabilities and scale digital innovation for enterprises and workers to emerge stronger through these four key thrusts:
- Scale broad-based digitalisation by providing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access to relevant digitalisation resources and advisory
- Develop Digital Leaders by building a local core of enterprises which are digital leaders that can compete regionally and globally
- Catalyse new products and business models by scaling and speeding up digital innovation to solve business challenges
- Help businesses to remain competitive through the responsible use of data by providing tools and guidance
Last week the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) introduced new Chief Technology Officer-as-a-Service (CTOaaS) initiative under the SMEs Go Digital program. CTOaaS will help SMEs identify and utilise digitalisation resources based on their business needs.
IMDA also plans to initiate the Digital Leaders Program (DLP), developed jointly by IMDA and Enterprise Singapore (ESG), seeks to help promising local companies across all industries to accelerate their digital transformation journey.
The program will help companies who are ready to integrate digital technology into their core business strategy to develop new digital capabilities, so that they can develop new business models and capture new growth opportunities.
To be eligible for this program, companies should already have some level of digital maturity. They will be invited to participate in a two-year pilot with support for up to 70 per cent of the qualifying cost in three areas:
- Build an in-house core digital team. Companies will receive funding support to hire a core Digital Team to help them enhance their business model through digitalisation.
- The team will comprise a senior digital leadership role (e.g. Chief Technology Officer/ Chief Digital Officer), as well as a team of up to five digital talents (e.g. enterprise architects) to execute digital initiatives for the organisation
- Chart a digital roadmap. Engage consultancy services to develop digital roadmaps which will guide key action plans and implementation of digital projects
- Develop Proof of Concepts for new markets/ customer segments. Development of new digital products and services to create new revenue streams.
