Empower Your Business with Enterprise Mobility

EntErprisE MoBilitYAn Enterprise innovation Guide

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Much of the digital excitement permeating Singapore today is concentrated around the mobile experience. However, in reality, to create that memorable user experience on a mobile device requires a significant rethink on the part of businesses as to what digital means to their customers and to the company, and developing an enterprise-wide strategy that harnesses the various technologies around us to create that won-derful mobile experience.

The good news is that today, enterprises no longer have to do it alone in their quest to build customer-centric experiences for their customers. Singapore businesses can tap on the wealth of technology and market experience, as well as capability and infrastruc-ture of service providers like StarHub to build solutions that deliver that much-desired mobile experience.

Interestingly, with technology delivered via the cloud, technology requirements are also more busi-ness-friendly. The real challenge lies in knowing where to begin.

The following articles highlight learnings and ex-periences of organizations that have taken the digital journey and harnessed the benefits of technologies to create innovative and memorable customer experi-ences.

I hope you find this Guide both enjoyable and in-formative. n

Allan TanContent Director, Enterprise Innovation

Where the journey to digital competitive advantage begins

Enterprise Mobility Guide is published by Questex Asia Ltd, 13/F, 88 Hing Fat Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Printed in Hong Kong. © 2015 Questex Media Group LCC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

03 APeJ mobility market to thrive in 2015

04 StarHub answers Smart Nation call to action with GREAT Strategy

06 Double-digit growth in worker productivity seen with mobile efforts

07 What consumers want: Multi-screen experiences, personalization, social shopping

08 Can Telcos be your end-to-end Managed Mobility partner?

10 Businesses rate mobility as top business process critical for applications

11 Asia-Pacific educators support use of mobile technology in classrooms

12 Impact of mobile on financial services

14 Innovative technologies to power Singapore’s Smart Nation vision

15 Small firms to spend more on technology than large firms in 2015

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Contents

APeJ mobility market to thrive in 2015

The APAC mobility market will continue reporting strong growth in 2015, driven by technologies includ-ing m-commerce and the Internet of Things (IoT), pre-dicts IDC, a global market intelligence firm.

The Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) market is ripe for strong mobility growth in 2015, according to IDC APAC research manager Ian Song.

“What we’re seeing now is the perfect storm of strong consumer transition to mobility for every facet of their lives, as well enterprises treating mobility as a strategic initiative. The result of which will be an in-creased rate of growth for mobile proliferation for the region in 2015.”

IDC expects the m-commerce sector to thrive in 2015, accounting for more than 50% of traffic volumes in some APeJ markets.

The company expects to see the rise of numer-ous mobile wallet offerings to compete with Apple Pay. APeJ payment models will be driven by the humble QR code, IDC said.

The research firm meanwhile believes that wear-able technologies and other IoT devices will enter the enterprise next year after gaining traction with con-sumers in 2014.

This will lead to the creation of new business mod-els that leverage basic wearables, especially fitness bands, to improve on the customer experience.

But Song cautioned that the APeJ mobility market is not without its downsides.

“The sheer diverse nature of this region will offer some unique challenges for vendors and organizations selling and adopting mobility,” he said. “These chal-lenges might be device, application or solution centric. Success in mobility in the region requires a very Asia/Pacific mindset.”

By Computerworld Hong Kong/Enterprise Innovation staff

03

04StarHub answers Smart Nation call to action with GREAT Strategy

Enterprise mobility is changing and developing so rapidly that some organizations are finding it too com-plex to grasp and even intimidating. However, organi-zations which understand the positive impact it can have on business through social, digital, mobile, the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud, have partnered with service providers to exploit mobility, achieving busi-ness objectives and sometimes even solve business issues. With the Singapore government’s implemen-tation of the Smart Nation Policy1 to enhance mobil-ity and data analytics, the proliferation of enterprise mobility will be brought to greater heights, and more corporations from small to large will have to embrace this new development to stay ahead.

Global market intelligence firm, IDC, even went as far to say “Mobility is a key aspect of the evolution of the 3rd Platform (Big Data and analytics, social, cloud,

By Enterprise Innovation editors

and mobility), and having the right strategies and tools will be paramount for success.”2

The benefits of enterprise managed mobility are numerous. Sebastian Tan, Vice President of Enterprise Services, Solutions and Delivery at StarHub, summa-rized it in one word – “GREAT”. It means Great user experience as part of a recruitment and retention strategy; Reduced cost of doing business; Enabling the mobile workforce and achieving productivity gains; Analytics-driven insights for better customer engage-ment; and Technology-driven approach to business-enablement.

“Our big data capabilities have helped customers shape their go-to-market direction. We leverage our network assets and solution partners to offer an end-to-end mobility solution that power businesses to suc-ceed with a data-driven approach to decision-making,” said Tan.

“In today’s context, IT goes beyond being a plat-form enabler helping businesses save costs. It is more of a business enabler by fusing marketing team’s product and consumer knowledge with the IT team’s technical expertise to deliver an enhanced customer experience. By knowing the available technology and merging that with customer know-how, a collaborative cross-functional team can bring about great results to a digital business,” he added.

Tan gave the example of provisioning policies that bar high data-usage applications such as video streaming applications when a user is roaming. “IT can help prevent bill shocks to unwitting users who may not be privy to the data usage charges when overseas.”

Despite all these benefits, some enterprises go-ing digital and mobile may find issues like security and data loss or big data analytics daunting. Although every industry will have its own specific challenges, Tan cites three top critical issues that enterprises must look into.

“Firstly, understanding the target audience behav-ior and preferences is important. For example, based on your target audience age-group, we can help busi-nesses identify the types of devices that the age-group is using, so as to make an informed decision on the OS

Sebastian TanVice President of Enterprise Services, Solutions and Delivery, Starhub

05that your mobile application should be developed on. Making general assumptions about your target audi-ence is wasteful on resources and counter-productive,” said Tan.

Secondly, “when designing your application, busi-nesses need to recognize that security during data transfer is important. It is not enough to secure data at rest. Data that is traveling also needs to be secured and this can be done via https encryption.”

“Last but not least, in the digital age, end-users are demanding an always-on experience. For IT, this means zero application downtime for an optimal user experience. Any downtime would translate to calls to the helpdesk, and have an eventual impact on transac-tion volume and sales.”

To deal with the rising cost of office rental in Sin-gapore, which is a major concern for many local busi-nesses, hot desking and remote working are starting to gain popularity. It helps improve productivity and maintain business agility. However, businesses also need to find a balance between enabling remote and mobile employees with application development and deployment so that real-time information is easily ac-cessible to the employees, and at the same time, have sufficient enterprise security control to maximize op-erational benefits for the business.

This is especially true for enterprises eyeing the huge potential to exploit the remote capabilities of their employees’ devices with a cloud platform. “Cloud has been a game-changer for many businesses, in-cluding the small and medium enterprises. The abil-ity to collaborate with fellow employees and access information via a cloud environment is now a reality, without the significant investments needed in a private cloud infrastructure,” said Tan.

Larger corporations are already taking advan-tage of this by investing in applications such as CRM and Customer Analytics where information can be crunched real-time and integrated with social insights via available APIs for meaningful insights and better customer engagement.

With the development of Cloud, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has become a common practice, enabling ease of operation and empowering employees to lever-age their own devices. “[Although] some have realized that to harness the true power of mobility, a common denominator is still needed, in this case the selection of devices, which will have a direct impact on the devel-opment cost of mobile applications,” Tan advised.

Recently, to resolve the issue of multiple corporate mobile applications, a term “xYOD” referring to a range

of technology options beyond BYOD, such as HYOD (Here’s Your Own Device) or CYOD (Choose Your Own Device) is adopted. According to Tan, some enterprises make use of “the CYOD approach to retain control of the range of devices being used in the corporate en-vironment and as a result, shorten the development cycle of corporate mobile applications.”

“I [also] see xYOD as a business enabler with lots of benefits. It’s a matter of choosing your mobility strat-egy, which spreads across your procurement strategy for devices, application development approach and targeted end-users, to ultimately deployment while retaining the necessary control in a secured environ-ment,” said Tan.

The bottom line is to “Define a sustainable mobil-ity strategy from migration strategy of legacy applica-tions, device strategy, development and implementa-tion of mobile applications and software, to defining how your end-user support framework is structured. This will determine whether businesses are able to successfully ride on the technological bandwagon to deliver innovative products and services,” said Tan.

For businesses looking to exploit the benefits of enterprise managed mobility, it is important to know and understand the business requirements and needs before embarking on a search for a solution provider or partner. This will keep the focus on the business’ end-deliverables, and avoid being trapped into fitting business requirements to readily available solutions offered by service providers.

Tan also stresses the importance of having a part-ner rather than vendor to help enterprises with their business requirements. The service provider should be a collaborator that understands the business’ target customers. It will then look at the appropriate business needs before looking into the business IT roadmap to develop a cost effective and purpose-built suite of so-lutions to enhance the business.

“The difference is that a partner tends to be more consultative and offers value-add rather than just of-fering you an off-the-shelf solution. If you go by the 80/20 rule, the partner needs to offer the flexibility of customizing the 20% to tailor to your business re-quirements.”

1. Many Smarties. One Smart Nation, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

2. Enterprise Mobility: Embracing the Shift to a Business-Oriented Mobility Strategy, IDC

06Double-digit growth in workerproductivity seen with mobile effortsBy Enterprise Innovation editors

Half of the organizations that implemented mobile ef-forts report a greater than 10% gain in employee pro-ductivity, according to an IBM study1.

The report, which covered 600 survey participants in 29 countries and eight industries, shows that 90% are willing to sustain or increase their investments in mobile technologies over the next 12-18 months.

Of the leaders surveyed, 73% report measurable returns on their mobile investments, while 81% say mobile has fundamentally changed how they do busi-ness.

Also, the majority of leaders (62%) focus on using mobile for enterprise model innovation – which means redefining their role in the value chain, where they col-laborate and how they operate.

“It is far too limiting to define mobility simply as a device or a channel for transactions,” said Kevin Custis, social business and mobile practices leader at IBM. “The organizations that come out ahead will be the ones that prioritize mobile and redefine its use to drive a new set of business expectations and user experiences.”

Further, the study found that only 20% of or-ganizations today believe they have a superior or leading mobile strategy compared with their industry peers, but more than double that amount (44%) anticipate their mobility strategy to surpass their peers within the next three years.

The banking industry is ahead of the curve in prioritizing mobility strategies with 51% of organizations reporting measurable ROI from their mobile initiatives, compared to 34% of their peers.

The top three mobile challenges facing organizations were found to be integrating mobile apps with existing systems (54%), implementing end-to-end mobile security solutions for devices and apps (53%), and reacting to changes in technology and mobile devices in a reasonable period of time (51%).

1 The “upwardly mobile” enterprise, IBM Insti-tute of Business Value

07What consumers want: Multi-screen experiences, personalization, social shopping

Shoppers around the world now expect omnichan-nel, multi-screen experiences from brands and retail-ers, with the average global consumer using a total of five devices when making a purchase - a significant increase from the 2.8 devices reported in 2014, a new DigitasLBi’s 2015 Connected Commerce study reveals.

The study likewise shows that in 2015, shoppers are increasingly comfortable going beyond the tra-ditional e-commerce experience to embrace mobile commerce, with 68% of Chinese respondents saying they have made a mobile purchase in the last 30 days.

Products and services that allow this new breed of connected consumer to act on impulse are also prov-ing popular. The survey shows that in-store pick-up is becoming a particular favourite of shoppers, with 51% taking advantage of ‘click and collect’ services globally.

“Customers want to save time and money while being able to choose from more ways to shop than ever before. Mobile is now the platform of choice for shoppers, with nearly 90% of those surveyed region-ally stating that using the device to compare prices has changed the way they shop,” said Roy Capon, APAC CEO of DigitasLBi.

“We also know that 56% of smartphone users would be happy to use their devices to pay in-store. With the launch of Apple Pay and the growing number of start-ups in the in-store payment arena both glob-ally and specifically in Asia, 2015 could well be the year of mobile payment,” he added.

Personalized shoppingAccording to DigitasLBi’s Connected Commerce

survey, personalizing the shopping experience is the surest way to consumer’s pocket.

Eighty-three percent of Hong Kong respondents claim they buy more and/or more often when met with personalized retail experiences. A further 27% actively look for personalized offers when shopping online and 75% log in to e-commerce websites that cater for their personal preferences based on previous behavior.

The demand for personalization goes beyond the online experience, with 86% of shoppers admitting they are more likely to embrace new in-store tech-

nologies such as GPS and WiFi tracking if they receive customized benefits in return, such as personalized money-off vouchers.

“Personalizing the shopping experience and tailor-ing it to the needs of individual shoppers is a sure-fire way to attract more customers and boost profits both online and in-store,” said Capon. “But we are just at the start of this journey. The in-store experience needs to become more agile, more digital and more connected. Retailers need to get smarter about using data in or-der to personalize the shopping experience to increase sales performance.”

StarHub’s Smart Integrated Experiences & Analytics (SIENA) platform has helped many retailers in providing Real-Time, Actionable Analytics, to help profile the target audience, before helping retailers to send contextual messages to the targeted shoppers.

The continued rise of social The study also shows that social media is influ-

encing an increasing number of purchases both on and offline. Overall, Facebook is leading the way with 67% of Hong Kong users now admitting that the social network impacts the way they shop. This compares to 62% for YouTube, 41% for Instagram, 27% for Twitter, and 60% for Weibo China. Marrying social profiling into the overall customer analytics will also provide a much richer profile of the end-customer, something which a lot of retailers in Singapore are starting to evaluate with the help of StarHub’s Customer360 platform.

Social shopping is also rapidly gaining traction, with 40% of Hong Kong and up to 51% of Chinese con-sumers claiming to have purchased an item directly via a social media platform.

The study covers a total of 17 countries and regions, up from 12 last year. Countries and regions taking part are Australia, Belgium, Mainland China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, UAE, the UK and the USA.

The 2015 survey was conducted online by IFOP from 5-25 March with a sample size of 1,000 web users per country aged 18 and over using the quota method (gender, age, income or social profile and region).

By RetailTech Innovation editors

08

Can Telcos be your end-to-end Managed Mobility partner?

Mobility needs today have evolved with increasing number of smart devices in the market. Employees today are becoming more tech savvy with many us-ing their own devices for both personal and business needs. Leading organizations know that mobility helps them drive innovation and differentiate themselves against competitors. However, many lack the in-house expertise and experience to develop an appropriate strategy that suits their needs. IT teams today are faced with highly complex environment due to multi-device and multi-OS capabilities, challenge of ensuring ease of use, scalability and distribution, mobile secu-rity and BYOD strategies.

As a result, many firms are turning to service pro-viders for advice and consultation.

Different service providers often specialize in dif-ferent elements of enterprise mobility support — from device management to cloud solutions to customer experience transformation projects. Vendors also vary in their capabilities across areas required for success in enterprise mobility services, such as mobility strat-egy, mobile application development, testing, security, and support. Types of partners today range from digi-tal agencies, multinational consultancy firms, solution

vendors and even Telcos. Each has their strengths and capabilities. The best choice for your organization de-pends on your technology needs, budget, pricing mod-el and long-term support needs.

Criteria for selecting vendors:(a) OS and device expertise. Service providers should

have a good range of expertise in specific device Operating Systems; for example, Android, iOS, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone. If your organiza-tion has a bring-your-own mobile device policy or if you’re looking to enable a consumer mobility play that is cross-device, the vendor should have the capability to implement and maintain in the long run.

(b) Breadth of services. Strength of vendors in the mobile service market varies widely, with some of-fering primarily design and development work and others focusing on device and network manage-ment services. It is important to understand your organization’s own internal strengths and evaluate if you need third-party expertise, from a single ven-dor or from a range of providers.

(c) Pricing model. Many vendors offer pricing based

By Rohan Suri, Associate Director, StarHub Enterprise Business

09

on project time, licenses and professional services. Many have fixed-fee model while some offer more innovative pricing models like lower set up and higher price focusing on actual returns. As a service provider, Telcos can provide end-to-

end device and applications management and secu-rity. Today, telecommunications providers like AT&T in the US offer the broadest range of mobility solutions, especially in categories including device and network management. Leading telecommunications options for mobile solutions also have a strong heritage in enterprise applications and consumer applications so they can deliver an end-to-end mobility solution to customers. Vodafone Global Enterprise delivers man-aged communications solutions with mobility at the core.

StarHub has been providing Enterprises with end -to-end managed mobility services since 2010. Our services go beyond providing network coverage. In-frastructure is the foundation of our business and we continuously enhance our core capabilities. We can of-fer ‘enterprise grade’ high-speed, high availability con-nectivity to support the business needs of our business customers. At the same time, we recognize increasing

business needs that extend beyond connectivity. With best-of-breed partners, secure solutions, and a sin-gle source for your mobile billing and management, StarHub can be your service provider for total, secure Enterprise Mobility.

Our end to end managed mobility services range from pre-sales, implementation to post-sales support. We provide support for installation and configuration for all major Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) software, including end user device configuration (BB, iOS, Android, Windows Phone). To enable end users to start off their mobility journey, we also provide training for administrators and end users. For post-sales sup-port, StarHub provides 24x7 support via email, phone and even on-site support. SLA reports and software maintenance (upgrade, apply patches, etc.) are also included.

Discover how Starhub’s end-to-end managed mobility solution can assist you in harnessing the power of connectivity for increased business productivity and security. Email us at enterprise@starhub.com.

10Businesses rate mobility as top business process critical for applications

More than 40% of businesses surveyed have rated mobility (apps or sites that are mobile-friendly) as their top business functionality or process that is criti-cal for applications, according to a joint study released by OutSystems, an enterprise Rapid Application Deliv-ery (RAD) provider, and TechValidate.

The study, which surveyed more than 200 IT de-cision makers globally, revealed that over half of the surveyed IT organizations plan to build between 51% - 100% of their apps with a mobile component.

Other study results include:• The dominant mobile architectures for 2015 will

be Mobile Web (60%) and Hybrid (65%), with only 26% of enterprises planning to use Native mobile architectures.

• Off-the-shelf apps are not keeping up with enter-prise needs. Despite a plethora of packaged and SaaS-based applications available, many enter-prises are finding it faster to build their own apps rather than customizing packaged ones.

• The top five enterprise applications that organiza-tions plan to build in 2015 include: process auto-mation (forms, routing); reporting and analytics; executive dashboards and scorecards; CRM; and collaboration.

• Complex backend integration with numerous sys-tems is becoming the norm. When building appli-cations, organizations are finding themselves do-ing significant integration with existing systems. Seventy-nine percent of organizations needed to integrate with at least 1-5 cloud-based applica-tions, while 66% of organizations needed to inte-grate with at least 1-5 on-premises applications. Sixty-one percent of organizations needed to inte-grate with at least 1-5 custom developed applica-tions. For many organizations, this is cumulative: it is not uncommon to see integration with up to 15 existing systems for any given application.“The survey results echo the challenges we hear

from customers: they are increasingly focused on de-livering mobile applications, they aren’t getting what they need from off-the-shelf packaged applications, and they desperately need the ability to integrate quickly and seamlessly with a wide variety of technolo-gies,” said Paulo Rosado, CEO of OutSystems.

“This confluence of challenges within enterprise application development is leading organizations to seek alternatives to dramatically simplify the delivery of applications, regardless of the underlying technol-ogy requirements.”

By SMB World Asia Editors

11

Asia-Pacific educators support use ofmobile technology in classrooms

Educators in Asia-Pacific are not reluctant to use mobile devices in the classrooms. A recent survey re-vealed that educators strongly believe that the prolif-eration of mobile devices is already having a positive impact, and influencing the way instruction is deliv-ered to students.

The study conducted by Adobe, “Transforming Education with Mobile and Digital Technology,” polled more than 1,000 educators in 13 across the region.

Seventy-seven percent of educators from Asia-Pacific felt that there was a positive overall net effect to having mobile devices strategically integrated into the teaching process.

This was however felt more strongly in Southeast Asia (85%), South Korea (85%), and Greater China (80%).

Eighty-three percent of the educators in the region felt that the accessibility of digital tools and applica-tions on mobile devices helps them better understand and improve concepts and information before includ-ing them in lesson plans for their students.

Greater number of educators in Southeast Asia (98%) and Greater China (90%) support this state-

ment.Moreover, 100% of educators in Southeast Asia,

90% in Greater China and 89% in South Korea said there is a strong need for institutions to provide the necessary facilities for students.

“The ability to visualize or integrate interactive learning experiences in the classroom via a mobile de-vice can make a huge difference in learning outcomes when engaging with today’s millennial generation,” commented Wayne Weisse, Business Manager, Educa-tion, Adobe Asia-Pacific.

However, educators also felt that more needs to be done by their institutions to provide students with ac-cess to mobile devices (89%).

Two of the barriers cited to the propagation of mobile technology in educational institutions include budget allocation (39%) and issues with integration of mobility with existing infrastructure (27%).

“The challenge now is to provide support to enable greater mobile adoption. Educators and institutions need to work together to make this shift, ensuring that students are empowered not only to consume digital content but also to be the creators of that content,” Weisse emphasized.

By Eden Estopace

12Impact of mobile on financial services

GSMA Intelligence estimates that there are currently 3.69 billion unique mobile subscribers and this num-ber is growing. The repercussion of this growth is best illustrated by a statement attributed to Wendy Clark, President of Sparkling Brands & Strategic Marketing for Coca Cola, when she said “If your plans don’t in-clude mobile, your plans are not finished.”

The above is seconded by the founder and CEO of 60secondmarketer, Jamie Turner, when he wrote “If you’re not using mobile marketing to attract new custom-ers to your business, don’t worry — your competitors are already using it and are getting those customers instead.”

Power of mobileThe tentacle of influence of mobile is near ubiq-

uitous because of the personal attachment that peo-ple have developed with their mobile devices. This is obvious particularly in retail and e-commerce where personalized engagements are rewarding marketers and businesses. Banking and financial services are not far behind.

Yoav Elgrichi, CEO of YuuPay Secure in Singapore makes it clear though that mobility is nothing new in the banking sector and that customers have been

accessing their financial data via mobile devices for more than 15 years. He blames the limited functional-ity for the limited success of mobile in the sector.

“Until recently users were only able to view data and perform basic actions. However, significant tech-nological advances in User Interfaces and User Expe-rience are enabling users to perform sophisticated financial activities conveniently from their mobile de-vice,” he adds.

Stephen Miles, CTO for Asia Pacific & Japan at CA Technologies says “you can’t really delight customers and use mobility to drive revenue until you can contin-uously improve the user experience for more and more apps across an ever-growing range of devices, all while staying compliant and secure.”

What mobile can and can’t doFai-Keung Ng, Group Country Manager for South-

east Asia at AT Internet says many in the industry see mobile as similar to other automation channels like ATMs and PCs. They thought that mobile would simply provide opportunities to optimize resources and cost efficiencies.

He does concede that banks are now seeing mo-

By Allan Tan

13

bile as a more dynamic medium and predicts that we will start to see mobile banking integrate with tradi-tional banking to create much more interesting con-sumer experiences.

The road to this mobile rich engagement is not without its challenges. Elgrichi warns that many in the industry think of mobile as complementary to the core web solutions created under a ‘one size fits all’ ap-proach.

“The on-ground reality is that consumers today use their mobile device as a complete replacement to the PC. Financial services companies must create a native mobile solution developed keeping the device and interface in mind, and not a force fit or adaption of a web application. Organizations should look at mobile as a complete holistic solution that should allow users to do everything and not just a sub-set of what a user can do on the PC,” he advises.

Ng believes the biggest misconception is around mobile being about automation and cost savings. Mobile adds unique value in the way organizations interact with their customers. “Banks in the US have started offering mobile remote deposits, allowing cus-tomers to deposit checks by snapping a picture on their phone. For such initiatives, mobile presents new dimensions of data and the presence of analytics gives the organization the ability to tailor their strategies to their customers,” said Ng.

Where to make the differenceBanks see mobile as a way to expand their mar-

ket opportunities locally as well as drive stickiness with existing customers. PT Bank Danamon Indone-sia launched its mobile banking application in mid-November 2014 and as of end of February 2015, they were able to achieve 71,000 downloads with 70% acti-vation. In contrast, when the bank launched its Internet banking service, it took the bank three years to achieve the same level of penetration that mobile banking achieved in three months.

Vincent Sutera, Senior Vice President and Alter-nate Channel Head, PT Bank Danamon Indonesia does concede that Internet banking penetration partly de-

pends on the branches selling the service. This then limits the ability of the bank to push the service to all customers nationwide.

He believes that mobile banking service is a jour-ney and as part of the process the bank has developed a roadmap of activities along the way. Payments and commerce are part of the mobile banking effort. In terms of the future, Sutera says the bank is looking at possibilities and evaluating each as part of its overall roadmap.

Insurance companies are also taking advantage of mobile to bring context into the engagement of their consumers in a way that was not previously available.

Right or wrong, we are living in a period where the customer owns the engagement switch. They can turn our marketing messages on or off based on what they feel like. Aviva in the UK has developed a mobile app that will help the company analyze the driver behavior of its customers. This in turn allows them to fine tune the premiums for the insured and also encourages drivers to be more aware of their driving.

Emma Crowe, Senior Vice President for Client Strategy at Somo, a mobile and connected solutions company, says that “The adoption rate of mobile is twice that of the internet, three times that of social media, and 10 times faster than PCs.”

Be honest, do you think you can continue to ignore mobile and still be relevant to your customers? Maybe in the short term you could but not too far into the fu-ture.

“It’s clear that the future of the financial services industry is poised to undergo a transformation and we’ll begin to see mobility become front and center to driving innovation and revenue growth for the industry in the near future,” predicts Miles.

1. Many Smarties. One Smart Nation, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

2. Enterprise Mobility: Embracing the Shift to a Business-Oriented Mobility Strategy, IDC

14Innovative technologies to power Singapore’s Smart Nation vision

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) is working on innova-tive technologies that will form the infra-structural foundation for Smart Nation. Fo-cus will be on two areas – tech innovation and business innovation.

Steve Leonard, Executive Deputy Chair-man, IDA, announced initiatives under each focus area at the Smart Nation Innovations held at Hotel Fort Canning recently. Two of these technologies include the Smart Na-tion Platform (SNP) and Heterogeneous Network (HetNet).

Launched last year, SNP has begun Phase 1 deployment. Work on critical SNP components such as the Data Centre, IP Core, AG Boxes and Data Fusion & Sense Making Platform has started. Opportunities for the industry to work with IDA on other components such as the Data Exchange would progressively be released.

One of the key objectives of the SNP is to allow public agencies to have better situational awareness, and render anticipatory responses and services to businesses and individual.

Meanwhile, IDA will be launching the HetNet tri-als at the Jurong Lake District to validate advance tel-ecommunication technologies and the capabilities of HetNet in providing pervasive, seamless high-speed Internet access. This initiative has received strong sup-port from the industry. M1, MyRepublic, Singtel and StarHub are some of the companies partnering IDA in the first phase of the HetNet trials.

HetNet is expected to bring about immediate and long term benefits for citizens such as better mobile and wireless connectivity at congested areas because of the enhanced infrastructure. Smart Nation appli-cations such as autonomous vehicles, remote health monitoring and remote learning can be made available in the future, with the help of HetNet technological in-novation and a good foundation of critical telecommu-nication infrastructure from the industry.

By eGov Innovation editors

In the area of business innovation, IDA said it is collaborating with Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) to prototype innovative technologies on Sen-tosa Island to create market validated products for commercialization.

Sentosa will provide real-business challenges to address, and local tech companies can prototype in-novative tech or solutions to solve the challenges. The projects will cover areas such as the island resort’s transportation, landscaping, safety and security ser-vices, as well as other operational areas to improve ef-ficiency and guest experience.

“For the Smart Nation vision to succeed, we need to close cooperation between government, start-ups, uni-versities, research institutes, and big companies. We need to experiment and create innovative solutions across important sectors such as healthcare, transportation, finance and logistics. We are confident we can do great things for Singapore and for others around the world as a result of the Smart Nation vision,” Leonard said.

Top priorities for new IT expenditure

Large

44% 44% 53%

Small1 to 499 employees

Priority Medium500 to 999 employees 1000+ employees

Mobile Solutions Business intelligence Risk and security

33% 36% 33%Business

intelligence Application

developmentBusiness process

improvement

33% 33% 30%Application

developmentWeb development/

servicesIT business strategy

enablement

28% 33% 28%IT vendor

management Mobile

SolutionsBusiness intelligence/

analysis

22% 31% 26%Information risk and

security; cloud adoption;virtualisation

1

2

3

4

5 Information riskand security

Customer and partnercollaboration; cloud adoption;

application development

15Small firms to spend more ontechnology than large firms in 2015

Singapore companies are planning a big boost in IT expenditure in 2015, according to a new survey by specialist recruitment firm Robert Half.

The survey of technology leaders - Chief Technology Officers and Chief Information Officers – found 59% of companies in Singapore are increasing their technology budgets in 2015, while only 12% are reducing their technology budgets.

The survey was conducted across eight countries and involved 901 respondents, 100 of which were from Singapore. The UK has the greatest number of companies increasing technology budgets (65%), followed by Australia (62%), Singapore (59%), Germany (49%), Hong Kong (49%), Switzerland (30%) and Japan (25%).

Small firms are more likely to spend more on technology than large firms. According to the survey, 67% of firms with fewer than 500 employees are boosting their technology budgets, compared to 53% of large firms with more than 1000 employees.

The increase is also expected to be substantial – with the average budget to rise by 10.4% this year. Small companies are again leading the pack with anticipated budget boosts of a healthy 13.5%, followed by mid-sized firms with a 9.8 per budget increase and large firms with a 9.4% increase.

The expenditure priorities of companies differ depending on the size of the company. Mobile solutions top the list of priorities for small firms followed by business intelligence and application development. The ability to manage their vendors ranks high as a priority for small firms, but is not a top focus for mid-sized or large companies.

Mid-sized firms have similar priorities to smaller ones, with business intelligence, application and web development, as well as mobile solutions all on the ‘to do’ list.

Large firms have a very different set of priorities. Information risk and security is paramount and clearly the most important focus for big companies. By comparison, risk and security only ranks fifth in the priority list for small and mid-sized firms.

Stella Tang, Managing Director of Robert Half

Singapore said bigger budgets also meant a boost in headcount.

“Technology jobs are among the hottest roles in Singapore right now. Technology drives so many aspects of a modern business – from sales growth through to productivity improvements. As a result, professionals with IT skills are increasingly in demand.”

“Large firms have been beefing up their security and risk teams for several years now and this remains a priority for hiring among the larger corporations in Singapore.”

“The most interesting new trend is the move by small firms to embrace mobile solutions as they look for new ways to reach their existing customers and win over new ones. These trends create opportunities for people with mobile, cloud, project management, sales and business development skills, as well as those looking to work on a contract or part-time basis,” Tang said.

By SMBWorld Asia editors

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