Singapore’s digital economy generated a value-add of $106 billion in 2022, contributing to 17% of the country’s nominal GDP.
To drive further growth, the city-state has launched a Digital Enterprise Blueprint (DEB) to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) accelerate their digital transformation. At least 50,000 SMEs are expected to benefit from the DEB over the next five years.
"We’re building on a foundation of the different schemes [for SMEs] that were put in place over the years like SMEs Go Digital, chief technology officer as-a-service (CTOaaS), and chief information officer as-a-service (CISOaaS) programmes. [The DEB will encourage the] next round of digitalisation and we expect it to benefit about 50,000 SMEs," says Tan Kiat How, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), during DEB's launch at the ATxEnterprise event earlier today.
Four focus areas
Tan shares that DEB will support SMEs and workers in four areas. They are:
- Empowering enterprises to be smarter. It will look to drive the adoption of emerging technologies, especially AI-enabled solutions, to enable SMEs to improve their productivity and innovate.
“We’re providing support [so that SMEs can adopt AI] without having to go through the technical complexity. [This is by providing] pre-approved solutions under SME Go Digital, which we expect 15,000 SMES to benefit from this in the next two years. We will also pair SMEs up with tech leaders to support the Gen AI x Digital Leaders programme by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA),” says Tan.
- Enabling enterprises to scale faster by helping accelerate SMEs’ adoption of cloud-based and integrated digital solutions.
“[To help with that, we will offer] more integrated solutions within the pre-approved solutions to ensure interoperability. In the absence of such solutions, we will capitalise on the Advanced Digital Solutions scheme to [solve sector-wide problems and create integrated digital solutions,” states Tan.
- Equipping enterprises to be safer by improving SMEs’ cyber resilience and strengthen trust in the digital ecosystem.
Tan shares that a recent survey found that the level of cyber hygiene among SMEs in Singapore is low due to high cost of cybersecurity solutions and their lack of know-hows. As such, Singapore will look at supporting SMEs to confidently invest and deploy cybersecurity solutions as well as uplift cyber security standards for every sector.
- Supporting enterprises to upskill workers as well as encourage SMEs to adopt inclusive, skills-based hiring practices.
See also: Alibaba anoints new chief in revamp of stalling commerce arm
