How Singapore revamped government-business engagement with SaaS

Businesses in Singapore reach out to the government for many reasons, such as enquiring about getting relevant information or applying for government grants and incentives.  Sometimes, navigating through the process is not easy and it can be complex for multiple agencies to collaborate and provide the timely support needed.

“We observed that businesses, particularly SMEs, often face challenges navigating the complex and diverse government ecosystem. The aim was to streamline these interactions and make it more efficient, responsive, and user-friendly,” says Sharon Ng, MF Chief Information Officer at MTI.

Moving to an innovative 'Tell Me Once' approach

Now, BizEngage, an integrated engagement platform, is smoothening these processes. A result of adopting the Salesforce Customer 360 for Public Sector, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) has revamped the way in which agencies engage with businesses and achieved an estimated cost savings in excess of SGD11 million over the next five years.
 

Central to BizEngage's philosophy is its 'tell me once' approach – businesses only need to provide information once to the Government.  This strategy has successfully eliminated repetitive information exchanges, thereby improving data accuracy and communication across agencies while reducing unnecessary administrative burdens.

GovInsider speaks to Sharon Ng about why agencies are adopting BizEngage to deliver better digital experiences and services and how the platform is revamping business engagement for government agencies.

Expanding impact across government

The standout feature of BizEngage? Its flexibility and scalability make it valuable not just to MTI Ministry family agencies but across the broader government landscape. The platform has found adoption beyond MTI, with key agencies like the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) leveraging its capabilities.

“There are clear productivity gains from [BizEngage]. We have eliminated the need for data entry for name cards, and reduced the time taken to create and complete call reports,” says Andy Hue, Senior Deputy Director (Transformation Office) at MPA. He adds that eliminating data entry of name cards was well received by MPA’s officers, and most new contact records today come from scanned cards.

“BizEngage has also allowed us to improve the meeting preparation process. The engagement notes for specific customers are all captured and reflected in a single view, allowing us to prepare those meeting briefs efficiently without the need for callout to colleagues who might have interacted with the same customer.”

BizEngage enables the authority to effectively monitor and address the diverse needs of the maritime industry—a crucial sector for Singapore's economy. With BizEngage already live, MPA benefits from the platform's established infrastructure, enabling it to provide efficient industry support while saving time.

“At a macro level, it has also allowed us a clearer big picture view of who we are engaging, the pulse on the ground, and what else needs to change,” says Hue.

 "BizEngage as a platform has garnered attention for its effectiveness and innovative approach to support diverse agencies’ business needs.

“This prompted many agencies across the government to explore how they could harness its capabilities, a testament to Sharon Ng's leadership and her team's success," says Ng Seng Ping, Regional Vice President of the ASEAN Public Sector at Salesforce, highlighting the platform's recognition within the government sector.

A model for future innovations

What sets BizEngage apart is its collaborative innovation ecosystem. Agencies like MPA and the Singapore Tourism Board can develop new capabilities and innovate to cater for agencies’ diverse requirement such as advanced marketing tools.

These new capabilities can then become integrated into the platform's comprehensive suite. This open model encourages all participating agencies to contribute new capabilities and share in its collective advancement.

"BizEngage is designed as a collaborative platform where every contribution enriches the overall capabilities it can enable, allowing us to continually evolve and enhance our service offerings across the government,” says Sharon.

Hue shares that MPA has made reconfigurations of the UI/UX in areas like call reports and dashboards to enable greater intuitiveness and enhance the experience of collaboration and insights sharing.

Since its implementation, BizEngage has helped agencies have an estimated 31 per cent increase in productivity and a 75 per cent enhancement in case search and retrieval capabilities – faciliting smoother operations and fostering inter-agency collaboration.

As it is designed and built on a multi-tenant architecture on Salesforce, the platform enables individual agencies to jumpstart its SaaS adoption and to innovate to cater for diverse business workflows and requirements.

“We initially thought that heavy customisation would be required if we were to onboard. Through a thorough review of our processes, diving into our officers’ user journeys and policies, we realised that actually most of our needs could be met via configurations rather than customisations,” says Hue.  As a result, the agency was able to deliver BizEngage to its officers within 90 days.

BizEngage has not only streamlined Government to Business (G2B) interactions but also created a conducive environment for perpetual innovation within the public sector.

"BizEngage stands as a milestone in enhancing the interaction between businesses and the government. it propels us toward a more streamlined, responsive, and user-centric model,” says Sharon.