Mr S Iswaran at the GET-Up 10th Anniversary Event & SME Day 2013

SPEECH BY MR S ISWARAN, MINISTER IN PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE AND SECOND MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS AND TRADE & INDUSTRY AT GET-UP 10TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT & SME DAY 2013, 14 MAY 2013, 10AM, COMPASS BALLROOM, RESORTS WORLD SENTOSA 

Chairman of A*STAR Mr Lim Chuan Poh,

A*STAR Managing Director, Prof Raj Thampuran,

Friends and colleagues from the various MTI agencies,

Partners from the SME and industry sector

1.    A very good morning to all of you. I am very pleased to join you to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the GET-Up programme, which, as you have seen, is a very important platform for A*STAR to share its capabilities with our SME sector. Over the past decade, GET-Up, as a landmark programme, has made significant strides in raising the technological capabilities of our SMEs, and has helped to enhance their competitiveness and productivity. There are many examples of this, but the key point is that this effort takes on a specially added significance because of our current context, where we are embarking on a major economic transformation to achieve growth underpinned by innovation and productivity.

2.    So I want to start by congratulating the over 400 SMEs, who have benefitted from the GET-Up programme since 2003 through the sharing of technologies and know-how. I want to state categorically that the Government remains firmly committed to continue supporting and partnering many more of our SMEs as they embark on their transformation journeys.

SMEs are a key part of the economy

3.    SMEs are a core part of our economy – they account for 99 percent of our companies, employ 70 percent of our workforce, and contribute nearly half of our GDP. So by any metric, it’s an important sector, and the sector that we want to continue to strengthen as part of our growth strategy. SMEs also help to broaden and deepen our capabilities, by playing an important role in enhancing our economy’s resilience. From catalysing new growth areas through entrepreneurship, and also by complementing large enterprises in our economic clusters in the entire manufacturing value chain, SMEs are key to the growth of our industry sectors – current and new areas

Today’s business climate requires SMEs to leverage on technology and innovation to enhance their competitiveness

4.    In the near term, our SMEs will operate in a challenging business climate. You are business people; you are aware of this. Externally, global economic conditions will continue to be uncertain. Domestically, our labour and land constraints will become more challenging. Cutting costs and optimising processes for higher efficiency is necessary, but it can take our companies only so far. More than ever, it is important that SMEs leverage on technology and innovation to raise their competitiveness and productivity, and ultimately improve your top-line and bottom-line growth.

5.    Hoestar PD Technology Pte Ltd is an example of an SME that has successfully done so. In 2010, scientists from A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) were seconded to Hoestar to work on a monitoring system for machine health. Hoestar subsequently collaborated with the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) on a wireless sensor system that remotely monitors machine health and automatically detects impending breakdowns, saving both time and labour compared to manual inspections. The technology has enabled Hoestar to successfully diversify from an engineering services provider into the equipment inspection market, increasing its value proposition to its clients, which include companies like ExxonMobil, ST Aerospace and GSK. In 2012, Hoestar’s revenue grew by 30 percent as a result of these collaborations. It expects to grow its revenue by another 30 percent this year as the company embarks on its overseas expansion.

6.    Hoestar’s success stems from its fruitful collaborations with public sector research agencies, and it demonstrates how our public sector R&D capabilities can be transferred to SMEs to help them thrive.

The Government will continue to support SMEs in upgrading their capabilities to meet new business realities

GET-Up’s successful transfer of technological capabilities to SMEs

7.    In the last 10 years, A*STAR’s GET-Up programme has helped SMEs upgrade their technological capabilities and respond better to the challenges and opportunities in the local and global marketplace. A*STAR has deployed 141 technical advisers to help companies with in-depth technical advice to meet their business needs. It also helped 164 SMEs to map their R&D and business strategies, and seconded 400 research scientists and engineers (RSEs) to 240 SMEs to undertake R&D projects that upgraded operations and developed new products. In particular, T-Up, which seconds RSEs to companies, has proven instrumental in helping our SMEs leverage on R&D for growth in the face of manpower and talent constraints. Between 2009 and 2012, 79 percent of the SMEs that participated in the T-Up scheme reported that they had launched at least one innovative product, while around half launched two or more new products. This is key because it adds a new growth engine for the business.

T-Up Excellence Awards

8.    So let me take this opportunity to congratulate this year’s T-Up Excellence Awards winners, Dr Eu Zhi Ang, Dr Li Hao and Dr Sandor Nemeth. They exemplify commitment and dedication to transferring knowledge and skills to help companies succeed commercially through the adoption of technology.

9.    The first winner, Dr Eu Zhi Ang from I2R, was seconded to Hoiio Pte Ltd, which partners telcos to provide cloud-based communications applications, such as the Hoiio Phone and the Hoiio Cloud Platform. These apps have helped over 1,000 companies and 5,000 individuals improve their productivity by surmounting the desk-bound limits of traditional phone systems, and auto-scaling their communication infrastructure. Dr Eu helped Hoiio build in-house R&D capabilities to test, improve and validate all of its products. During his secondment, Hoiio won many international and local awards, such as the Singapore infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF)’s Top Award and Demo Asia Award in 2012.

10.    T-Up has also helped biomedical spin-off HistoIndex stay at the leading edge of its business. HistoIndex specialises in imaging solutions for diagnosing fibrosis, a condition that leads to chronic diseases of various human organs. SIMTech’s Dr Li Hao helped Histolndex to build the world's first integrated imaging system, which combines non-linear microscopy and digital pathology to examine fibrosis. With Dr Li’s contributions, HistoIndex has grown its portfolio from the diagnosis of liver fibrosis to more than 20 fibrosis-related diseases. Its sales revenue increased by $1m from 2011 to 2012, and it has broadened its customer base to include hospitals, universities, contract research organisations and pharmaceutical companies in the US, Europe and Asia.

11.    Our third winner, SIMTech’s Dr Sandor Nemeth, was seconded to PJI, which stands for Parachute Jump Instructor, an SME headed by a former commando trained in freefall parachute jumping. Dr Nemeth assisted the company to develop a new range of titanium dioxide-based anti-microbial self-cleaning coating solutions for a wide range of applications. PJI licensed the self-cleaning nanotechnology from SIMTech two years ago, and went on to establish its own in-house R&D facility in Woodlands to produce the solution. Sale of the new products began last year, and it has already generated about half a million dollars in revenue. PJI estimates that its revenue will reach $5m by 2017.

12.    I think we should all be encouraged by the success of these researchers, which has also brought significant benefit to their host companies. Capitalising on the momentum that has been built up over the past decade, the GET-Up team has set itself the ambitious goal of reaching out to 400 companies this year. I want to encourage all companies – those of you present here and the many more out there in the economy – to explore opportunities for such partnerships to create similar success stories of your own.

Technology Adoption Programme (TAP) will assist SMEs in further transformation

13.    Building on the success of the GET-Up programme, the Government announced the $51m Technology Adoption Programme (TAP) at Budget this year. This programme will further assist our SMEs in their transformation efforts by making technology enhancements more accessible. We need to bring technology solution providers and those that can potentially adopt them among our SMEs, closer together. And we need people who can bridge that gap. So we will introduce a team of experienced intermediaries. These are the individuals with the experience and the knowledge, who can proactively engage companies to understand their technological needs and link those companies with both public and private sector solution providers who can best meet their needs, from a productivity and innovation point of view. Over the next three years, TAP aims to help companies achieve over 1,000 technology adoptions to raise their productivity by an average of 20 percent. Where there are no immediately applicable or suitable technology solutions for our companies, technology developers in A*STAR and our tertiary institutions will identify and translate at least 20 novel technologies to be deployed and applied in our companies over the next three years.

14.    TAP will be piloted in six sectors: construction, food manufacturing, precision engineering, marine, aerospace and retail. These are some of the key sectors in our economy both in terms of their contribution to the GDP, and also whether there is scope to significantly enhance productivity and competitiveness. TAP will be launched in July, and I believe it will serve an important bridging function, enabling companies to use technologies in the public or private sectors, to introduce new products/services and also to improve their efficiency.

Conclusion

15.    So let me conclude by stating categorically that the success of our SMEs is a key element that will determine the success of our economy. This depends significantly on how we can adapt to the changing economic environment by harnessing technology and innovation to develop new growth models and approaches to productivity. So we have a reservoir of capability in our research institutes and our tertiary institutions. We have a vibrant pool of entrepreneurs in the SME sector, who can use such technology to commercial gain. We want to bring the two parts together – programmes like TAP, which will help to bridge the gap – and we ultimately need this process to work effectively and seamlessly. So the Government will continue to support SMEs in developing and deploying innovations to transform their businesses. But equally, I want to urge our SMEs to be proactive too in seeking out partnerships with public sector research institutes and leveraging on their capabilities to strengthen their businesses. Because you know best what your business needs and where you want to take it. You will be able to articulate that clearly, and then work with our research institutions to tap their capabilities. The T-Up Excellence Awards today exemplify how SMEs can benefit from these partnerships to grow into regional and potentially global companies. I urge all of you to tap on the opportunities, particularly in the light of the new TAP, to chart new growth directions for your businesses.

16.    I wish you all the very best. Thank you very much.