Closer collaboration between the government and the industry needed to accelerate AI and cloud adoption, and unleash the economic and societal benefits for Singapore 

SINGAPORE, 5 October 2023— Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, today released a new report revealing that micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) that embrace cloud-enabled technologies in Singapore are expected to unlock up to S$650 million in annual productivity gains and support 100,000 jobs across the healthcare and education sectors by 2030.

AWS commissioned the “Realising a Cloud-enabled Economy: How Cloud Drives Economic and Societal Impact Through Micro, Small, And Medium-Sized Businesses” report to examine the potential benefits of moving to the cloud for MSMEs (defined as businesses with fewer than 250 employees) that focus on addressing societal issues. Conducted by global professional services firm, Accenture, the report uses the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s definition of cloud adoption levels to forecast a cloud-enabled economy in 2030, where 90% of all businesses adopt at least a basic level of cloud technology. 

The report reveals that Singapore’s current rate of at least basic cloud adoption such as the use of web-based email services or cloud-based storage solutions is at 64%. However, the adoption rate of intermediate applications like the use of customer relationship management or enterprise resource planning tools, and advanced applications such as the use of artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI, and machine learning (ML) tailored for sophisticated tasks including fraud detection or supply chain forecasting is expected to be far lower based on data from other developed countries in the OECD. For example, across the OECD developed nations, the OECD reports overall adoption at 44%, while intermediate and advanced adoption is at 19% and 13% respectively. There is still a huge opportunity for businesses in Singapore to advance cloud adoption, in order to fully realise the potential of cloud technologies.

The “Realising a Cloud-enabled Economy: How Cloud Drives Economic and Societal Impact Through Micro, Small, And Medium-Sized Businesses” report covers 12 countries, including Singapore, and uses market sizing, responses from quantitative surveys, and a combination of publicly available datasets from the OECD, the World Bank, the Conference Board Total Economy Database. 

Economic and Societal Impact of Cloud-Enabled MSMEs 

The report reveals that by moving to the cloud, MSMEs can deliver tangible benefits to the economy and society. The cloud can facilitate remote medical consultations, improve access to education, and more, which contribute to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). 

In the healthcare sector, cloud-enabled MSMEs help with addressing the challenge of limited access to healthcare faced by underserved communities. The report estimates cloud-enabled MSMEs can help unlock S$290 million in annual productivity benefits in healthcare and support six million telehealth consultations in Singapore by 2030, a 100% increase on the current usage rate. 

In the education sector, cloud-enabled MSMEs help with addressing the challenge of accessibility and inclusivity of education through digital platforms. The report estimates these MSMEs can help unlock S$360 million in annual productivity benefits in education and provide 200,000 students in Singapore with e-learning solutions by 2030, which is 100% more than the current usage rate. The report highlights approximately one million adults are expected to access education via cloud-enabled MSMEs in Singapore by 2030.

Closer Collaboration to Realise the Cloud’s Potential 

Cybersecurity challenges, organisational culture, lack of access to information technology (IT) infrastructure (software and hardware) and digital skills are the primary barriers to cloud adoption among MSMEs. To help MSMEs accelerate cloud adoption, the report outlines five key recommendations: 1) Identify how the cloud can streamline strategic business needs, 2) evaluate industry and government support, 3) upskill and educate employees in cloud, 4) review data and security policies, and 5) create a whole-of-business cloud migration strategy. 

“Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises are often the unsung heroes of innovation, but they play a crucial role in addressing challenges in society such as by improving access to digital healthcare and education services,” said Elsie Tan, Country Manager, Worldwide Public Sector, AWS. “To accelerate digitalisation and adoption of emerging cloud technologies such as generative AI and realise economic and social benefits sooner, AWS is working alongside governments, educators, and the industry to help local businesses in Singapore create a better future for all.”

“While there are significant benefits that are unlocked by micro, small, and medium businesses adopting at least a basic level of cloud technology, there is still a huge opportunity for them to further advance their cloud adoption as this will accelerate their ability to address some of the biggest challenges in society,” said Aaron Hill, Managing Director of Economic Insights, Accenture Strategy and Consulting. “With more support from governments and the industry, these businesses will have greater ability to harness the power of transformative technologies such as generative AI to unleash even more innovation, drive economic productivity, and deliver meaningful change to society.”

AWS helps MSMEs to seize opportunities in the digital economy and transform their business models using cloud technologies like generative AI. AWS offers programs tailored to the diverse needs of MSMEs that are at different stages of their digitisation journey. For early-stage startups, they can leverage AWS Activate to grow and scale their business. Since 2019, the program has provided more than $2 billion in AWS credits to help startups manage costs, get technical expertise, and access training and business mentorship. For small businesses looking to kickstart their cloud journey, the AWS Lift program, provides small businesses with a starter pack of cloud credits of up to USD 83,500 over 12 months, resources, and support from AWS Partners, and to help them start digitising in the cloud. AWS has developed industry-focused programs to bolster MSMEs’ growth in key sectors, including the AWS Healthcare Accelerators for Health Equity and Workforce Development, which build on the AWS Health Equity Initiative, and the AWS Generative AI Accelerator. MSMEs also have access to over 100,000 AWS Partners in the AWS Partner Network (APN), that can help them to find the tools, resources, and help to create the right solution for their business and customers. Additionally, MSMEs can use AWS Marketplace to find and deploy pre-configured software solutions through a curated digital catalogue, paying only for what they use. 

Tetsuyu Healthcare is a Singapore-based healthtech startup that provides community care management solutions and helps care providers manage patient information, conduct administrative tasks, and engage in telehealth consultations. Using AWS cloud hosting and content delivery services, the startup has been able to scale its healthcare software, CARES locally and internationally, supporting more than 3,000 healthcare practitioners who collectively care for 12,000 patients in 60 localities across Singapore and Hong Kong.

“Community care can be so fragmented, highly localised, and manual, requiring service providers to engage in costly administration and limited their ability to scale and focus on serving more patients. Manual administration also makes recordkeeping and communication between providers challenging, leading to patients not receiving continuity of care,” said Li Lian Ng, Co-founder and Director at Tetsuyu Healthcare. “With AWS, we’re able to scale CARES to thousands of care providers across geographies to help community care providers reduce reliance on paper-heavy processes and integrate seamlessly with existing recordkeeping systems from doctors, patients, and carers. We developed the CARE4WOUNDS AI application on AWS that helps practitioners measure and analyse wounds on a mobile device. The cloud-based application can measure, assess, and securely upload data on a wound to electronic medical records under 30 seconds, reducing human error and saving time while enabling earlier intervention. AWS Cloud underpins the CARES application and CARES4WOUNDS AI algorithms, and has helped Tetsuyu Healthcare expand our services to help more patients access quality care.”

Serious Games Asia is a Singapore-based startup that works with qualified instructors, institutions, training institutions, and game developers to provide immersive training experiences specifically in the healthcare sector. Using AWS compute and database technologies, Serious Games Asia’s virtual training games currently help to train over 3,000 nurses annually (14% of the healthcare workforce locally) across Singapore.

“Singapore’s healthcare practitioner workforce means that training and skills becomes localised and disparate across the country and hospitals. However, providing training is costly and in an industry like healthcare, it’s often difficult to implement at scale,” said Ivan Boo, Founder and Managing Director at Serious Games Asia. “Thanks to AWS, we are able to offer employees a suite of games that simulate workplace scenarios and solutions, in place of in-person examinations and training, which helps to standardise training and qualifications. AWS enables us to provide training on-demand and scale across multiple hospitals and education institutions. Hospitals now can quickly access and customise training assets to meet specific needs and both trainers and trainees can analyse decisions made and evaluate results directly driving real-world occupational skills. Today, Serious Games Asia is working with Singapore’s largest group of healthcare institutions, SingHealth, across acute hospitals, community hospitals, and specialist centres to design virtual experiences that mirror actual workplace procedures. We look forward to taking our virtual training experiences internationally in the near future leveraging the power of the cloud and AI.” 

For more information, download the “Realising a Cloud-enabled Economy in Singapore: How Cloud Drives Economic and Societal Impact Through Micro, Small, And Medium-Sized Businesses” report.