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S'pore pushes business continuity, disaster recovery standard
By Isabelle Chan, CNETAsia
Thursday, December 2 2004 6:27 PM

SINGAPORE--A new certification program has been developed in Singapore to help raise the quality of business continuity and disaster recovery services, and establish the island-state as a key destination for high-end business process outsourcing services.

Developed by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) Working Group of the Information Technology Standards Committee, the new industry standard is touted as the world's first benchmark for BC/DR services.

IDA unveiled the program this morning during a presentation which saw seven service providers in Singapore receiving certificates of achievement, awarded under the new standard by PSB Certification. The companies are: Hewlett-Packard, IBM, NCS and Singapore Computer Systems in the BC and DR service provider category; and Equinix, SingTel Expan and StarHub in the DR facility category.

The industry standard specifies stringent requirements, such as stipulations for operating, monitoring, maintaining and up-keeping BC/DR services offered to clients. It serves to differentiate the service providers and guide end-user companies in choosing the best-fit vendors.

According to an IDA spokesperson, there are 15 to 20 BC/DR services providers in Singapore. Apart from the seven that were awarded today, "a few more" companies have applied to be certified, she added.

The certification program supports the government's aim to enhance BPO (business process outsourcing) service delivery in Singapore, providing foreign companies with the much-needed assurance they look for when they locate their operations or conduct business activities in the island-state.

Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications & the Arts and Health, Dr Balaji Sadasivan, said during his opening address: "The establishment of the BC/DR industry standard is indeed a significant milestone to further cement Singapore’s position as a trusted infocomm hub."

"Not surprisingly, major foreign banks such as Citigroup have chosen Singapore to be their regional processing center for operations such as cash and securities settlement and claims processing," he added. "MNCs have chosen to locate their operations in Singapore because we offer a highly secured and stable business environment."

According to IDA, Singapore is now better placed to provide support for high-end BPO activities such as treasury functions and project management, which require a secure environment, reliable telecommunications infrastructure and a ready pool of info-comm skilled manpower.

IDA will invest S$12 million (US$7.3 million) over the next two years to develop the capabilities of the local BPO industry. The bulk of the investment will go toward training 1,000 infocomm professionals in BPO service provision by 2006.

In addition, IDA will promote R&D on outsourcing technologies and help companies seed 20 projects worth more than S$10 million (US$6.1 million) over the next two years.