Government as a platform enhances citizen value and drives economic growth. A new digital-enabled business and operating model for public agencies.

1. How Singapore can keep leading
the world in the development of
Government-as-a-Platform

2. Government-as-a-platform
Enhances citizen value and drives economic growth
A new digital-enabled business and
operating model for public agencies.
Create value by facilitating exchanges
and new types of interactions between
stakeholders.
Join forces with partners within and
beyond the ecosystem such as citizens,
non-profit, start-ups and other businesses.
Offers a unique and hyper-personalised
experience to constituents.

3. Measuring key indicators
is the basis for transformative
improvements in public service delivery
Accenture research identified which factors play
a crucial and mutually enforcing role for
implementing GaaP in depth and at scale.
Based on this research, we developed the GaaP
Readiness Index to help answer these questions:
Where does a country stand in its journey to GaaP?
What are its strengths and weaknesses?
Where does it need to focus?
The GaaP Readiness Index
analyzes more than 100 data
points from proprietary and
secondary data sources,
including amongst others
the World Bank, International
Telecommunication Union,
Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor, World Economic
Forum, United Nations,
Open data barometer.

4. Measuring what matters
The four pillars of GaaP readiness
Fostering a Mindset of
Change & Innovation
GaaP requires a mindset
of innovation openness
in society, businesses
and public service
agencies to embrace
new technologies.
Innovating for Public
Service Delivery
Government can improve
delivery of service by
driving an innovative and
collaborative ecosystem
with citizens, NGOs and
businesses to co-create,
co-design, and co-deliver.
Enabling Economic
Growth
GaaP plays a key role in
enabling businesses to
seize the opportunities
of the rising platform
economy. The public
sector provides data and
infrastructure and ensures
fairness, inclusion and
societal benefits.
Building the Foundation
GaaP relies on building
strong foundations of
Information and
Communication Technology
(ICT) infrastructure and
regulation, digital savviness,
workforce skills, and trust.

5. Singapore Leads the GaaP readiness Index
GaaP Readiness Index
Overall Scores
GaaP Readiness Index
Singapore’s Scores in Each of the Four Pillars
Source: Accenture Research
72.2 70 69.6 67.3 66.9 66.7 65.7 62.4 62
57.4
SG UK USA AU FR NO UAE JP DE SA
77
68
73 70
57.4
Building the foundation
Singapore
Fostering mind-set of
change and innovation
Enabling economic growth
Innovating for public
service delivery

6. Why is Singapore leading Accenture’s
GaaP Readiness Index?
Singapore has an overall strategy
that supports GaaP
The “Smart Nation” initiative aims to make
Singapore a country enabled by technology
and collaboration between stakeholders to
co-create solutions that improve citizens’
lives and boost economic competitiveness.
This strategic goal is driven by
a dedicated department (the Smart Nation
and Digital Government Office) under the
Prime Minister’s Office.

7. Singapore is developing
GaaP from all angles
The Global Innovation Alliance is a collaboration
between academia, government and businesses to
help Singaporeans and start-ups gain international
experience and develop networks.
The SME Go Digital Program enables SMEs to
receive advice on technologies as they grow.
Fostering a mindset of
change and innovation

8. Singapore is developing
GaaP from all angles
The Smart Nation Fellowship Program attracts
data scientists and technologists from academia
and business to co-create digital solutions.
MyInfo is a platform providing a single point
of access for citizens to manage their personal
data across government agencies.
Innovating public service

9. Singapore is developing
GaaP from all angles
The SkillsFuture Credit portal enables
skills development and lifelong learning.
18,000+ courses from 700 public, private
and online training providers are eligible
for the SkillsFuture Credit.
Building the foundation

10. Singapore is developing
GaaP from all angles
The National Trade Platform is an integrated,
data-driven and open innovation platform
that aims to bolster Singapore’s position
as a trade/logistics hub.
Industry Development Maps define strategies
for 23 key industries in Singapore.
Driving economic growth

11. How can
Singapore
forge ahead
with GaaP?
The key to Singapore’s
future as a GaaP
world leader…
Singapore, like all top nations in our
index, has significant room to improve
on GaaP readiness.
Connecting multiple stakeholders and
supporting innovation, cooperation
and growth is extremely difficult.
Government has the trust, power and
reach to maximise the potential value
of platforms in dozens of contexts.
BUT only if they continue to build on what
has been started, drive further innovation
and improve the ability to support platforms
and ecosystems.

12. 1. Cultural Evolution
This evolution of culture and mindset is already in motion, but to
embed attributes into all corners of public service, Singapore needs to:
• Embrace diverse people and skills.
• Think across both inter-agency and public-private boundaries.
• Give people the freedom to create and experiment.
• Accept failure as part of the innovation process.
• Focus on how ecosystems can support economic growth.
• Maintain the courage to push GaaP forward.
Government’s role as platform orchestrator—going beyond
building and expanding platforms, to drive ecosystem
growth and foster innovation and collaboration.

13. Cultural
Evolution
Action
Create an inter-agency GaaP
mandate—assigned to hand-picked
GaaP evangelists embedded across
government agencies—to drive the
development of platform ecosystems.

14. 2. Skills for the Future
Define a new role—the Public Service Officer of the Future:
• Works with platform partners, as a knowledgeable, credible and
innovative peer, to drive collaboration, innovation and ecosystem growth.
• Operates as “change agent” within agencies, with authority/support
to work directly with other agencies and ecosystem participants.
• Simultaneously digitally, business and government savvy—able to
deliver on public policy, but also entice private sector participation.
GaaP demands entrepreneurial, digital and commercial
skillsets, with a strong understanding of public policy
and the intricacies of government.

15. Skills for the
Future Action
Expand the Smart Nation Fellowship
Programme beyond technical skillsets,
to include young business leaders,
government entrepreneurs and
creative innovators.

16. 3. Trusted mediator
Government can be a trusted broker within an ecosystem, as well as apply
appropriate regulatory controls to govern the ecosystem—and provide
appropriate access to data and services while maintaining confidence
and authenticity. This has three key components:
• Maintain a trusted record which participants can verify against.
• Amalgamate data to create powerful insights and enable efficient
marketplaces for information.
• As guardian, not owner, of platform data, create ecosystem platforms that
drive economic growth, improve citizens lives and reduce operational costs.
The primary value of a platform is in its data—fuelling insights,
innovations and new business models and services.

17. Trusted
Mediator
Action
Singapore Government, as trusted
mediator, can show strong leadership
in setting world-leading standards for
data security, privacy and protection.

18. Where can Singapore
find more inspiration?
Countries are taking different routes along their
GaaP journey, depending on their ecosystem,
digital strategy and priorities.
While most countries can learn from Singapore,
due to the diversity of strategies, ideas and
initiatives around the world, Singapore can
also gain from looking abroad.
Several initiatives
are worth exploring
to support each
pillar of GaaP…

19. Building the Foundation
Managing the public/private intersection of the platform
economy requires special skills—how can government
build these to encourage participation?
Digital and data science skills
In the U.K., the Government Digital Service
and the Office for National Statistics run
training programs to develop the digital
and data science skills of civil servants,
while the Digital Government Partnership
also invites technology experts to work
with policymakers.

20. Building the Foundation
Managing the public/private intersection of the platform
economy requires special skills—how can government
build these to encourage participation?
Digital and data science skills
Interchange Canada enables the
government to temporarily exchange
employees with all other sectors of the
economy, domestically and globally,
while maintaining a link to the employee’s
home organisation.

21. Innovating for Public Service Delivery
How can government harness the ideas and skills of citizens
and innovators to develop and improve of policy and service
delivery, while taking a whole-of government approach and
balancing open data with data protection?
Digital and data science skills
Finland’s “Kokeilun Paikka” is a platform to
connect citizen innovators with government
and crowdfunded resources to find new
ways to strengthen government programs.

22. Innovating for Public Service Delivery
How can government harness the ideas and skills of citizens
and innovators to develop and improve of policy and service
delivery, while taking a whole-of government approach and
balancing open data with data protection?
Local solutions for local issues
The Civic Innovation Lab in the U.S. creates
a multi-stakeholder process to pilot and
evaluate solutions for civic and social
challenges–driven by citizens, based on open
data and supported by local government. It
uses participatory design thinking, social labs
and open data in a series of events to tackle
local and regional civic and social challenges.

23. Enabling Economic Growth
How can we improve the value of government
data and use it to stimulate economic growth?
Breaking siloes make data more valuable
In the U.S., the City of New York’s DataBridge is
an integrated platform for sharing data between
city government, agencies and external
organisations—joining over 50 siloed source
systems from about 20 agencies and external
organisations. Live data feeds are automatically
pulled together into DataBridge and the system
includes tools for data discovery, predictive
analytics, business intelligence and reporting.

24. Enabling Economic Growth
How can we improve the value of government
data and use it to stimulate economic growth?
An ecosystem for platform-driven growth
Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs
and Energy created “the Digital Hub” to foster the
digitalisation of small and medium enterprises
(SMEs). The project uses regional technology
incubation ecosystems, modelled on Silicon
Valley, which combine the intellectual capital of
entrepreneurs, large companies and academia.
The government is aiming to orchestrate an
ecosystem that helps to modernise SMEs and
build next generation platforms collaboratively.

25. Fostering a Mindset of Change & Innovation
How can government foster an entrepreneurial
attitude and allow innovative businesses to flourish?
Removing regulatory barriers
to innovation
The UK government launched the Challenger
Business Programme to support innovative
businesses. The programme serves as a
platform for businesses to inform
government about regulatory barriers to
growth. It has resulted in important
allowances for the sharing economy, the
space and satellite sector and business
developing disruptive technologies.

26. Fostering a Mindset of Change & Innovation
How can government foster an entrepreneurial
attitude and allow innovative businesses to flourish?
A new deal for innovation
The Innovation Deal by the European
Commission helps innovators overcome
legislative obstacles by shortening the time
between the idea stage and bringing the
innovation to market. Innovators benefit
from access to a co-operation framework
between regulatory bodies at local, national
and EU level. The project seeks to make
regulatory bottlenecks visible and feed into
possible further action to overcome these.

27. Methodology Accenture has developed a GaaP Readiness Index
to help public leaders assess their progress
towards GaaP, and determine where their
organisation needs to focus.
The index incorporates more than 100 data points
to track factors that play an important and/or
mutually enforcing role in the development of
GaaP in depth and at scale.
The index drew from Accenture’s proprietary data,
alongside secondary sources, including The World
Bank, International Telecoms Union, Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor, World Economic Forum,
United Nations and the Open Data Barometer).

28. THANK YOUFOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE
ACCENTURE GaaP READINESS INDEX CONTACT:
Wee Wei Ng
Managing Director
Health & Public Service Lead ASEAN
Jurgen Coppens
Managing Director
Accenture Strategy, ASEAN
wee.wei.ng@accenture.com
www.linkedin.com/in/wee-wei-ng-83b49ba7
@weeweing
jurgen.coppens@accenture.com
www.linkedin.com/in/jurgen-coppens-6902112
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