FCCS Focus Autumn 2009 by The French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore

FCCS FOCUS MAGAZINE 2009

3 Editorial 4 Short News 4 4 5 5

Arianespace Launches ST-2 for Singapore and Taiwan GPI to Supply Casino Currency to Marina Bay Sands™ Boucheron Opens a Boutique in Singapore The Largest Louis Vuitton Boutique in Southeast Asia

Contents 7 Cover Story: Singapore’s ICT Forges Ahead FCCS Focus is the magazine published by the French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (FCCS). The views and opinions expressed in its columns do not necessarily reflect those of the FCCS members and management.

director of publication Carine Lespayandel chief editor Florence Baret editorial contributor Nicolas Avril design & layout Florence Baret advertising Nicolas Avril Gina Moulay-Aubry colour separation & printing Times Printers Pte Ltd Autumn 2009 3,500 copies MICA (P) N°090/09/2009 THE FRENCH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN SINGAPORE 541 Orchard Road #09-01 Liat Towers Singapore 238881 www.fccsingapore.com

8 10 12 13 14 15 17 18 19 20 22 24 25 27 28 29 30 32 34

ICT: A Pillar of the Economy Harnessing Infocomm for Economic and Social Growth An Industry Supported by Government Schemes A First Class Outsourced Contact Centre Bringing French IT Expertise to the Singapore Banking Sector Multi-Service Access Routers Singapore: an Attractive Location for Providers of Risk Management Solutions Thales at the Core of Innovation in Singapore’s ICT A Passion for Research and Innovation Change Is Good – Transforming the Enterprise Internet & E-Commerce Trends in Singapore and the Region Mobile Airtime Remittances and Migration Corridors Investing in a Green Future Going Greener, Saving Millions Making Singapore a Trusted Global Capital for New Asia Media Digital Solutions Innovations In Asia Managing Data Growth: The Information Retrieval Advantage Dassault Systemes Enables Innovations in the Life Science Industry 3D and New Generation of Out-of-Home Media for Better Impact

36 FCCS Activities and Services 36 38 40 41 44 45 46 48 49 50 54 55

French Pavilions @ BroadcastAsia & CommunicAsia 09 Newly Set Up Companies via the FCCS Services They Rely on Us... HR Committee IT Committee Networking Events Asia Committee Finance / Professional Services Committee Energy / Evironment committee FCCS Opera Gala Dinner FCCS Annual General Meeting New Members CONTENTS

•

PATRON MEMBERS

FCCS FOCUS MAGAZINE 2009

Editorial CHALLENGES THE

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES This is both a difficult time and an exciting one for decision makers and solution developers alike. Survival is a real issue for many and much of that depends on the decisions we make now for the future. Instead of Darwin, let’s look at a more modern view of survival of the fittest which I hope you will enjoy. The concept of the Boyd’s OODA cycle (Observation, Orientation, Decision and Action) was first developed in the 1970s for military applications. The originator of the theory, Colonel John Boyd, postulated a scenario during an analysis of air-to-air combat outcomes in which one side presented the other with a sudden, unexpected challenge or series of challenges to which the other side could not adjust in a timely manner. The competitor who moved through this OODA-loop cycle the fastest gained an inestimable advantage by disrupting his enemy’s ability to respond effectively, often being defeated and at a small cost to the victor.* Although it may not sound like it, victory is not always directly proportional to size. In fact we’ve all heard trees falling in the forest. The downturn in the economy is a challenge for all, but in many ways it presents the observant viewer with an opportunity to shift his orientation towards an outcome, whether he is big or small, that has the potential to put him far in front of the competitors. We are now seeing a paradigm shift in decision making whereby companies that would never have looked beyond the obvious before, are beginning to widen their scope. Good or bad, this recession is forcing companies to think outside of the box and to be creative. Considering solutions that are out there will not only help them survive, but also to leap forward in less time, regardless of smaller budgets. For now, I only hope that the products and companies featured in this special Information and Communication Technologies issue will encourage you to consider your position in the cycle, and you never know, one of them may represent your key to getting ahead. Jean D. GAREZ IT Committee President, The French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore IT, Business Development Manager, Asia Technical Services Pte Ltd

* Boyd Cycle Theory in the Context of Non-Cooperative Games: Implications for Libraries, Karl Bridges, www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/bridges2.htm

EDITORIAL

•

FRENCH COMPANIES IN SINGAPORE

to Launch ST-2 for Singapore and Taiwan T-2 Satellite Ventures Pte Ltd (STS), a joint venture formed by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (SingTel) and Chunghwa Telecom Company Ltd (Chunghwa), has chosen Arianespace to launch its new telecommunications satellite, ST-2. This satellite will replace ST-1 launched by Arianespace in 1998.

ST-2 will be launched by an Ariane 5 ECA during the second quarter of 2011 from the Guiana Space Centre, Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The satellite will be built by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation of Japan, using the DS2000 platform and will have a lift-off mass of more than 5 100 kg. The satellite will carry C and Ku band transponders providing fixed and mobile satellite services as well as Voice and Data IP based services for businesses, particularly DTH operators and shipping companies in Asia and the Middle East. ST-2 will have a 15-year-on-orbit lifetime. For Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, “Arianespace is particularly proud to serve again SingTel and Chunghwa with whom we have maintained warm relations since the launch of ST-1 in 1998. This new contract, the 9th to be signed in 2009, is for us the recognition of the quality and competitiveness of Arianespace’s services and solutions launch offer.”

to Supply Casino Currency to Marina Bay Sands™ aming Partners International Corporation (GPI), a leading provider of casino currency and table game equipment worldwide, announced that it has signed an agreement with Marina Bay Sands Resort & Casino in Singapore to provide the property with all of its casino chips. Under this agreement, GPI will provide over 2 million casino chips to the casino for its opening in late 2009. The chips, which are from the Company’s Bourgogne & Grasset (B&G) line of casino currency products, will contain many state-of-theart security features and customised designs.

Marina Bay Sands, an affiliate of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, is currently under construction at Marina South in central Singapore. The luxury resort complex will feature a Las Vegas-style casino, complete with private gam-

•

SHORT NEWS

ing lounges. GPI is providing the casino chips for its nearly 1000 gaming tables. This order marks the third Las Vegas Sands Corporation property to open in Asia with GPI’s currency products. GPI has previously supplied casinos chips to the Sands Macau and the Venetian Macau.

“The Las Vegas Sands Corp. has long been a valued customer to GPI and we are delighted to be supplying the casino chips for its newest property in Singapore,” stated Gérard Charlier, CEO and President of GPI. “With the immense popularity of table gaming in Southeast Asia, the quality and security of casino currency is of the utmost importance. Our B&G chips offer some of the best security features in the market and we are pleased the Marina Bay Sands will open with GPI products.” GPI’s line of B&G casino currency products include highquality chips, plaques and jetons, all available with a variety of security features and customisation options. Manufactured in a secure, highcapacity production facility in France, B&G products have been used in casinos all over the world since 1925.

FRENCH COMPANIES IN SINGAPORE

Opens a Boutique in Singapore oucheron, the French High Jewelry House who celebrated its 150th anniversary last year, is opening its first ever boutique in Singapore located in ION Orchard. Singapore listed company Inca Holdings has been chosen to devel-

op the House in Singapore and will work closely with Boucheron (owned by Gucci Group N.V) to strategically position the brand as one of the most exclusive ultra-luxury brands in Singapore. Jean-Christophe Bédos, Chief Executive Officer of Boucheron, commented: “Inca Holdings is the perfect partner to build on the brand’s success and strengthen its presence in Singapore, making Boucheron the ultimate French jeweler in Singapore. We are extremely pleased to enter into this venture with Inca Holdings.” Fiona Tan, Regional Managing Director of Inca Holdings said: “Our company DNA has always been to work with the most prestigious international brands; going even beyond luxury and in this sense, we are delighted to represent Boucheron and bring

The Largest

to Singapore the first ever Boucheron boutique.” In this new 858 square feet boutique, customers can admire exceptional High-Jewelry pieces in diamonds, sapphires, emeralds or rubies on black, white or yellow gold. The House’s precious timepieces are also available. The intimacy of this boutique is reminiscent of a private salon of Boucheron’s Place Vendome boutique. Already present in major cities such as Paris, Monte Carlo, Cannes, Geneva, London, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Macao, Taipei, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo, Boucheron continues the development of its boutiques on an international scale, in the world’s biggest metropoles.

Boucheron Boutique Ion Orchard - 2 Orchard Turn, #02-01

Boutique in Southeast Asia

ast July, Louis Vuitton opened its largest boutique in Southeast Asia at Singapore’s luxurious ION Orchard on Orchard Road. Featuring a newly conceived curved façade, circular interiors and an array of Asia Pacific’s firsts, this 2-leveled, 905 square meter universe testifies the Malletier’s spirit to combine innovative architectural and retail concepts to reflect a tradition of savoir-faire, travel legacy and French luxury.

dent, Louis Vuitton Asia Pacific said, “This new store and the investment it represents reflect Louis Vuitton’s confidence in this market, and the appreciation by the local customer of the quality and craftsmanship of Louis Vuitton’s product range.”

Louis Vuitton has some 77 stores across the Asia Pacific region, with another five stores slated to open in the region later this year. Louis Vuitton Boutique Ion Orchard - 2 Orchard Turn, #01-23

The façade was designed by Front Inc. of New York while the interiors by the Louis Vuitton Malletier’s architecture team. The ION Orchard store showcases Louis Vuitton’s first curved glass façade, inspired by the ‘folds of a scarf’. It boasts a full glass façade comprising two groups of textured glass that mimic a Damier chequerboard pattern effect. Commenting on the store’s opening, Jean-Baptiste Debains, presi-

SHORT NEWS

•

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD ne of the factors behind Singapore’s success is the strong government support for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This includes the elaboration of a number of plans for developing an intelligent island, backed by concrete programmes.

“Intelligent Nation 2015” (iN2015) is Singapore’s 10-year master plan to help realise the potential of infocomm over the next decade and position the Island into a global city, recognised as an enviable synthesis of technology, infrastructure, enterprise and manpower. The roll-out of the master plan and the National Broadband Network will further strengthen Singapore’s infrastructure network, translating into benefits for all companies. Aside from excellent infrastructure, IT companies from across the value chain are drawn to Singapore because of its robust intellectual property protection regime, good logistics connectivity, and easy access to global talent. Today, more than 80 of the world’s IT software and services companies are in Singapore. The huge presence of leading hardware, software, IT services and internet companies in Singapore creates significant synergies for the industry, and provides fertile ground for collaboration. Innovative French MNCs and SMEs have perfectly understood the potential of this market and benefit from this strategic IT Business Hub for rapidly expanding in the region.

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

INFORMATION

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES: A PILLAR ECONOMY AND

OF THE

nfocomm has greatly enhanced Singapore’s competitiveness by raising productivity and transforming business processes. Today, many top technology companies, including French companies such as Orange Business Services and Alcatel-Lucent, have made Singapore a key centre in their global network, testifying the country’s will to become a global infocomm hub.

139,000, up from 130,400 in 2007. Last year, despite the global economic downturn, the infocomm industry continued to grow by 12.4% to S$58.1 billion. This is in line with the slower growth of the general economy, though it is noteworthy the infocomm industry growth is much higher than that of GDP at 1.1%.

… supported by Government incentives… With its “Intelligent Nation 2015” master plan placing IT at the heart of the Singapore government’s strategy to improve competitiveness, Singapore’s IT market is projected to continue to grow.

The Singapore Government recently announced its plan to invest S$1.73 Export revenue remains as the main billion worth of new contributor to the ininfocomm tenders in focomm industry revInvestments A key sector of Singapore’s the financial year 2009. enue, with a 61% in green economy… This will further inshare. In 2008, it saw a technologies will crease Today, infocomm has become a key infocomm small growth of 5.1% enabler of Singapore’s economic and adoption in the public to reach S$35.28 bilcontinue to social growth, transforming the sector to better meet lion, from S$33.56 bilincrease. nascent infocomm industry of the the growing expectalion in 2007. Regarding early eighties into a dynamic and vitions of businesses and exports, the ASEAN brant sector. citizens in an ever-changing inforemains the top export destination, comm landscape, and it represents an with a share of 23% of export revIn 2008, according to the Infocomm important part of the government’s enue, of which both Indonesia and Development Authority (IDA), the ability to deliver quality public service. Malaysia together generate more number of infocomm professionals In the financial year 2008, a total of than half (62%) of ASEAN export in Singapore grew 6.6% to reach S$1.6 billion worth of infocomm prorevenue. jects were awarded. Some of these projects include the Next Generation Infocomm Industry Revenue Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) NetCo by IDA, the provision of Integrated IT Support Services for Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), and Contact Centre Services for the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).

‘

Local companies were awarded a total of 67% of infocomm contracts, while multinational companies garnered 33%, a trend that has been consistent over the last four years.

… and strategic in this current economic slowdown. The economic crisis will cause some companies, including those in the financial sector, to look to IT as a

•

COVER STORY

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

strategic device for increasing operational efficiency. Indeed, the recent turbulent times and uncertainties have intensified the need for timely, accurate and relevant information to make sound business decisions. A recently led study by IDC showed that

most Asia-Pacific companies are not cutting back on their software investments despite the current difficult times. As the graph below illustrates, 37% of the participants in the query intend to increase their IT spending on infrastructure software over the

Which of the following describes your organisation’s investment plans over the next 18 months with respect to infrastructure software?

next 18 months, and 49% to maintain the same level of spending. It showes in particular that 21% of Singapore’s companies polled are looking to increase spending on infrastructure software, with an emphasis on software that helps in system and network management. Green IT technology is also gaining strong momentum and mindshare across the region. With greater economic pressures on businesses, investments in green technologies will continue to increase, such as virtualisation for cost savings. With increased cost pressures, the adoption of sustainable IT technologies will expand from a focus on the tactical reduction of energy consumption in the datacentre and the distributed environment to a broader leverage of Green IT in order to achieve business process optimisation. Sources: IDA; Business Times, 1st June 2009; IDC survey, conducted during 1Q 2009 with more than 1,600 end-user companies in 14 countries in Asia/Pacific (including Japan), aiming to understand and provide insight into the IT setup/IT planning environment across a broad range of emerging technology areas; IDC’s Green Poll, conducted in Sept 2008.

COVER STORY

•

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

HARNESSING INFOCOMM FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL GROWTH: THE

SINGAPORE EXPERIENCE

By the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA)

Building an Intelligent Nation Powered by Infocomm The iN2015 masterplan aims to lead the way forward, into a future where infocomm will transform and become intrinsic in the way people live, learn, work and interact. It will further support the country’s transformation into a knowledge-based economy with innovation-led growth. To support the iN2015 vision, it is important for Singapore to develop a

•

COVER STORY

vibrant infocomm eco-system. To achieve this, IDA is working with its various partners in the infocomm ecosystem on three strategic thrusts: encouraging sophisticated demand for infocomm; fostering creation of innovative services and knowledge capital; and strengthening Singapore as an Economic Hub.

greater infocomm adoption and innovative use, programmes such as the SME Infocomm Package, was launched in June 2008.

In the financial sector, the Next Generation e-Payment Programme will provide for cashless payment at more places beyond public transportation, such as food courts, provision shops and convenient stores. The deployEncouraging Sophisticated ment of these contactless Point-of-Sale Demand for Infocomm terminals will also serve to support fuTo encourage the sophisticated deture mobile payment solutions, such as mand for infocomm, several initiatives those enabled by Near Field Commuhave been launched nication technology. In since 2006, targeting addition, the three-year The vision is sectors like healthcare, Digital Concierge proto transform education, finance, egramme aims to spur Government as well as Singapore into an the development of inthe SME sector. formational, transacIntelligent Nation, tional and locationFor instance, initiatives Global City, pow- based e-commerce for the healthcare clus- ered by Infocomm services on the mobile ter aim at improving channel. by 2015. the quality of healthcare while in educaSophisticated demand tion, infocomm is being deployed to for infocomm services will only inschools to provide learner-centric, crease as Singapore develops further collaborative learning environments as a highly-connected society. To enbeyond the classroom. sure that all can have access to PCs and laptops and to the Internet, IDA In the area of e-Government, to together with industry put in place achieve greater excellence in service the NEU PC Plus programme to delivery and operational efficiency, by help low-income households with 2010 more than 60,000 public offischool-going children to have their cers will work even more seamlessly own computers that come bundled as One Government, in a standard with free broadband service. ICT operating environment (SOEasy) with collaborative tools. In fact, some Fostering the Creation of public agencies started enjoying the Innovative Services and new SOEasy services from July 2009. Knowledge Capital The Government will also be lookWith the increased speed and scale ing into emerging mobile technoloof global competition, there is a need gies to meet the needs of citizens to foster the creation of innovative who are always on the go. services and knowledge capital, and to add new value to the infocomm In the SME sector, to promote

‘

ingapore’s latest ten-year infocomm masterplan, the Intelligent Nation 2015, or iN2015, represents the country’s continued efforts to harness infocomm for economic and social development. Its vision is to transform Singapore into an Intelligent Nation, Global City, powered by Infocomm by 2015.

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD industry. Some of IDA’s efforts in this area include the Infocomm Local Industry Upgrading Programme (iLIUP) and Overseas Development Programme (ODP).

payments, location-based and facilitymonitoring services.

As Singapore’s broadband backbone for the future, the all-fibre, ultra-high speed Next Generation Nationwide BroadIDA values band Network is a key collaboration infocomm infrastrucwith the industry ture that will enable further economic and to develop a visocial development.

‘

comm Technology Resource Programme, or CITREP, the National Infocomm Competency Framework or NICF and scholarships, to build our infocomm capabilities.

Industry Collaboration IDA subsidiary, InfoIDA values collaboration with the incomm Investments dustry to develop a vibrant infoPrivate Ltd (IIPL), is comm ecosystem. For instance, also always on the through its Call-For-Collaboration look-out for more inand other industry facilitation focomm start-ups and brant infocomm processes, IDA last year appointed growth companies three national Grid Service Providers from overseas to loIn September 2008, ecosystem. that are today offering pay-per-use cate high-value activiIDA announced the access to compute, storage and softties in Singapore, to selection of the Openware facilities. The Singapore Govadd vibrancy to Singapore’s infoNet consortium to design, build and ernment also intends to call for comm ecosystem. operate the passive infrastructure of S$1.73 billion worth of new infothe Next Gen NBN. 60% of homes comm tenders in this financial year. The setting up of a new subsidiary, and offices will be covered by 2010, This is in addition to other new iniIDA International, in February 2009 with nation-wide coverage to be tiatives that IDA seeks to implement aims to provide a focused and holisachieved by 2012. with the industry’s support. tic approach to collaborate with governments overseas in the area of Downstream operators will have EfAs the infocomm environment is a masterplanning and developing fective Open Access to the Next Gen fast-changing one, iN2015 is intended eGovernment infocomm solutions. NBN, which will spur competition in to be a living and evolving masterplan IDA International can also bring new the development of innovative Next that will be further reopportunities for Singapore infoGeneration broadband viewed, taking into accomm companies, with strong track services, such as InterThe ultra-high count technological record of implementing such infoactive IPTV, telemedicomm solutions. cine and high-definition speed Next Gener- and global market devideo conferencing, to ation Nationwide velopments, as well as industry feedback, to To catalyse the development and end-users. Broadband ensure its continued deployment of innovative products Network is a key relevance. In this manand services, IDA and the industry The development of are working together to establish infocomm infrastrucinfocomm infra- ner, iN2015 will help to harness infocomm Next Gen Innovation Centres or ture and services restructure. and drive the way forNGICs. These centres will allow quires talented and ward for Singapore major corporations, in collaboration capable infocomm economically and socially, towards with other infocomm companies, to professionals. IDA has introduced being an Intelligent Nation, a global use Singapore as a test bed for new many infocomm manpower initiacity, powered by infocomm. products, services and business modtives such as Enhanced Critical Infoels to meet the emerging needs of enterprises and consumers.

‘

Strengthening Singapore as an Economic Hub The third thrust in growing the infocomm ecosystem, to support the iN2015 vision, is to strengthen Singapore as an economic hub. To do this, IDA will continue to develop Singapore’s hard and soft infrastructure, including Next Generation networks and infocomm capabilities. Its wireless programme, the Wireless@SG service, launched in December 2006, is now available at 7,500 hot spots and has 1.3 million subscribers. IDA together with Wireless@SG operators will work to catalyse the deployment and adoption of innovative enterprise and consumer services, including cashless

COVER STORY

•

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

INDUSTRY SUPPORTED GOVERNMENT SCHEMES BY

by Philippe Taverne and Sérin Macé, Cotty Vivant Marchisio & Lauzeral Law Firm ingapore has in recent years, been proactively developing its capabilities in the infocomm technology sphere, with the Singapore Government taking affirmative action to mould Singapore into a global interactive and digital media capital, offering innovative content, services and technology to the world.

the development of Interactive Digital Media (IDM) and more recently in the first quarter of 2009, the grant of S$250 million for research and development of IDM.

The various organisations in Singapore who are actively involved in the development of the infocomm industry include the Infocomm DevelThis has led to the launch of a 10opment Authority of Singapore year strategic masterplan in 2006 (IDA), Media Development Authornamed the Intelligent Nation 2015 ity (MDA), Ministry of Trade and In(iN2015). The main dustry (MTI), the aims of this masterThere has been a Ministry of Informaplan are to develop tion, Communication Singapore into a cen- proliferation in the and the Arts (MICA), tre for the creation amount of funding Economic Developand commercialisation granted towards ment Board (EDB), of digital media and SPRING Singapore this industry. entertainment techand International Ennologies, and to deterprise (IE) Singapore. velop Singapore into a global node that provides core services for storAcknowledging the potential growth ing, trading and distributing digital asopportunities that lie within this insets. The Singapore Government has dustry, there now boasts a host of also introduced the Singapore Media development schemes and funding Fusion plan, which aims to transform available for the media and IT secSingapore into a global media city. tors. Here are examples of a few such schemes: Since then, there has been a prolif1. The MDA has created various eration in the amount of funding schemes for capability developgranted towards this industry, with ment, content development, digannouncements to set aside S$500 ital technology development, for million (US$329 million) over a pefilm and market development. riod of 5 years from 2006 to increase 2. The IDA and SPRING offer the

‘

Technology Innovation Programme which aims to assist fastgrowing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups by catalysing and co-funding technology projects, and grants support of up to 70% for projects costs such as manpower, professional fees, equipment and software. 3. The SPRING SEEDS (Startup Enterprise Development Scheme), which supports start-ups that create innovative or intellectual content which has a strong potential for success in international markets.

A place where exceptional minds congregate to live, work, relax and learn As further proof of the growing importance of this industry, One-North (www.one-north.sg) was set-up as Singapore’s icon of the knowledge economy. Covering almost 200-ha, One-North is intended to be developed in phases over a period of 15 to 20 years, integrating residential units, commercial hubs, tertiary and research institutes, and sports facilities. It aims to be the focal point for research and development, and technopreneurial activities and serves to provide an intellectually stimulating and creative environment for entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers to congregate, interact and exchange ideas. It consists of several hubs namely, Biopolis, Fusionopolis and Vista Exchange, with the planned addition of Mediapolis. The above efforts have already attracted an array of international companies to establish their presence in Singapore, including well renowned gaming institutions, software providers and digital animation studios, and will most certainly entice even more companies to make Singapore their base in the Asia-Pacific region. Left: Fusionopolis at One-North.

•

COVER STORY

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

FIRST CLASS OUTSOURCED CONTACT CENTRE W A

Teledirect is one innovative company who sees several advantages in doing so and is now operating Singapore’s largest outsourced contact centre here. With 410 contact centre seats, Teledirect runs a 24/7, multilingual global customer service contact centre for one of the world’s most respected airlines. Laurent Junique, its CEO, says “The decision to use Singapore as a centre serving the world was quite simple. We needed a highly reliable infrastructure that can handle mission critical applications such as airline ticket reservations. Next, we needed to have access to highly competent and service oriented human assets. We found that the Singapore government made it very efficient and convenient for us to bring in foreign talent as well. So, we employ French and German speaking personnel as well as north Asian languages such as Korean and Japanese. It is a lot easier to do this in Singapore than anywhere else in Asia.”

Junique says: “We are delighted with this performance and it goes a long way to describing Singapore’s place in the world in terms of productivity and customer service orientation.”

That can be explained by analysing the number of hours a service staff is scheduled for and the productive time it really spends every hour performing tasks. Productivity ratios also vary from one country to another so While Singapore is not a low cost it is important for organisations to do contact centre destination, Junique a thorough analysis of cost reducpoints out that protions against producductivity differences in tivity losses. There will be service organisations cannot be compared more opportunities Looking at the future to the manufacturing of contact centre outfor high-end sector. The productivJunique sees customer service in sourcing, ity between two manmore opportunities Singapore. ufacturing operators for high-end customer could vary by 10-20% service in Singapore. at most, while in the service sector “We often compare Singapore to First the variation is far greater and 50Class, Malaysia to Business Class then 100% is pretty common. comes the Economy Class in very-lowwage countries. And we see an inThe same applies in the outsourcing creasing trend of clients segregating world. Teledirect found through customer service by customer tiers. Preseveral benchmarking analysis mium customers are handled in First that in-house contact centres can Class operations while mid tier and low often be less productive than outtier customers are handled in other sourced. markets.”

‘

hile the cost of living in Singapore is constantly rising, why would anyone want to locate a contact centre in the small island state?

Teledirect also operates a regional Asia-Pacific contact centre for a leading French luxury goods manufacturer. During a recent global customer service benchmark, Teledirect’s centre in Singapore was rated the highest performer among all outsourcers worldwide for this particular client.

COVER STORY

•

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

BRINGING FRENCH IT EXPERTISE SINGAPORE BANKING SECTOR TO THE

By Tanguy Fournier, Manager, Maltem Asia altem is a French Consulting the market and meet with our Eurocompany spepean clients, the owncialised in IT ers gave the green Many banks in the Banking sector. It light very quickly. Sinhave here very was created in 2001 in gapore has a massive large technology banking sector; many Paris and now has over 600 consultants, banks have a regional platforms. offices in Paris, Lonhub here and very don, Brussels, Luxembourg, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. In 2008 it had a turnover of € 60 millions.

‘

large technology platforms. I opened the office in June 2007 with a very straight forward strategy: get some projects first with our existing European clients with a presence in Singapore and then penetrate the local market.

In 2007, Maltem decided to invest in Asia. Our clients were sending our consultants to work there on projects and it was difficult for us to be efficient from Europe. We had been looking at this continent for several years but wanted to grow our presence in Europe first and then expand to the Far East. Singapore appeared very quickly as the most attractive location for our Head Office and after a first visit to better understand

Testimony from Marion Delaporte, Maltem Asia Consultant joined Maltem Singapore as an IT consultant. This is my first experience abroad and my current project is in CALYON Bank, Singapore. After having obtained my employment pass, opened a bank account, found an apart-

•

COVER STORY

ment and had Wireless installed at home, I was finally able to concentrate on my work. When I arrived at the office, the first thing I noticed was the variety of nationalities: Indian, Chinese, Lao, Philipino, Indonesian, Korean, French and American who were working together. What I first had to learn is the fact that every one has his (or her) own culture and his (or her) own way of working. I had to accept some of these different ways of working, ways of behaving but also to reject some of them, in

particular when being in charge of a team. French are known to be very direct and straightforward especially when something goes wrong… Here I have to pay particular attention to the way I say things and to take care not to hurt anybody’s feelings. It is a very good experience and working in such a multi cultural environment is very new to me and I am learning a lot from it as a manager. Overall, I am very happy and enthusiast about this first experience abroad both from a professional and personal point of view!

Maltem quickly got its first assignments and was already breaking even at the end of 2007. In 2008 we brought in more consultants and sales people from our European offices and really grew the client portfolio in Singapore. The competition is very strong in Singapore but we bring very experienced consultants who have skills that are very rare in Asia. We delivers very high quality services to our clients and only commit to a project when we know we can deliver. In Asia we focus on development, business analysis, project management, financial software integration within the banking sector and have also diversified to others industries. We can provide resources, manage turnkey projects and also help our clients with recruitment. We now have 25 consultants, offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, projects in China and we are looking to grow our business to 50 consultants by 2010.

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

MULTI-SERVICE ACCESS ROUTERS ENABLING BUSINESSES EXPLOIT THE BENEFITS ADVANCES TECHNOLOGY, WITHOUT COSTS MANAGING COMPLEX IT NETWORKING INFRASTRUCTURE TO

THE

By Alan Brazier, Chief Sales Officer, OneAccess he current economic climate is causing leaders in all businesses, both large and small, to seek ways to save costs whilst increasing the performance and productivity of their organisations. One area coming under increasing scrutiny is the sometimes obscure and complex world of telecommunications (voice and data networking), and there are clear savings to be made, both in capex outlay and ongoing service fees.

What has led to this change in approach?

OneAccess Networks. OneAccess specialises in producing equipment For years, telecoms companies have which the Telecoms providers use to been providing separate circuits to terminate their services at the cusconnect to companies’ telephone tomer site. Our equipment, known equipment and their data networks, as ‘Multi-Service Access Routers’ are mainly due to the technologies used able to connect to the operators to transport the information (data networks and provide their cusand telephone calls, faxes etc) from tomers with a full range of commuone place to another. nications services, all But with the emermanaged by the Telco. There are gence of IP (Internet Internet access, secuclear savings Protocol) networks, rity, wireless networkto be made. they are now able to ing, telephone and fax, Originating in the mature, deregulated provide these comvideo and secure data telecoms markets in Europe, there munications over a single interface to networking call all be provided to the are some very interesting trends in their customers, normally using copbusiness customer through a single the industry which can help compaper circuits, optical fibre, or even a device from OneAccess. This businies to access the benefits of new 3G mobile connection. The equipness model has been so successful in technologies, whilst being able to ment provided to terminate these Europe that OneAccess has become reduce their capital outlay and their services at the customer’s site has to the second largest supplier of ‘Branch dependency on in-house expertise: be very sophisticated, and ‘tuned’ to Office’ routers in the world, shipping Known as ‘Managed Network Services’, the specific characteristics of the netover 200,000 devices per year. Not this new generation of services is dework delivering the service, and so it bad for a 300 people company livered by Europe’s is important that the based in Paris! major incumbent TelTelco retains ownerThe world of So what’s next? coms providers and ship and control of IT is going to be Well, for OneAccess, the next their competitors to these devices, hence big opportunity is to use the same both residential and the term ‘managed’ simpler. devices to deliver the services curbusiness customers. In services. rently provided by a key-system or fact, in some countries like France and PBX in the office. Distributing the One French company in the foreGermany, this has become the nortelephone calls around the office front of helping Telcos to deliver mal way for companies to receive and providing you with the features these business friendly services, is their communications services, as the you use on your office telco is able to guarantee phone, but without you the service quality and having to invest in the availability, through its equipment. ownership of the equipment used to terminate Clearly, the world of the service. The reason IT is going to be simpler for the growth of these for business people services is due to the fact in the future, if our telethat they can be bundled com providers are willand standardised, and so ing to take over the the overall cost to the complexity of managing business subscriber is sigthe equipment. Worknificantly lower than taking with OneAccess can ing individual circuits, provide complete combuying the termination munications packages, equipment and paying backed by service level for in-house experts to guarantees. manage this equipment.

‘

COVER STORY

•

SINGAPOREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ICT FORGES AHEAD

SINGAPORE: ATTRACTIVE LOCATION PROVIDERS RISK MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS AN

FOR

An Interview with Guy Otayek, Chief Executive Officer, MUREX Southeast Asia Could you explain the main reasons which brought you to choose Singapore to set up your company? Singapore was chosen based on several key factors such as its positioning as a geographical hub, an education system that attracts talents from all nationalities, a world-class IT and logistics infrastructure, a sound and predictable fiscal policy, a somewhat reasonable cost base, and a well-known social and political stability. While we were initially hesitating between Hong Kong and Singapore, those factors, as well as the efficient assistance of Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and a major opportunity with the leading regional bank led us to choose Singapore. Since 2001, we grew the team from 16 to 145 with 14 different nationalities; we have changed offices three times to accommodate growth. Our 4th address will be at Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC) starting from 2010. Today, Murex has 4 offices in AsiaPacific: Tokyo, Sydney, Beijing and Singapore as our regional headquarter. Looking backward, our decision to establish our regional headquarter in Singapore was indeed the right one. Throughout the good times, and then despite the enormous jump in office rents and then the crisis, no other location has managed to be more attractive than Singapore to a software house serving capital markets like us.

situation appeared for a while to be out of control, it has stabilised now to some extent. The crisis has nevertheless left profound traces and created new fundamental trends in our industry.

In your specific sector, what are the latest trends? And how do you position yourself in this fastmoving market? I will set aside in my answer economical trends resulting from the bubble burst and related credit crisis, and will focus solely on their impact on our industry as well as possible trends or growth areas in the short term (i.e. one or two years). Before this crisis, corporate and retail investors were primarily chasing yield enhancement to improve their revenues beyond all-time low money market rates. Certain asset classes such as real estate started inflating beyond reasonable levels. This was further accelerated by reliance on structured products which risks were not properly managed essentially due to poor assumptions regarding market dynamics or because of the sheer complexity of the structures. In the same way as structured products accelerated asset inflation, their demise accelerated the burst through writing-off of billions of dollars of underlying assets. While the

As a provider of comprehensive trading infrastructures to banks and asset managers, we have to understand those trends and adapt to them. First of all, our clients are suddenly under budget constraints. Only key projects are authorised after close scrutiny by executive management and boards. The focus of management and shareholders, as well as the pressure from regulatory bodies, go towards fixing the basics first. This sounds like a difficult scaling down of activities, but in fact it hides pretty strong trends. To name a few, from a risk management perspective, financial institutions will be looking at fixing or upgrading their infrastructure on core functions such as better analytics, real time monitoring and governance models. Credit will be more and more managed through collateral. Banks will be looking at further centralisation and automation for timely monitoring and management of operational risk. They are also accelerating integration of the value chain from distribution to trading to risk management and down to the back office. As a consequence of the ability of our platform to service those trends, we are noticing a serious pickup in demand for projects on enterprise risk management or trading infrastructure integration.

COVER STORY

â&#x20AC;˘

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

THALES CORE INNOVATION SINGAPORE’S ICT AT THE

A world leader in mission-critical information systems for the aerospace, defense and security market. Singapore: Thales’ Gateway to the Orient With operations in 50 countries and 68,000 employees, Thales is a global technology leader for the aerospace, space, defense, security and transportation markets. It has had operations in Singapore dating back as early as 1973 when it opened its first representative office. This presence has gone a long way with now close to 280 employees working for the group in Singapore. In line with its multidomestic policy, the Group has decided to install the Regional HQ in Singapore which reflects the importance accorded to developing Thales footprint in the region’s emerging markets.

A Multidimensional Company in Singapore Thales Singapore is involved in Defense, Aerospace, Transport and Security through its different locally based companies. Indeed, moving along with expanding its industrial capabilities, three major companies are now operating from Singapore with a regional footprint. Thales Aerospace (TAA) started its operations in the early 80s and acts today as the main entry point and the hub for the Aerospace Division's development in Asia-Pacific. Created in 1994 to address the local support of defense contract, Thales Security Asia (TSA) is dedicated to the design, engineering of seRight: TTCS Office in Fusionopolis, the new futurist complex dedicated to R&D, especially for Communications

•

COVER STORY

curity solutions to address the market of Mission Critical Systems. TSA is also regarded as the Singapore setup for other divisions of the group, in view of building-up local support capabilities and low cost development centre. Lastly, as a result of its long standing ties with Singapore, and in line with its multi-domestic policy, Thales set up the Thales Technology Centre Singapore (TTCS) aiming at serving the group’s R&D activities, and with the ambition to grow it into a centre of excellence for selected R&D areas. TTCS is also one of the four Thales corporate research centres and the first one implemented outside of Europe

An Increasing Presence in Singapore Nowadays convergence in Singapore between defense and security has prompted the need for new solutions and technologies that enable

organisations to share existing information and communication systems whilst also ensuring the traceability of individuals and the protection of networks and infrastructures. Over the past 35 years, Thales has contributed to the development of Singapore and be associated with some of the country’s most acknowledged achievements. Indeed, Thales has for a long time been supplying large systems to Singapore like the LORADS II and III in the Changi Airport, the rail control and ticketing systems of the metro lines, Airbus avionics for Singapore Airlines, and various radar and sonar systems acquired by the Singapore Armed Forces. Further, Thales has excellent and fruitful technical collaborations with some major actors of the defense sector such as the Defense Science and Technology Agency or the DSO National Laboratories, the Singapore defence R&D organisation.

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

PASSION RESEARCH FOR

AND

INNOVATION

An interview with Patrick Plante, CEO, Thales Technology Centre Singapore (TTCS)

How is TTCS positioned vis-à-vis Thales and what is its value added for the Group? The role played by TTCS in Singapore is both dual and strategic. Firstly, it is to be the Singapore platform for localising Thales technologies. Indeed, it facilitates secured transfer of technical knowledge from Europe to Singapore and serves as an effective interface between Thales experts and Singapore researchers. Secondly, by building centres of excellence in specific key competencies (in the domains of Sensors, Communications and Systems), TTCS contributes to the growth of Thales technology portfolio. With its expertise and knowledge of target applications, TTCS is capable of identifying scientific advances in Asia that may be developed into technology bricks of high value for insertion into Thales system solutions. At the strategic level, TTCS is the torch bearer of Thales technology excellence in Singapore and is now fully acknowledged as a key member of the local technology eco-system. How well is TTCS positioned visà-vis competitors in the local eco-system? TTCS’ growth strategy was to be lean and expand the team judiciously while tapping on the deep expertise of Thales in Europe and the strengths of the Singapore eco-system. Our focus is always on developing focus competence in dual-use technologies that have applications across the business domains of Thales and relevant to the needs of Singapore. TTCS strategy was never to consider local R&D entities as competitors but more as partners with whom we created innovative solutions for our customers. Partnerships are developed with industries but we are also very keen on tapping the academic community for fundamental research in scientific principles. In line with this

strategy, a joint research vehicle called Thales@NTU was created between TTCS and NTU (Nanyang Technological University). By mating the industrial expertise of Thales and the academic excellence of NTU, TTCS generates cutting-edge dualuse technologies that will form the basis of innovative solutions. Is TTCS present in the ICT domain? Are there significant ICT related projects TTCS participated in? Among others, TTCS puts a strong focus on Communications System Development and Experimentation. Indeed, we have developed a keen research interest in Wireless Systems, Mobile Ad-hoc Networking, Software Defined Radio, Cognitive Radio & Wideband RF Electronics. Centres of Excellence are being built in key technological areas, including SCA (Software Communications Architecture) compliant Software Radio Waveform development, and System Experimentation Environments. With these, and more, TTCS connect Thales to the technology needs of Singapore customers by participating in R&D collaborations with the local eco-system, and assist the divisions to transform innovations into programmes that would follow after the R&D phase. One example of this approach is the Thales-LTA MoC (Memorandum of Collaboration). The LTA (Land Transport Authority) would like to leverage on TTCS’ strong background in communication modeling and simulation in the form of its wireless system experimentation platform called CLAIRE (Communications Simulation Environment for Integration, Research and Experimentation) to conduct system-level study of the wireless infrastructure that would be needed to realise the future Singapore road charging system. It is conceivable that the study would provide

Top: Mr Patrick Plante, C.E.O of TTCS

valuable insights on the system requirements of the new Electronic Road Pricing programme (ERP 2) that is of strong interest to the Thales Transportation Systems BL. What further development can we expect for TTCS? What will be your future challenges? I believe that TTCS’s next strategic challenge will be to leverage on its maturing competencies and bring our activity to a regional level. Indeed, with renewed and increased support from the corporate and the divisions, TTCS will implement business scenarios by leveraging on its capabilities to meet their needs and to become an indispensable member of the Group’s R&D community as well as a valuable technology partner in Asia. We are to be fully involved in R&D cooperation with the divisions and to become a valuable asset in key projects such as MCM Domain Dominance, Singapore Urban Transport Solutions, just to name a few. As part of the Thales Asia organisation, we intend to increase cooperation with other delegations in the region (China, Malaysia, etc.) and fly the flag for Thales as the innovation leader in Asia.

COVER STORY

•

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

CHANGE IS GOOD – TRANSFORMING ENTERPRISE THE

By Karin Yates, Marketing Strategy and Communications, Alcatel-Lucent Services Group, Haverhill, Massachusetts, USA

he past 10 to 15 years have seen a shift in how executives view IT/Telecom infrastructure. In the 1990s, executives managed IT/Telecom to reduce its cost; in the early to mid-2000s, it was managed to help reduce overall enterprise spending; today, IT/telecom is critical to successfully running the enterprise.

With IT and Telecom converging, corporate network technology is evolving and becoming more complex. Convergence of voice, data and video communications is now fundamental to creating business value and must be integrated with business processes. Today, IT/telecom investments and decisions have different rationales: • Reduce costs.

• Meet end-user demands. • Increase productivity. • Improve quality of products and processes. • Stay ahead of the competition. Achieving these goals now requires that IT/Telecom generate business growth through transforming the enterprise. However, enterprises are often not equipped to manage this transformation and keep pace with technological evolution. Transformation is required to capitalise on the potential for converged networks to expand enterprise boundaries and provide new pathways for growth and innovation. Enterprises must use these new pathways to meet the demands of end users, employees, clients and partners.

End users are demanding: • Communications for the enterprise ecosystem of relationships. • Support for a broad range of equipment, applications and technology. • Tailored, easy communications to facilitate real-time decisionmaking. • Network security and reliability regardless of geographic boundaries. Issues executives face: • How to take advantage of new technology without causing disruption. • How to create competitive differentiation. • How to manage voice and data traffic effectively as the business grows globally. • How to keep the network secure. • How to match network capacity to demand.

Outsourcing Business Model Solutions – A Closer Look In addition to meeting these challenges, executives expect to save 1530% on operating expenses (OPEX). To meet the requirements of this complex networking environment, enterprises around the world can employ proven, tailored outsourcing solutions. Selective engagements focus on a specific management function, or task, that a third party can perform more economically and effectively. Hosted/managed applications are network-based services that typically reside either at the partner’s data centre or on customer premises. Enterprises need to provide applications that are cost-effective, increase productivity and improve satisfaction. However, before offering these new

•

COVER STORY

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD applications, hundreds of new application opportunities must be evaluated to create a range of services that meet business imperatives. Strategic outsourcing is a relationship for network transformation and migration to next-generation converged services to realise long-term financial and business objectives. This is a comprehensive solution to support all aspects of the full network lifecycle: planning, design, integration, ongoing maintenance and management and network evolution. Simply stated, an outsourcing partner manages your network so you can manage your business. Outsourcing business model solutions help enterprises: • Use technology to differentiate from competitors and achieve important business objectives by implementing technology that provides a survivable platform with room for growth and expansion. • Manage and operate a network encompassing multiple locations to deliver integrated voice and data services cost-effectively. • Put the enterprise end user in the driving seat by providing ubiquitous access to services independent of device and network type. • Protect assets and intellectual property while delivering superior customer service by delivering improved customer operations and committed network service levels.

Focus on Building your Business With the correct strategic partner, enterprises are free to grow their business and efficiently transform their infrastructure to accommodate next-generation converged services. Enterprises can concentrate on their customers and business rather than day-to-day network operations. The partner’s capabilities can assure top performance while the enterprise maintains network control through rigorous SLA management. CAPEX and OPEX can become more predictable, and total cost of ownership can drop. Short term: • OPEX reduction can result from economies of scale associated with the partner’s opera-

tions centre, infrastructure and personnel investment. • An initial CAPEX investment advantage.

Conclusion

As a result, more and more enterprises are realising that owning network infrastructure is no longer their core business. They need instead to focus on: • Decreasing the length of innovation cycles. • Decreasing time-to-market for new services and applications to help improve productivity and to support the enterprise ecosystem of relationships. • Mitigating the risk of up-front investments in new technologies. • Scaling capacity to meet demand. • The services offered over a network, rather than the network itself as an asset.

As networks converge, corporate technology is evolving and becoming more complex. Convergence of voice, data and video communications is fundamental to achieving the CEO’s desired business value and must be designed to integrate with business processes. This transformation creates new network and operations management challenges. Enterprises must maintain focus on network advancements and client satisfaction in an environment of constant technology change, yet while addressing these challenges, executives expect improved financial metrics.

This has created an environment where a growing number of enterprises are looking to alternative business models for competitive advantage. They offer tried and tested approaches to outsourcing, aiding business success by providing tailored solutions for complex environments. Enterprises benefit from cost optimisation, maximised financial performance, a stringent set of performance standards and objectives, assured business continuity and a sense of security. It is a proven strategy for success.

Long term: • OPEX is controlled by outsourcing some or all network operations. Costs can be more accurately controlled and forecasted as regards managing the network, new application deployment and network expansion. • CAPEX reduction can result through minimising or eliminating certain ongoing investments in development and maintenance and operations centre expenditures.

COVER STORY

•

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

INTERNET & E-COMMERCE TRENDS SINGAPORE REGION IN

AND THE

World Internet Users by World Region

Asian Users Scale the Web Today, on the Internet, 2 users out of 5 are Asian, and this proportion is expected to increase in the next coming years with the development of the network infrastructure in the region. Indeed, the Internet penetration rate in Asia is still lower than the world average; we can then assume Asian users will soar and will shortly become the most numerous on the web. The biggest markets in Asia are: China (with 298 millions users), Japan (94 millions users), and then India (81 millions users). Despite their relatively low Internet penetration rate, China and India still reach the top 3 thanks to their huge inland population. But if we only focus on the Internet penetration rate, we then have a totally different ranking with top countries such as South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Source: Internet World Stats in Q1 2009

3/4 of Singaporeans Have Access to the Internet Infocomm has become an integral part of Singaporeans’ lives. According to the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), 76% of households in Singapore had ac-

India

Asia Pacific Past 12 Months Quarter-On-Quarter Average Online Spending

Source: Visa Survey

•

COVER STORY

cess to the Internet at home and all accessed to the Internet using computers in 2008. This trend is increasing over the years (+21% compared to 2004) and the government is pushing in this direction with the ultimate goal to be a “wired Island”. Home and place of work are still the two most common places to access the Internet in Singapore. However, with the democratisation of 3G mobile devices and the fast development of wireless broadband access, we can assume this is going to evolve. The nationwide Wi-Fi hotspot programme Wireless@SG developed by IDA is a good example to illustrate this trend. Launched in 2006, this wireless broadband programme offers the opportunity to enjoy free wireless broadband access in public areas. As this is a real success – the number of subscribers is standing at 1.28 million in January this year, with some 40,000 new subscribers added monthly – IDA recently announced they will continue to provide free wireless broadband connectivity until March 2013.

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD Consumer e-Commerce Spending in Asia Unfazed by challenging economic conditions, online spending as reported by consumers in Asia-Pacific in the last quarter of 2008 held steady compared with the previous

two quarters, according to the Visa e-Commerce Consumer Monitor. The survey found that respondents spent an average of US$3,109 in the past year (ended December 2008). This figure is close to the reported average e-commerce spent of

Asia Pacific Top Five Most Popular e-Commerce Websites (%)

US$3,009 and US$2,784 for the 12 months ended June and September 2008 respectively. Online shoppers from Singapore (US$4,018), Hong Kong (US$3,791) and India (US$3,442) reported to have spent the most in the 12 months ended December 2008. Online spending in these countries and territories also saw the largest quarter-on-quarter increases. Those from Hong Kong said they spent more than double what they had spent in the previous survey period while spending in India and Singapore rose by 42% and 34% respectively.

Key Online Spend Areas Oriented on Leisure The top three biggest online spend areas were all travel related services. According to the survey, the highest areas of spending in the past 12 months were airline/airline tickets (US$970), online travel agents (US$647) and travel accommodation (US$527). Source: Visa Survey

Sources: Business Times 09 June 2009; IDA.

Rihiveli Beach Resort, Maldives Male South Atoll Tel: (960) - 6643731/6641994 Fax: (960) 6640052

Bienvenue à Rihiveli aux Maldives à seulement 4 heures de Singapour… Dans un environnement convivial et simple, re-découvrez les joies de la vraie communication, où les gens sont vos meilleurs amis, où la nature sursoit à vos besoins et la maison votre havre de confort et de plaisirs.

Relaxation. Re-découverte. Rihiveli.

www.rihiveli-maldives.com Email: info@rihiveli-maldives.com

Managed by

No News No Shoes...

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

MOBILE AIRTIME REMITTANCES MIGRATION CORRIDORS AND

by Rahma Bel-Bachir, Marketing Director, Transfer To™ obile technologies address growing needs from nomadic customers but mobility is often handled at a domestic level within a limited territory or country, setting aside international movements of people.

Around the world, more than 200 million people live outside their home country and have specific needs and consumption habits. Regarding their telecommunications, they still lack appropriate solutions from mobile operators.

ality on the traffic. Global mobile topup is indeed given out as a gift for birthdays, festivals or during religious celebrations or public holidays. During Ramadan or the Muslim Pilgrimage (Hajj) for example, transfers increase within the Muslim communities from Saudi Arabia or Malaysia to Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt or Jordan.

Where bank branches are few and most people unbanked, mobile technologies play an increasing role in electronic transactions. Airtime is used everyday as a currency in multiple situations; a foreign worker in a capital city will recharge the mobile prepaid account of his parents living in remote areas allowing them to informally cash out part of the credit afterwards. Airtime is stored safely and easily and can be used for everyday onthe-streets small transactions.

Foreign communities, migrants and visitors remit around U$300 billion a year; they traditionally transfer part of their earnings every month directly to household head in their home country. However, they have no appropriate solution for sending smaller amounts to the rest of their family on special occasions. Transfer To™ came up with a solution for small value transfers from one country to another using SMS via mobile phone. For instance, a Filipino living in Singapore can send credit to recharge the mobile prepaid account of his relative in the Philippines directly via SMS. The sender simply needs to enter the amount and destination number and send it via SMS, the receiver will instantly get the corresponding airtime credit directly on his prepaid mobile account. This solution for international airtime remittance revealed specific trends and habits such as a very high season-

•

COVER STORY

and on-the-streets resellers. In Nigeria it is estimated that over 600,000 people are engaged in airtime reselling, they are the so-called “Umbrella People” because all they need is an umbrella and a mobile phone to start business right away on the streets.

Traceability and security are key factors when dealing with international mobile transactions.

Following global migration corridors, Transfer To™ network aggregates the mobile operators’ airtime all around the world covering multiple countries in Asia, the Middle-East, Europe, Africa and the Americas. In emerging countries, solutions such as mobile credit transfers are changing the dynamics of each market. In India for instance, more than 70% of airtime distribution relies on retailers

To bring more transparency and formality in this sector, Transfer To™ complies with the telecom industry codes of conduct and follows laws and remittance regulations enforced in each country within its network. Helping raise standards and expectations for international airtime transfers benefit end-users in both developed and emerging countries. Contact: Rahma Bel-Bachir rahma.bel-bachir@transfer-to.com www.transfer-to.com

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

INVESTING

IN A

GREEN FUTURE

By Charles Kennaway, General Manager, ASEAN, Orange Business Services Orange has set ambitious targets to reduce energy consumption by 2020, leading by example by reducing its own environmental impact through a continually improved performance. At a Group level, Orange intends to cut CO2 emissions by 20% from 2006 to 2020 despite the anticipated business growth of 50% over the same period. arlier this year, Singapore announced a S$1 billion plan to build a greener, more energy efficient and sustainable nation. Given the island’s limited natural resources, sustainable development remains a priority at all times. The current recession is no excuse for companies to do nothing about reducing their carbon footprint.

Companies can begin by having a strategic plan to reduce carbon emissions in all areas of their operations: IT, logistics, production, supply chain and facilities. From sophisticated machine-to-machine communications to reducing unnecessary business travel or simple actions like switching off equipment not in use, every bit counts. Here are just four technology solutions that businesses can invest in to secure a greener future: 1. Telepresence video-conference technology. Telepresence can be defined as turbo-charged videoconferencing that brings virtual meetings to life. With its life-like images, it enables business executives to hold meetings with colleagues and partners anywhere in the world without leaving the office, reducing air travel. This new mean of communication delivers rapid return on investment in the amount of carbon emissions avoided, productivity gains from travel time saved and cost-savings from travel expenses eliminated.

tres and higher consumption of electricity. This can be reversed rather inexpensively using virtualisation technology to reduce the number of under-utilised servers. An under-utilised server requires almost as much power and cooling as a fully utilised one. As a result of its own server consolidation programme, Orange has virtualised more than 8,000 servers and reduced its energy consumption by 14GWh to date, an amount equal to the electricity consumed annually by a small city. Additionally Orange has achieved an extra 15% savings in electricity consumption by allowing higher temperatures in equipment rooms, while still ensuring that servers run within manufacturers’ recommended guidelines. 3. Collaboration tools such as Orange Business Services “Business Together” enable executives to conduct virtual meetings and remote collaboration with colleagues, removing the need for travel and ancillary energy consumption.

4. Machine to machine (M2M) communications. From vehicle tracking to stock control, machine-to-machine solutions give companies visibility of what’s happening as it happens, without needing personnel to be physically on the spot. M2M communications enables remote equipment such as cameras and in-vehicle devices to interact with the company’s information systems, providing vital, real-time data needed to manage internal processes more efficiently. M2M fleet management solutions enable companies to keep track of vehicles ensuring these carry optimum loads and use the most efficient routes, while remote monitoring and maintenance eliminate unnecessary trips to fix and repair them. Orange Business Services employees in Singapore use collaboration and telepresence wherever possible. Orange has a travel policy that ensures employees travel to meetings only when absolutely necessary. Top: Charles Kennaway; Bottom: Telepresence video-conference technology.

2. Data centre consolidation and virtualisation is a key area for green IT. Increased use of web-based applications has led to burgeoning data cen-

COVER STORY

•

COME home to our wide range of contemporary, value-for-money electrical products

GO gourmet with our house brand range of authentic regional French delicacies

CHOOSE from our fresh range of

REAP

produce, cultivated within sustainable agriculture guidelines

the benefits of our healthy organic range of products, certified ‘Ecocert’

10% OFF ALL CARREFOUR HOUSE BRANDS* EVERY TUESDAY!

HOUSE BRANDS . .

STRETCH

your household budget with our price-conscious range of products

VALUE VARIETY .QUALITY.

OVER 2000 ITEMS FOR ALL YOUR NEEDS When you charge to your POSB Everyday Card. * Terms & conditions apply. Please see in-store for details.

FEEL

the quality and comfort of our textiles, from bed linen to bath towels and beyond

SWITCH on to our three highly affordable ranges of quality electrical products

ENJOY

the excellent quality and exceptional value of our imported Carrefour brand products

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

GOING GREENER , SAVING MILLIONS By Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) has achieved a cost savings of over S$8.56 million since embarking on its Green IT initiative. It is one of the first government agencies to embark on an IT initiative that seeks to promote more effective use of energy, and leads the way in formulating IT procurement specifications. n September 2007, LTA signed a three year memorandum of understanding with IBM to collaborate and implement an energy efficient programme for LTA’s IT environment. The collaboration will further promote responsible and more effective use of energy in LTA.

and IBM to develop an Energy Monitoring System to track and manage energy utilisation of all computing devices. When fully implemented, the system will be able to help reduce energy costs by at least S$100,000 per annum.

This Green IT initiative is part of the organisation’s effort which will see LTA reduce its carbon footprint and energy consumption to support environmental sustainability. This effort is a further extension of its earlier pursuit of going paperless with e-Services@LTA, where notable portals like onemotoring.com.sg and LTA.PROMPT for online transactions for motorists and industry partners have helped to achieve more than S$5 million in productivity improvements and S$3 million in cost savings. A joint task force contextualised a green programme to fit LTA’s environment. The programme hinges on 3 domains namely: Business Operations, Infrastructure and People. Initial pilots in the past 12 months have yielded savings of about S$560,000.

ployment and disposal of IT equipment ranging from desktops to servers. The guidelines were adapted from several international standards including EPEAT, IEEE 1680, IEEE 1621 and the European Union RoHS (Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations) Directives.

These pilot improvements include the following initiatives: • The replacement of ageing IT assets with Energy Star (ES) compliant standards which can reduce energy consumption by 50% or about 500kg of carbon emission per personal computer (PC) annually. This amounts to S$150,000 in cost savings per annum.

• The assessment of data centre energy efficiency with the use of thermal imaging technology to identify airflow efficiencies and hotspots. The new specifications have since resulted in the layout re-alignment of LTA data centres/control centres reducing energy consumption by 20% or achieving a cost savings of S$150,000 per annum.

• The adoption of Green Guidelines for the procurement, de-

LTA also collaborated with Temasek Polytechnic’s School of Informatics

To complement the efficient use of computing devices, the Green Hour@LTA initiative was launched on World Environment Day on 5th June 2008 whereby all staff are encouraged to power off their PCs, laptops, printers or any other peripherals and the main power switch for at least 1 hour during lunch time. As the environmentally conscious culture proliferates within the organisation, an annual savings of 2 million hours of energy or S$160,000 can be achieved. Rosina Howe, Group Director, Innovation and InfoComm Technology, LTA, said, “The Green Initiative represents LTA’s unwavering dedication in finding sustainable solutions to critical environmental issues. Through various collaborative platforms, LTA has carried out several experimentations and testbedding of new concepts with technology and innovation. With an estimated 60% of energy being used for cooling in data centres, and the increase in density of computing platforms, a trial of liquid cooled systems is next in the pipeline.” The Green IT initiative is part of Green Movement@LTA, which includes other projects such as the promotion of the use of environmentally-friendly vehicles and the Green Pavement trial scheme – an initiative to recycle incinerated ash as a usable road pavement material.

COVER STORY

•

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

MAKING SINGAPORE A

TRUSTED GLOBAL C APITAL NEW ASIA MEDIA FOR

By Singapore Media Development Authority (MDA) MDA is fostering the growth of the fast-paced media industry with new ideas and innovation. n its transformation as a global media nexus, Singapore’s media landscape has never been more vibrant. Today, 15 out of 17 major cable & satellite broadcasters are based here and Singapore-made content is entertaining audiences in over 70 countries. Fueling the growth of the media ecosystem is S$1.3 billion worth of media funds and support for over 250 Research & Development (R&D) projects in interactive digital media to shape the future of media.

The Media Sector in Singapore Since its establishment in 2003, MDA has put in place a slew of initiatives to boost the sector. They range from supporting local content and talents

to go global, promoting Singapore media at key trade markets and hosting international events to raise Singapore’s profile; and enhancing the skills of industry players. As of 2006, S$19.5 billion worth of revenue was recorded with over 54,700 employed in the media sector. Today, Singapore-made content is winning accolades and audiences all over the world. CarneyVale: Showtime, developed by a group of Singaporean students under the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, beat 350 entries to become the first Singapore game to be published on the Microsoft XNA Community Channel. Factual programmes and docudramas like My World, My Blog also clinched awards at the New York Festivals. Staying at the forefront of digital media deployment, Singapore also staged the inaugural 3DX: 3D Film & Entertainment Technology Festival where a stellar cast of 22 international speakers from the 3D fraternity and 21 3D screenings kick-started 3D developments and the establishment of a S$10 million fund to address local industry needs in 3D projects. A slate of 3D Singapore co-produced films is also in the pipeline to entertain local and international audience.

Where is Singapore’s Media Industry Headed? Charting the industry’s directions forward is the recently-launched media blueprint called the Singapore Media Fusion Plan (SMFP) where S$230 million has been allocated to prepare Singapore’s media sector to thrive in a fast-changing global landscape marked by technological advancements. SMFP aims to strengthen the media ecosystem and support the creation of innovative content with

•

COVER STORY

global appeal with the goal to make Singapore a Trusted Global Capital for New Asia Media.

Why New Asia Media? Asia is one of the fastest growing consumers of media content in the world and new business opportunities are constantly being created with digital and technological changes. Singapore aims to bridge the East and the West to collaborate with Asian partners to take Asian content to global audiences; and with international partners to cater to the increasing hunger among Asian audiences for content that reflects modern Asian sensibilities. Singapore also aims to tap into these currents to explore new business models, media content, applications and services, as well as enable experimentation and prototyping.

Incentives for International Media Companies A broad range of support is available for Singapore companies who enter into collaborations and co-productions with international media players. Plans are also underway to build Mediapolis@One-North, a 19hectare media park which will offer state-of-the-art services like soundstages, digital production and facilities, and digital media schools. MDA welcomes international companies to establish their base in Singapore alongside international companies like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Lucasfilm to exploit the opportunities with Singapore’s rise as a media capital of the world. More information can be found on www.smf.sg. Left: Award-winning Singapore-made games and content, pictures courtesy of MDA.

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

DIGITAL SOLUTIONS INNOVATIONS IN ASIA By Gregory Birge, Managing Director, F5 Digital Consulting

With the proliferation of digital solutions, these have to be increasingly creative in form and yet simplistic in nature in order to sustain in today’s market. Applications are successful when it is convenient or entertaining for the consumer; when it does not require any drastic mind-altering change or behaviour from users.

Latest Digital Solutions Developed in Asia In Hong Kong, the Motorola’s “Say Goodbye” Campaign at Hong Kong Airport to highlight their interactive screens was quite a success. In China, you can order food over IM (lihua.com), get loans or P2P microlending (Qifang.com), get widgets from appstore for non-iPhone (Lakoo.com), watch P2P Internet TV (PPLive.com). In South Korea, Polygraph is a mobile lie detector and is very popular among South Korean girls to test their boyfriends’ truthful ness about their whereabouts. Another interesting mobile service is the Navi Call Taxi Service which allows you to call a cab from a specific number, and the taxi driver knows where to pick you up.This last example is an effort to make the taxi experience safer for young women. In Singapore,

companies are actively upscaling soSpeaking about user relations, cial media networking and collaboraAgathos Solutions, with its FlexAntion services for employees this year. swer solution, is able to track the onSocial Networking Sites (SNS) have line level of brand index with a created another channel for building proper semantic search on FAQ. consumer awareness. This unique questionPrevalent SNS Faceanswer technology ties Social book has hosted sevup with the portal eral successful cam- networking sites knowledge database paigns in the local and allows more accuhave created arena. Most impressive rate and efficient replies will be the “Beautifully another channel to customer queries. InImperfect Couples” stead of rampaging for building hosted by MCYS. through the entire consumer FAQs for information, awareness. To complement the FlexAnswer actually new channels, DGCT provides almost instanSingapore overturns the theory of taneous and close to perfect answer. audience measurement. No more fieldwork with hand tally counters. Another new user-focused initiative The proposal here is to measure auis Geogini which allows users to dience demographics by automatidownload addresses of locations in cally watching a screen. They can China in both English & Chinese via even push media planning over the the website or through mobile Internet and control the efficiency of phones. Although still in their beta a dedicated campaign. stage, Geogini has coverage in major tourist and business hotspots. This is extremely useful for those non-mandarin speakers, leisure or business travellers alike, making their way around Chinese cities. Eliminating the need for confusing and tedious hand signs and the frustrations with taxi drivers who never seem to understand where one wants to go. With four main cities in the database and on-going development on iPhone platform, Geogini has much potential to progress.

‘

ynamism is sweeping across Asia’s digital scene. Driven by the desire to obtain a competitive edge, new media innovations are mushrooming across the region. Usually declined from existing technologies, Asia’s innovations have the distinct characteristic of catering to the masses.

With the interest of users in mind, these are different types of digital solutions that are likely to gain favourable terms in the market. Definitely, we are anticipating even more outstanding digital solutions from Asia in the times to come.

COVER STORY

•

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

MANAGING DATA GROWTH: THE INFORMATION

RETRIEVAL ADVANTAGE

by Mr Jean Garez, Director – Business Development, Asia Technical Services n EMC-sponsored IDC study titled As the Economy Contracts, the Digital Universe Expands, uncovered a staggering metric for the amount of new digital information bits created in 2008: 3,892,179,868,480,350,000,000, or 3 sextillion, 892 quintillion, 179 quadrillion, 868 trillion, 480 billion, 350 million. According to their findings, “although the economy deteriorated in late 2008, the pace of digital information created and transmitted over the Internet, phone networks, and airwaves actually increased.”

While the pace of digital information increased in 2008, IT budgets declined, thus creating an even larger divide between the amount of information generated and the amount of IT resources purchased and deployed to manage it. This dynamic further validates the demand for tools and techniques geared specifically to managing more with less.

Growth Drivers Most of the world’s economic stimulus efforts will also increase the amount of digital information created, the result of increased access to broadband communications, electronic patient records, smart electric grids, smart buildings and autos, etc. By 2012, 850 million people will buy and sell products and services on the Internet and twice as much Internet commerce will take place versus 2008.

Information Security More than 30% of information created today is 'security-intensive’. That number will grow to roughly 45% by the end of 2012. Most of the information IT organisations will need to keep secure what is created outside the data centre, often outside the company. More and more of that information originates from mobile users

•

COVER STORY

– workers, customers, suppliers, partners, etc.

Compliance The amount of information considered 'compliance-intensive', or subject to rules that govern what information must be stored and accessible to regulating authorities and auditors, will grow from 25% of the Digital Universe in 2008 to 35% of the Digital Universe in 2012.

So what does this mean for companies? Companies today are facing an information access crisis. Most of the essential information we need to thrive in a highly competitive environment is inaccessible to the people who need it most: employees, customers and partners. Specifically, steep learning curves and heavy licensing and infrastructure costs hamper access to valuable information stored in corporate databases and enterprise applications like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (i.e., ‘structured’ information). And while database access tools are restrictive, employees often have no tools at all for locating and exploiting the ‘unstructured’ data that makes up the bulk of corporate information assets – information encapsulated in resources such as email, chat, blogs, forums, RSS feeds, videos, and office documents. Online businesses face a similar challenge. They need to provide easier, innovative access to a broader range of information to attract and build their audiences, but the cost of doing

so can be exorbitant, even when and if the technical challenges can be overcome Robust, scalable, intelligent information retrieval tools provide the only cost effective way to address this problem, by off-loading resource intensive processes from databases, and other systems that are not designed to support intensive querying, and creating actionable intelligence from a multitude of heterogeneous data sources. Asia Technical Services Pte Ltd has partnered with Exalead, a leading European Enterprise search engine solution provider to help companies address their information retrieval needs, and can help you if you have data access and representation needs that are not being addressed by your current vendors. Customers include: Friendster, ExpatFinder.com, Air Liquide, CapGemini, DCNS, Alstom, BNP Parisbas, GEFCO, Thales, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, DGA, Journaux Officiels, 118-218, rightmove.co.uk, Rothschild, Coface, Aviva, etc.

International employee beneďŹ ts

Healthcare protection with a French touch

MAP Advertising

With 25 years of experience in international mobility, GMC â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Henner Group is a leading company specialized in Healthcare protection and Employee BeneďŹ ts. Today, we are trusted by 1 million members and 6 000 companies to provide individual and group health insurance services.

7ITH ALMOST YEARS OF EXPERIENCE '-# PROVIDES HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS TO EVERYONE FROM INDIVIDUALS TO 3-%S TO MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS Flexible solutions to suit your needs Advantage tailored for expatriates s 5NLIMITED BENEl TS s .O DEDUCTIBLES VARIOUS COST SHARING POSSIBILITIES s &REEDOM TO CHOOSE HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS s &IRST DOLLAR COVERAGE OR SUPPLEMENT TO #&% s !SSISTANCE 2EPATRIATION

Essential services

Essential services Stay in touch whenever wherever s !CCESS TO '-# -EDICAL .ETWORK IN AND OUT PATIENT s /NLINE SERVICES SUCH AS CLAIM STATEMENTS DOCUMENT DOWNLOADS ETC

Healthcare quality assurance

CES ET PR E

V O NC

s #ASHLESS HOSPITAL SERVICES s #ASHLESS OUTPATIENT SERVICES IN ACCREDITED HEALTHCARE NETWORKS s %MERGENCY NUMBERS TO BE REACHED s 2EIMBURSEMENTS WITHIN (

CALL OR EMAIL US GMC ASIA

HENNER COM

To discuss your needs

RNATION

I N T E R N A T I O N A L ! '2/50 (%..%2 #OMPANY

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

DASSAULT SYSTEMES

ENABLES INNOVATIONS LIFE SCIENCE INDUSTRY IN THE

By leveraging similar airbag modelling and simulation done using Dassault Systemes’ software, a life science company was able to predict how different balloon designs would unfold while inside a human artery. “Here is a case where technology developed for a specific problem in the automotive sector could directly be applicable to addressing the challenges of a life science company,” said Gilles Cruanes, Vice President of Dassault Systemes South Asia, based in Singapore. Life science is expected to be a major industry in Singapore with Singapore’s aim to become the life science hub of Asia. Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) predicts that the industry will grow to S$5 billion (US$3.7 billion) in 2015. In line with this development, Dassault Systemes has made Singapore

its third life science hub, after the ones in Europe and the United States. Its brands are CATIA for defining the virtual product, SIMULIA for realistic simulation using Finite Element Analysis, DELMIA for digital manufacturing, ENOVIA for business process management, and 3DVIA for life-like consumer experiences.

recycle them and improve the environment. “Our 3D software helps life science, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and patient care organisations, and their suppliers to accelerate the modelling and industrialisation of innovative products using our collaborative and virtual technology,” said Mr Cruanes.

“Four of the top six global medical device Dassault Systemes in Singapore manufacturers (including global compaHaving being present in various nies Johnson & Johnson, GE Healthcare, forms in Singapore for many years, Medtronic, Philips Medical Systems, and Dassault Systemes officially estabAbbott) as well as many small and lished its regional headquarters in medium businesses are relying more and Singapore at the end of 2008. The more on PLM solutions to address their office is responsible for comprehensive challenges sales and support for from design to manufacDassault Asean, India, Australia, turing,” said Mr Cruanes. Systemes has and New Zealand. “It is only natural that we expanded our activity here made Singapore Besides life science inin Singapore with a netits third life dustries, the company work of partners to inalso focuses on the aucrease our footprint in this science hub. tomotive, aerospace, market.” shipbuilding, industrial equipment, Helping Companies Develop high-tech, consumer goods, conInnovative Products sumer packaged goods, energy, conPLM software allows organisations of struction, and business services any size in any industry to digitally deindustries. fine and simulate products, as well as the processes and resources reA firm believer in partnering with quired to manufacture, maintain, and others, it has teamed up with organisations in different industries in Singapore. These include sponsorship of the Singapore Space Challenge in collaboration with Singapore Space and Technology Association; software training with the New York University Tisch Asia School of the Arts; and a seminar for medical device makers with the Singapore Manufacturers’ Federation.

‘

hat do an airbag and an angioplastic balloon have in common? One is used in vehicles while the other is placed inside the human body. Both products are designed using Dassault Systemes’ Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions.

“We are open to working with partners in Singapore to help organisations innovate and succeed with PLM solutions,” said Mr Cruanes. For more information, contact Eleen Lim (eleen.lim@3ds.com) or visit www.3ds.com.

•

COVER STORY

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD

NEW GENERATION OUT HOME MEDIA BETTER IMPACT

AND OF

FOR

Alioscopy, a leading French manufacturer of 3D glasses-free displays, and DiGital Content Technologies (DGCT), a Singapore start-up specialised in Out-Of-Home (OOH) media projects, share their view on 3D and new generation of OOH media. lioscopy is a leading French manufacturer of 3D glassesfree displays. The Paris-based company, created in 1999, develops, manufactures and markets a range of groundbreaking glasses-free (autostereoscopic) 3D displays (24”, 42” and soon 47”), and provides an array of services ranging from content creation, training and support, to 3D software development.

3D: a Rising Trend

pieces of information: differentiated left and right eye vision, perspective, cast shadows, relative displacement of objects in space, etc. Stereovision is the dominant feed therefore most 3D display devices rely on two stereoscopic images forming a stereo couple. This is how 19th century stereoscopes operated and also how today’s 3D movies are shown in theatres. Special glasses discriminate which of the two images will be seen by each eye.

Film productions have been multiplying in recent years and are likely Alioscopy displays do not require to challenge 2D films in theatres in wearing glasses. Instead of showing 2 the future. In fact, stuimages at a time, the disdios regard 3D as a play shows a film mixing 3D content means to attract audioffset views of has an obvious 8a slightly ences and to fight scene. An optical attraction piracy. 3D television component, known as should follow a similar lenticular array, is fitted power. trend when autovery accurately onto the stereoscopic 3D displays eventually display. Since both eyes address the enter private homes, as they will free display from different angles at all TV viewers from the necessity of times, they constantly see two differwearing 3D glasses as well as proent images. The brain therefore viding them with an improved image recreates a perfect three-diquality and viewing comfort. mensional sensation. 3D glasses-free displays find a natural outlet on the Out-Of-Home (OOH) display market, for communication, marketing and advertising applications. In a trivialised image environment, 3D content has an obvious attraction power. It creates awareness, retains viewers’ attention and provides a novel viewing pleasure. It is expected that this added impact generates greater Return On Investment.

Recreating Lifelike Depth Onscreen Three dimensional perception is a sensation produced by the brain, when fed by a combined number of

•

COVER STORY

‘

Alioscopy expands in Asia In 2009, Alioscopy has deployed fifty 42” 3D screens in Shenzhen and Guangzhou airports in China in partnership with TCL. The year has also been marked by a multiplication of events where customers like L’Oréal or Singtel have created new dedicated 3D content to be displayed on Alioscopy screens during internal or public events. Alioscopy brings a new customer experience to the target audience.

DiGital Content Technologies: Audience Measurement and OOH Content Delivery DiGital Content Technologies (DGCT), a Singapore start-up created in 2008, has been working in a variety of OOH media projects. DGCT is putting the final touches to the development of its ADOOH platform. ADOOH is a generic OOH management platform,

SINGAPORE’S ICT FORGES AHEAD Content must be interesting to generate attraction. They usually generate several hundred OTS per day but attention level usually reach more than 10 seconds. Waiting Aera network are placed in location like waiting rooms, lift lobbies, F&B places, airport lobbies, queues (supermarket, etc). Interactive content could more easily be used and audience engagement can by highly valuable.

with content distribution, scheduling, and a full campaign management solution, integrating reporting function to provide ‘Proof of Play’, ‘Proof of Viewership’ as well as ‘Proof of Engagement’ for interactive media. ADOOH introduces a rule-based system allowing micro-targeted advertisement.

a fully integrated solution. 3D content was distributed and displayed on Alioscopy screen using ADOOH player. Integrated with Quividi audience measurement, the player could measure the audience, but at the same time the solution was demonstrating its ability to target viewer in real time.

DGCT is also bringing the leading Based on its experience in measurVidireports product from the French ing audience for OOH network, start-up Quividi to the Asia region. DGCT would classify networks in Vidireports is a camera two different groups: based audience meaPassing-by or Waiting Quividi was surement solution that Area networks. demonstrating provides accountability for the OOH media. Passing-by networks are its ability to Quividi provides OTS traffic low attentarget viewer in high (Opportunity To See), tion, low interaction real time. number of viewers, atnetworks. Content is tention and presence mostly advertisement time. The system can also determine and every message must be concise, in real-time the gender and age fast. Passing-by networks usually gengroup of the audience. More than 10 erates 1-2 seconds of attention and live pilots are currently running in the good location can generate more region. than 10 000 OTS per day. Passingby networks are usually located in Lately the largest operator in corridors, alley and malls. DOOH network, Taiwan, with more than 3000 screens in convenience Waiting Area networks are lower shops, has started to deploy the Quitraffic with higher attention level. vidi system for the past few months.

‘

When ADOOH will address those two topologies of networks, Alioscopy 3D Screens are definitively a perfect match for Waiting Area networks.

The Next Steps Based on those assumptions, Alioscopy Asia and DGCT are preparing a formal study to provide refined understanding on the impact of 3D media for the OOH arena. A reputable global media research company will provide a methodology mixing Quividi captured based attention data combined with traditional onsite survey. Beside the accrued attention level, Alioscopy would expect to get a better understanding of the impact of their technologies on recall, and brand recognition. Contacts: Alioscopy Asia Pte Ltd, Eric VOISIN, evoisin@alioscopy.sg DiGital Content Technologies Pte Ltd, Laurent FABRY, laurent.fabry@dgct.com www.alioscopy.sg www.dgct.com www.adooh.com Left page: 3D glasses-free display; Top: Partnership with TCL at Shenzhen’s Airport; Bottom: Quividi audience measurement.

Alioscopy and DGCT: Natural partners on the OOH Media market When the two companies met in Singapore, they realised that they were addressing the same market with complementary products. Alioscopy screens brings a cutting edge audience attraction technology, whereas Quividi brings a way to measure and qualify the media. During CommunicAsia 2009, both companies showcased under the Singapore IDA booth for the first time

COVER STORY

•

BUSINESS SUPPORT THE

FRENCH PAVILIONS @ BROADCASTASIA & COMMUNICASIA 2009:

ANOTHER GREAT SUCCESS or the seventh year in a row, the French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (FCCS) in collaboration with Ubifrance, organised 2 French Pavilions at CommunicAsia09 and BroadcastAsia09.

From 16th to 19th June, over 54,000 trade visitors and 1,915 exhibitors (spanning 58,000 sqm) gathered at this event, a great platform to showcase innovative solutions to decisions makers in Asia.

•

excellence in the software and telecommunications industries (mobile content & services, digital mapping, telecom equipment and services, network planning, etc) as well as in broadcasting industries (lighting equipment, software solutions, digital TV, workflow management, etc).

velopment Authority (MDA), followed by Mr P. Ramakrishna, Director Industry Development, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). During the networking event organised in partnership with IDA, three companies (Apilinx, Ekinops & ATDI) were invited to present their innovative technologies.

27 French companies exhibited on a total space of over 318 sqm. This high participation reaffirms France’s

Singaporean VIPs honoured the French Pavilions with their presence. First, Mr Lui Tuck Yew, Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts visited French companies together with Dr Christopher Chia, CEO of Singapore’s Media De-

Audemat is pioneer in the conception and manufacturing of products for broadcast professionals.

Digigram develops networked audio devices, computer sound cards & audio management software.

Dalet empowers broadcasters and content professionals to produce and manage audio and video contents.

Enensys Technologies has years of experience in Digital TV transmission systems design and manufacturing.

Diconex is the European specialist for power loads, resistors and attenuators for RF applications.

Focal Professional sells a wide range of monitoring speakers devoted to studio, home-studio, broadcast and postproduction environments.

VITEC Multimedia is specialised in the development of video encoding and decoding solutions.

Digidia is specialised in developing, manufacturing and selling digital transmission systems.

HTTV is a technology provider for interactive digital TV for satellite, cable and IPTV operators.

WinMedia offers solutions for music production, scheduling, on site data transfer, archiving, logging.

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

With the support of MDA, the French exhibitors @ BroadcastAsia09 networked with other exhibitors during the Singapore Business’ Nite, leading to some promising opportunities.

Partex International is the inventor and leader in sale and rent of lighting balloons for illumination and events. Pro Consultant Informatique provides business management systems to broadcast & media firms.

BUSINESS SUPPORT

Alioscopy is devoted to lensfree 3D displays and 3D still images based on proprietary technology. APiLINX is a mobile service provider dedicated to Remote Patient Monitoring for chronicle diseases Astellia enables operatorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; operational & marketing teams to forecast and decrease network disturbance. ATDI designs and markets a range of complementary software applications for radio planning. AtomiZ brings out encoding and streaming solutions for the delivery of multimedia content to end users.

Ekinops is a leading designer and supplier of next generation optical transport equipment for service providers and enterprise customers. Envivio is provider of IP video convergence encoding solutions for telcos, enterprises and broadcasters. Eversat provides satellite communications solutions for broadcast, defence and commercial markets. Geoimage provides a large range of high resolution digital maps to the telecom industry. Haiku assists its clients to answer the overall marketing and technical challenges of the mobile multimedia.

Infoterra is a leading supplier of cartographic data and mapping solutions for wireless networks. Mobile Distillery helps to solve platform and handset fragmentation issues that companies face. Qosmos provides software appliances that extract business-critical information from IP networks. Siradel presents its turn-key solution for radio network planning and optimisation, covering all technologies. Tetco-Voxpilot is a pure player in the market for convergence of voice and data as well as fixed and mobile telephony.

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

â&#x20AC;˘

BUSINESS SUPPORT

NEWLY SET UP COMPANIES VIA THE FCCS SERVICES Over the last few months, several French companies enjoyed our services supporting their business set up in Singapore in view of ensuring local company representation and enjoying development opportunities in the region. cyber security, network optimisation, quality of service management, content billing, market research, and more.

osmos provides software and hardware platforms to identify and extract information travelling over networks in real time with unparalleled precision and depth, enabling more secure and intelligent applications. Qosmos Network Intelligence technology is used by network equipment providers, software vendors and systems integrators serving the government, telecom and enterprise markets, to enhance solutions for lawful interception,

he LEXSI Group is the leading independent Information Systems Security Consulting company based in France and which has recently, after two years of Representative Office activity, set up in Singapore.

For the past 8 years LEXSI has been helping their 600+ customers take care of the security of their informa-

Qosmos Network Intelligence software and hardware platforms consist of a software development Kit, Qosmos ixEngine, and hardware probes, Qosmos ixMachine, that easily integrate into existing and new products. Using Qosmos ixEngine, network equipment providers and software Vendors can implement powerful networkintelligence features in their products while concentrating on their core competence of building complete solutions. Qosmos ixMa-

tion systems by: • providing accurate and up-to-date information and solutions regarding the latest security vulnerabilities and malicious programmes, • auditing their networks and systems (external and internal pen tests, architecture design and configuration optimisation...), • conducting consulting missions on all types of security issues (Security Policy and procedures, BCP, DRP), • organising security awareness

tions, datacentres and multiple telecommunications solutions.

actem is an independent software company which has developed a platform to enable enterprises to better manage their IT and Telecoms assets and relationships. Tactem’s customers use the Tactem Information Officer (TIO) to manage their complex technology environments which reflect the increasing integration and interdependence of today’s IT world including applica-

•

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

From the TIO the customer receives detailed information and an accurate real time view of its global IT and telecom environments and infrastructure. With comprehensive information comes improved decision making and responsiveness resulting in better budget management, cost minimisation, inventory control, asset utilisation, vendor management, process improvements and telecoms infrastructure optimisation and modelling.

chine, a portfolio of network appliances, enables systems integrators to collect and feed detailed network intelligence to third party systems and applications. Qosmos has a global presence with customers across Europe, Africa, North America and Asia. APAC headquarters were opened in June 2009 in Singapore to strengthen regional support and sales activities while moving closer to a growing local customer base. Contact: Mr Emmanuel ROGER Email: emmanuel.roger@qosmos.com Website: www.qosmos.com

training programs tailored to different profiles. Lexsi’s mission is compliant with the current security standards (BS/ISO 17 799 & 27001, COBIT, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc) and their main clients are French CAC 40 listed companies as well as various international companies. Contact: Mr Nicolas COLLERY Email: cert@lexsi.com Website: http://cert.lexsi.com

The TIO is delivered using a SaaS (Software as a Service) model which eliminates CAPEX costs and is fully supported by Tactem’s service management team. Tactem’s TIO customers benefit from a rapid RoI as a result of immediate costs savings of 15%-20% and additional ongoing savings of more than 10%-15% by identifying through further cost reductions and optimisation programmes. Contact: Mr Andrew BOND-WEBSTER Email: abondwebster@tactem.com Website: www.tactem.com

BUSINESS SUPPORT

C O N S U LT GROUP

onsultys Group is a consulting company that works with Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies. When Consultys was launched in 2005, it deliberately focused on Engineering and Validation to deliver custom tailored services exclusively.

Its strong values (respect, trans-

umiplan is a leading company in France supplying Information Systems suitable for transport, mobility and citizen information. Since 1972 Lumiplan has been playing a major role in the development of public transport in France, facilitating the use of public transport and making information accessible. Indeed, Lumiplan has acquired a strong identity in France through the design of a wide range of products which have made the public transport more convenient, supplying real time information to everyone. Lumiplan’s SW solutions and stand alone electronic displays have been set up and used across more than 1000

PiLINX, is a mobile service provider dedicated to Remote Patient Monitoring for Chronicle diseases like congestive heart failures, lung diseases. Mobile services are extended fitness, wellness and obesity prevention. APiLINX goal is to be an added-value answer to individuals’ health proactive tracking. APiLINX offer addresses two close but specific and structured sectors. To Health Care Professionals and Networks, it offers a unique secured end to end solution for remote pa-

parency, recognition) are dedicated to performance. Consultys built up a unique recruitment process to provide its customers with highly qualified and strongly motivated profiles. Consultys concern is to offer its customer the best they can get from a consulting company: professional and dynamic consultants, attentive and technically understanding managers, creative and efficient solutions for a wide range of services: Engineering,

Project Management, Commissioning & Validation, Quality Systems, Audits, Maintenance. The company set up a subsidiary in Singapore by the name of Consultys Asia. Based in Singapore, the company will aim to develop projects with pharmaceutical companies based in Singapore. Contact: Mr Sebastien COLLET Email: sebastien.collet@consultys.be Website: www.consultys.fr

cities and are part of the large transport operators’ solution portfolio.

future clients in Singapore and the entire Southeast Asian region.

Four sectors are addressed and developed: • Transport with “Lumiplan Transport”, • Company with “Lumiplan Entreprise”, • City with “Lumiplan Ville”, • Mountain with “Lumiplan Montagne”.

More specifically Lumiplan-Asia aims to build a network of local installation/partners in each targeted country in Asia. This network will allow developing on the local available resources, the local knowledge and specificities, local languages and at a local cost. With such a structure, Lumiplan will be able to offer better advantages to its Asian customers.

The company set up a subsidiary in Singapore by the name of LumiplanAsia Pte Ltd. Its first focus is the transport sector. Recently, in June 2009, a subsidiary has been set up in Singapore by the name of Lumiplan-Asia Pte Ltd with as first objective to target the transport sector. Actually, one of the main reason’s to have set up in Singapore was to participate in the development of the transport sector and to be closer to

tient recovery tracking and assessment in chronicle diseases treatments for instance during the "back to home" phase. To wellbeing minded end-users and/or branded networks, it brings a personalised "in pocket" nutrition and exercise coaching solution, focused on targeted results based on customised profiling. In both cases, it strongly differs from existing mere calorie counter software by the use of physiological data provided by dedicated wireless secured non-invasive Recently, the start up from the French telecom valley in Sophia-Antipolis

Thanks to the government’s willingness to develop the public transport sector which is one of the key issues of any modern city of today, Lumiplan will be at the front line to support local authorities and the rest of Asia in their challenging mission. Contact: Mr Hervé BEAUDET Email: herve.beaudet@lumiplan.com Website: www.lumiplan.com

(near Nice) decided to set up an office in Singapore. After several visits and participations to events such as RFID World Asia, Communicasia 2009 and SingTel Innovation Exchange, APiLINX chose Singapore to develop its activities in Asia. Indeed, Singapore business dynamism and Healthcare market attractiveness made the perfect platform to develop APiLINX new services. Already, APilINX has developed positive relationship with major healthcare industry players and hospitals and just signed a Letter of Intent with SingTel. Contact: Mr Laurent CHIVALLIER Email: contact@apilinx.com Website: www.apilinx.com

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

•

BUSINESS SUPPORT

THEY RELY ON US... AND

TESTIFY ON OUR SERVICES

The FCCS Business Support Department provides fit to measure services such as market research, potential Singaporean partner selection, company set-up, and last but not least, trade show participation to companies wishing to develop their business in the region. In the last six months, several business missions have been conducted for French companies in Singapore and some here provide a testimonial of our services.

DAS (Environmental Diagnostic, Assistance & Solutions) is a consulting company – offering diagnostics, impact studies and technology watch – specialised in the field of Environment regarding air quality, noise, ground pollution, energy efficiency and the fight against the greenhouse effect. Mr Remy Lagache, Managing Director: “The reason why I decided to set up a company in Singapore is simple: environment is an increasingly important subject in Singapore and Southeast Asia and the market is providing more solutions in this area. When I decided to start up my project, in 2008/2009, the labour market related to these issues was not so favourable. Singapore on the other hand proved to be a very welcoming country for an en-

ybion is a Franco-Italian start-up specialised in business intelligence and crisis communication. With highly experienced consultants, Cybion provides high value data to banks, security groups or reputation exposed companiess. In 2009, based on its involvement in informal networks – blogs, virtual social networks, etc – Cybion has

trepreneur (transparency of procedures, low tax rate, pragmatic labour laws, etc...). All these opportunities and considerations regarding the market led naturally to the creation of my own company. EDAS’ main objective is to provide a high value added service to its customers who want to improve their environmental behaviour and to consolidate and extend these partnerships to academic research and development.

•

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

EDAS’ vision in the medium-term is to enforce its activities in Singapore but it also wishes to spread its business further into the Southeast Asian market. Indeed, the Singaporean market is the most “solvent” and consolidated in the region, but we don’t want to limit ourselves to this market but target the other neighbouring countries.

The FCCS provided me useful advice to set-up my company and to chose the best option for my work permit. So I decided to apply for an Entrepreneur Pass, which was the most appropriate solution in order to create a safe business on a medium term basis.

The advice I would like to give to French companies or entrepreneurs wishing to settle in Singapore is simple: go for it!”

launched LUCIE®, the first fully integrated system to reduce online counterfeit visibility. With LUCIE®, Cybion provides alerts to customers informing them about new counterfeits, evaluating the risks presented by these counterfeits and preparing monographs for future legal suits.

search and organised a dozen successful appointments with different companies in the luxury goods sector, the perfume sector and legal consulting. The Chamber’s agenda was flexible and meetings were arranged either at the Chamber or at the customers’ office. These appointments proved useful for future business developments in Singapore but they also helped add to the existing network of contacts in Europe. We were positively impressed by both the quality of the Chamber’s connections and the personal involvement of its representatives.

Mr Samuel Morillon, CEO: “Because Asia is one of the major places for both counterfeit production and counterfeit sales, we asked the French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore to identify potential contacts with local customers that represent European or American brands. Mme Sylvie Berne, in charge of business development in the Chamber, did a first

The French Chamber of Commerce also supplied support regarding the employment pass application procedures maximising the chances of approval.

Contact: Mr Remy LAGACHE E-mail: remy.lagache@envdas.com

Based on this two week long mission, we have acquired an exact view of its future potential development in Singapore.” Contact: Mr Samuel MORILLON E-mail: samuel.morillon@cybion.com Website: www,cybion.com

HR COMMITTEE

REINVENTING LEADERSHIP… ENABLING nspiring Leader-Facilitator has attracted many CEOs, senior facilitators, HR Heads and also many young professionals passionate about learning and inspiring transformation. These people themselves impact the lives of thousands of people.

This HR Committee Meeting, presented by Mr Kiran Gulrajani, CEO of Eternale Learning, a Facilitator and Corporate coach, aimed at exploring dimensions of leadership in the new world through an interactive and participative methodology.

ment have to be dealt with, such as: • How can the leaders equip themselves to leverage the chaos? • What shifts will be required in our thinking, feeling, action and being? • What is the method in the madness?

GREATNESS

• What is the role of self awareness and team synergy? • How specifically and practically can we begin to address the daily and long term challenges? Our speaker talked about the way leaders can equip themselves to face new environment, the role of self awareness and team synergy and gave several tips to address the daily and long term challenges. The attendees took an active part in this interactive presentation, and got the opportunity to exchange about their personal experiences.

Indeed, in these turbulent times, many questions regarding leadership manage-

FCCS BUSINESS SUPPORT The Business Support Department supplies the following range of services: • Identification of Potential Partners (agents, distributors, suppliers) • Commercial & Administrative Representation (post mission follow-up, short term company representation) • Full Assistance in Tradeshow Participation (administration/logistics, press campaigns, networking events) • Support in Business and Company Set Up (market knowledge, business plan, registration process) • Employment Pass and Related Pass Application • Company Administration and Domiciliation (workstation rental) • Translation of Official Documents (French to English) The French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (65) 6735 5523 – bizsupport@fccsingapore.com FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

•

HR COMMITTEE

HOW TO KEEP CONTROL OF MY PROFESSIONAL LIFE IN THIS “SHORT-TERM” WORLD? ur two speakers, Ms Bénédicte Dabin, Career coach from Talea Coaching and Mr Philippe Van Den Berch, Vice President Human Resources & Communication Total-Oil AP, went onto the question of managing our career on a day-to-day basis and developing a long-term project at work.

sources processes to make sure that the company long-term needs mesh with employees’ expectations and aspirations. And when mobility is the basis of the Group HR Policy, the focus is on creating a long-term rela-

Ms Bénédicte Dabin shared her experience and gave first answers to the question: “How to build my career as a win-win process and make sense on a long-term perspective?”

In this world where flexibility is the key to a successful career, the first step is to be more curious about ourselves. We should begin with understanding the “story” of our professional life, with its ups and downs, “twists” and “turns” and so demonstrate our ability to take a leap and land on our feet. Not by focusing on the past but on today’s experience, being aware of how our emotions influence our decisions and how the others perceive us. People need time for learning. We better learn by making errors. Companies have to establish a culture that values openness and make it safe for staff to stick their neck out. Mr Philippe Van Den Berch spoke about Total HR policy: the company has developed a set of human re-

THE

•

She declared that there are plenty of ways for making a career. We need to constantly upgrade our skills. Furthermore we make the difference by developing selfawareness and working on shortterm wins instead of looking for the “dream job”. Why not learning to manage our boss? If we keep our boss in the loop, we develop partnership and gain his or her support.

tionship with the workforce. Employees are the primary driver of their own career. Line managers set objectives, define improvement areas and give advice. Dedicated career managers (200 within the Group)

In another way, coaching is a tool which helps make an educated manager an effective manager. By working on leadership behaviour, it helps people clarify what is holding back, read better a situation and find new ways to act.

KEYS TO YOUR SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION IN SINGAPORE

half-day seminar was organised by the FCCS at the request of one of its company members. It aimed at helping the new expatriates who had just arrived in Singapore to get general information about their setting here, be given a first insight into the specificities of this country and understand the cultural diversity in Asia Pacific.

pore illustrated with facts and figures, several points were described and discussed: history, population, religions and traditions, values and languages. This approach, embellished with examples taken from real life cases, allowed our attendees to have a better understanding of Singaporeans’ way of life, culture and habits.

After a brief presentation of Singa-

In a second part, the presentation

have to find the best possible employee/job match and support as they transfer during transitions. For employees, it means the opportunity to change jobs, professional field and even country and to build a diverse career.

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

was oriented mostly towards employment in Singapore. Some tips were given regarding job search, the legal frame was explained, and other useful information sources were provided. Our participants appreciated this training session which was also a great opportunity for them to exchange on their personal integration in Singapore.

HR COMMITTEE

CODE OF GOOD HUMAN RELATIONSHIP hen we talk of individuals in the workplace we think of training, environment, development, fulfillment, productivity, competitiveness, results… but also what often springs to mind is work-related unhappiness and suffering: dealing with people visibly in difficulty, or “damaged”, seems to have priority.

Mr François Bouyer, CEO of BeThe1, presented a Code of WellBeing at Work, officially approved on February 2009 and signed by several management associations, unions and top international educational institutions in France.

face of increased pressure in the workplace. During this Breakfast Talk, Mr Bouyer proposed a Code of Good Human Relations to which any organisation can subscribe and which lays emphasis on relationships in the workplace. This Code is an initiative of three voluntary workers in civil society supported by the French Ministry of

WORK

Labour and sponsored by employers’ associations and major universities and schools alumni associations. He also shared his views regarding the implementation in the work environment before an audience of HR professionals from various industries. This presentation was followed by an open discussion with the participants.

Today, understanding wellbeing has become a matter of urgency in the

INTERCULTURAL LEADERSHIP:

LESSONS FROM INDUSTRIAL LEADERS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA M

r Arnaud Despierre, Director of Spencer Stuart Singapore, shared with our HR Committee the results of a recently led in-depth research on intercultural leadership, as summarised below:

Traditional executive decision making has been challenged and reshaped by the forces of globalisation as employees, clients and suppliers have become more diverse in their cultural backgrounds and expectations about the workplace. Riding the wave of growth across Asia-Pacific and leveraging the diversity of its population and cultures, Southeast Asia has been at the forefront of this challenge. Over the course of 25 one-onone interviews with senior line and human resources leaders based in Southeast Asia from more than 20 different industrial companies, Spencer Stuart identified the five key elements that distinguish highly successful leaders in intercultural environments. These conversations reinforced our own observations that companies that ac-

tively embrace intercultural diversity and use it as a source of organisational strength will thrive. Intercultural leadership – the ability of individuals and organisations to recognise cultural differences among employees at every level, encourage maximum contribution from all groups, and promote a climate of openness, collaboration and sharing – will be the answer. The five elements Spencer Stuart identified form a self-reinforcing cycle. First comes a willingness to learn, as a great intercultural leader will choose to view diversity and differences in a positive light and as an

opportunity for personal development. Second, the leader will need deep self-awareness, recognising personal biases and keeping their ego in checks. Third, the leader will need to be inclusive, facilitating an open environment and acting as a ‘cultural myth-buster’ across the organisation. Fourth, the successful intercultural leader will need authentic listening skills, showing patience and listening beyond what is said for what is felt by people from different cultures. Finally, it will take personal risktaking for the leader to adopt new business behaviours reflective of their intercultural competency, for instance trusting and empowering people who might come from completely different backgrounds. A senior regional leader in an industrial conglomerate who has been based in Southeast Asia for most of the past 17 years summarises the essential behaviours for success in an intercultural environment: “Listen before you talk, coach before you dictate and empower people when they are ready”.

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

•

IT COMMITTEE

HOW TO OPTIMISE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET WITH THE L ATEST IT TOOLS? he economic crisis could affect very strongly the way companies are cutting and reallocating their marketing budget without being in a position to accurately measure the impact on their business. However, there are other alternatives, ways and paths to properly and efficiently overcome this situation.

During this committee meeting, Mr Jean-Pierre Eiselé, General Manager, Marketing Director, Makheia MediaManagement and Mr Michael Abitbol, Managing Director,Makheia Asia, explained how collaborative platforms could help marketers to optimise their marketing budget and reduce time

to market without compromising the quality of messages and number of campaigns. They first presented today’s integrated marketing communications situation; with the issues and the challenges companies are still facing, and the Marcom supply chain. From these facts, our speakers then introduced six marketing processes that can help marketing driving revenue and cutting costs, maximising marketing budgets and return on investments. Then, in a second part, our speakers made a demonstration of their solutions. They also advised on the implementation methodology for a successful deployment. This committee meeting allowed our attendees to obtain a concrete vision of the possibilities of such solutions.

EFFICIENT TALENT ACQUISITION THROUGH E-RECRUITMENT

ur most valued asset is our people.” While we hear this from seemingly every organisation, many of them are still relying on the same tools and methodologies to acquire talent as they did a decade ago. Today, progress in data management, web interfaces and search engines have enabled industry leaders with e-recruitment strategies and a real edge in attracting talent.

“O

During this IT Committee Meeting, Mr Max Armbruster, Chief Operating Officer, NRG Engineering, gave an overview of what

•

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

e-recruitment can deliver: improving communication between human resources and line managers, shortening recruitment cycles, decreasing the cost per hire, and generally attracting the best talent available. Through his presentation, he followed these guidelines: - Talent acquisition: measures of success. - Best practices in the industry. - Why E-recruitment? - Options in implementation. In a second part, Mr Gilles Depar-

dieu, Chief Technology Officer, NRG Engineering, gave a demonstration of aQayo. This solution is a web-based application that automates streamlines and optimises the entire recruitment process, from the sourcing of candidates to their on-boarding. After reviewing the main features of this tool, he explained the way to implement it into the organisation. This complete presentation gave the attendees the opportunity to get a clear overview on the e-recruitment market, trends and solutions, with a focus on a specific tool.

NETWORKING EVENTS

AN OPEN DISCUSSION ON YOUR CURRENT CHALLENGES

SINGAPORE AND ASEAN RETAIL SECTOR

eld at Denise Wine Shop, this networking event aimed at gathering professionals representing/distributing a European brand in Singapore & Asia. We registered 30 participants for this exciting evening.

In order to initiate the discussion, some of our members presented their own experiences as professionals from the retail sector. Ms Valerie

Dubois-Marin, Managing Director, Eurasia Diffusion and Mr Guillaume Willk-Fabia, Brand Manager, Van Cleef & Arpels introduced their personal cases and feelings about the retail sector in the region and shared their expertise with the participants. Then, they tackled several questions from the audience about the effects

of the current economic downturn on the retail market in Singapore, the way to secure the loyalty of their customers, the last trends in retail consumption in Singapore, and other specific points on this sector. This event allowed our members to exchange with other professionals and broaden their network while sipping a glass of wine.

NETWORKING EVENT AT SENTOSA he FCCS took the opportunity of welcoming the French Delegation from the BroadcastAsia and CommunicAsia Tradeshows to organise a networking event, allowing our members to broaden their network. This special event, which took place at a very relaxing place: One-15Marina Sentosa Island, was a real success.

The French Delegation from the

tradeshows came to share a glass of wine in this relaxing surrounding, located right on the edge of the marina and offering a panoramic view of the water and the pool. Disconnected from the city and the tradeshows, they had the opportu-

nity to mingle with other business groups from Singapore in an informal atmosphere. More than 90 persons attended this special networking event; it was the perfect match to broaden their networks. People particularly enjoyed the beautiful surroundings; they were also happy to make business contacts in Singapore, over a few glasses of wines.

FINANCE NETWORKING EVENT t the end of June, the Finance Committee organised a networking event for those who wanted to share their views on financial subjects, or simply discuss with other professionals.

We thank our participants for this nice evening in an informal networking atmosphere.

This event was held at Denise Wine Shop at Tanglin, a perfect spot for a mid-afternoon drink or a quiet evening. It gave the opportunity to the attendees to exchange on financial matters and to broaden their network over a few glasses of wine.

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

â&#x20AC;˘

ASIA COMMITTEE

MARKETING & DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES IN APAC their views on Marketing & Distribution strategies for the Asia-Pacific zone before an audience of 35 persons.

ith today’s globalisation of markets, companies are facing diverse and changing business environments with greater potential risks and uncertainties. Successful business development into the AsiaPacific region involves the development and the implementation of a comprehensive Marketing and Distribution strategy.

Through three case studies of multinational companies from different activity sectors, our speakers shared

portunities in Asia-Pacific, and took India, China, Korea, and Singapore as case studies. He explained the choices the company made for their distribution and marketing strategies in the region.

Our first speaker, Mr Jean Accad, President Asia Pacific, Johnson&Johnson Vision Care, focused on the Acuvue® contact lenses in Asia-Pacific. After reviewing the specificities of the Asia-Pacific markets, he shared with our audience concrete examples of the adaptation of their marketing and communication strategies.

Finally, our third speaker, Mr Olivier Benoit, Commercial Director for Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, Air France KLM, talked about the challenges Air France KLM is facing in the region. After presenting the Marketing & Distribution strategy, he emphasised on the implementation of a new distribution strategy in Indonesia and in the direct sales channel switch in Singapore.

Our second speaker, Mr Philippe Bonnet, Vice President China, Australia and New Zealand, Essilor, analysed the threats and op-

After these three presentations, a panel discussion took place giving the audience the opportunity to interact with the speakers.

FOCUS ON INDONESIA : POLITICAL AND ECONOMICAL OUTLOOK, LEGISLATION AND HR PRACTICES ore than 30 participants attended this Breakfast Talk focused on the Indonesian market. Conducted by 3 distinguished guests, the talk aimed at giving a global overview for those planing to invest or make additional investments in Indonesia.

Our first speaker, Mr Gabriel Leost, Financial Counselor, Deputy to the Head of the Economic Departments for Southeast Asia of the French Embassy in Singapore, drew an overview of the current economical and political situation in Indonesia through key statistics and indicators. Despite a fall for exports, Indonesia seems to be more resilient

•

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

than the other countries in the region, with the highest growth forecasts for 2009. In the last part of his presentation, Mr Leost emphasised on the challenges Indonesia still has to face. Mr Cyrille Gossé, Director of PeopleSource, focused on human resources matters. As a specialist of the Indonesian market, he first informed our attendees of the HR challenges and opportunities they could encounter in this specific market; such as a wide range of remunerations and a limited pool of talents at all levels and in all industries, but on the other hand, there is a relatively low turn-over of staff. He

then addressed the audience about the potential issues in the length of the recruitment and decision making processes, the conflict with the existing salary structure and possible counter offers from the current employer. Finally, he concluded on a hot topic, which is employees’ motivation and retention. In order to complete this overview of this market specificities, Mr Azman Jaafar, Partner, Corporate & Securities Laws, KhattarWong, presented the legislation practices in Indonesia. He allowed our audience to get a better understanding of the Indonesian legislation, especially for companies intending to establish in the Indonesian market. After introducing the recent developments in the Indonesian legislation, our speaker presented the 2009 Indonesian Legislation Plan. Thanks to his knowledge of legal matters in Indonesia, he also talked about the unwritten rules, adding several anecdotes and advices for the every-day business life.

ASIA COMMITTEE

INDIAN ELECTIONS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON FOREIGN INVESTMENTS uring this Breakfast Talk, Ms Shubhada S. Bhave, HeadIndia Practice and Ms Amandine Allix, Head-Tax, Singapore at the law firm Cotty Vivant Marchisio & Lauzeral, made a presentation on the Indian Elections and its implications on the foreign investments.

The first part of the presentation focused on the implications of the recently held Indian elections on the foreign investments. Congress-led new government has been formed and is expected to usher in economic reforms. Some of the priority areas for the new government are infrastructure, energy security, national security, disinvestment of government companies, financial sector reforms, social schemes, education and public health.

In the infrastructure sector the estimated investment over the next five years is US$ 479 billion. The insurance sector is expected to be further liberalised and foreign investment is expected to be allowed in pension sector. It is also expected that the foreign investment limits in retail and defense sector will be increased. The government is also proposing disinvestment of government-owned companies through strategic sale or by way of listing on stock exchanges. After signing the civilian nuclear deals with countries like France, Russia and US, India is also likely to open the nuclear sector to foreign investment. The second part of the presentation focused on the implications of changed FDI rules in respect of calculation of foreign investment, FIPB

approval for transfer of the ownership of shares and downstream investments. The third part of the presentation examined the tax angle on investing in India through Singapore. Singapore is considered to be a tax efficient route to invest in India on account of a favourable double tax treaty and being an attractive holding company tax regime.

FINANCE / PROFESSIONAL SERVICES COMMITTEES

SMARTER WAY OF REDUCING COST:

CREATING LONG TERM AND SUSTAINABLE SAVINGS SPEND MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME n this current context of crisis, there is an urgent need for companies to re-focus, improve and sustain their profitability.

Our speaker explained how this set of process, organisation and technology provides a holistic view of how the company spends money. This deeper visibility of the costs enables CFOs, COOs and CTOs to understand, control and optimise all direct and indirect costs.

Pr John Paul, Managing Director of iCognitive, and professor and research fellow at BEM (Bordeaux School of Management), explained how moving from ad-hoc cost cutting to long-term savings strategies could help companies to remain competitive during the current economic turmoil. John addressed the 5 big mistakes companies commonly make during an economic crisis, including postponing projects that can generate revenues or savings, withdrawing into oneself whereas collaboration with suppliers and customers is the key to survive,

THROUGH

and downsizing human resources unconsideredly whereas many options exist to capitalise on human assets. On the other hand, John explained how Best-In-Class companies do instead to remain profitable while revenue is declining. Among the remarkable initiatives conducted, the Spend Management appears to be a smarter way of reducing costs on the long term.

Through real case studies, John showed that Spend Management enabled many companies to get the most out of every dollar spent by reaching up to 15% in savings (on average). Finally, John insisted on the fact that beyond the technical aspect of the spend management, the leadership of the top management remains crucial to make such initiatives successful.

CREATING VALUE THROUGH MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS DURING A DOWNTURN 0 persons attended this Breakfast Talk organised jointly with the Belgium-Luxembourg Business Group on how Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) can help companies to create value in the current downturn.

Ms Surabhi Choudhary, Senior Financial Journalist, mergermarket, gave an overview on the last tendencies in the M&A activity in the region. Asia-Pacific M&A activity exhibited an approximate 35% decline in deal value and a 40% decline in volume from 2006 to 2009. In comparison, EU deal value and volume declined by roughly 70% and 55% for the same period. Sectors that witnessed a high volume of M&A activity in 2009 comprise more defensive sectors such as industrials and chemicals, followed by consumer and TMT, with leisure and real estate lagging far behind. These trends seem to be fairly similar for Asia-Pacific and EU alike for the first four months of 2009. Mr Jacques Pickering, Executive Director, Pickering Pacific, dis-

•

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

cussed how targeted acquisitions of mid-sized companies can create value in a downturn. He first explained that the current economic situation represents an opportunity for acquirers because studies show that acquisitions made in a downturn create more value than those made in an upturn. Second, he advised companies to focus on bolt-on acquisitions (i.e., the acquisition of a company whose business complements the acquirer’s and whose size is smaller than the acquirer’s), since they tend to create more value. Finally, he recommended that acquirers ensure that they follow a series of key steps in an acquisition process to ensure its success. In these times where access to debt

and capital markets is limited, many companies have to consider selling at least non-core assets to raise cash and meet business needs. Mr Kang Yong Wee, Director - M&A Transaction Services Deloitte & Touche, demonstrated that despite the increased pricing pressure, an organised and professional approach to a sale process often provides a more favourable perception of the business (and hence better value) to potential buyers. He also demonstrated that a well-prepared and organised sale process often results in lesser negotiating issues as most of the less-critical or mundane concerns and issues would have been highlighted and addressed before the potential bidders and their advisers enter the picture.

ENERGY / EVIRONMENT COMMITTEE

SHARPEN YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE WITH PROVEN ENERGY EFFICIENCY SOLUTIONS AND EQUIPMENTS Then, Mr Thierry Lopez de Arias, Regional Vice President, Eastern Asia & Pacific, AREVA T&D, introduced the concept of smarter grids. He explained that utilities are facing four main challenges: an increasing demand for energy and electricity, a need to move towards an environmentally-friendlier energy mix, volatile energy prices and critical energy losses, and emerging large regional transmission networks. Today’s one-way centralised electricity network needs to evolve towards a dynamic and bidirectional

nergy Efficiency has been recognised by worldwide organisations as a cost-effective solution to face the challenges of climate change and rising energy prices. Specific available proven Energy Efficiency solutions & equipments can be used across many different industrial and commercial sectors, with different applications according to unique aspects of each sector and customer.

A large attendance participated in this seminar to discover more about Energy Efficiency solutions in Asia-Pacific. Throughout the 4 presentations, the participants discovered how Energy Efficiency is a key factor for solving energy issues and sustaining long term gains. Mr A. Ram Bhaskar, Head of Energy Efficiency Programme of Singapore National Environment Agency opened the seminar with an overview on Energy Efficiency in Singapore. He first gave key figures and trends on the energy consumption in Singapore, before presenting the E2PO: Singapore’s key strategy to mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions. E2 supports the twin objectives of economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability. In the last part, our speaker presented an overview of some energy efficiency initiatives taken in Singapore.

achieve maximum energy savings and illustrated them with concrete solutions. They presented the solutions implemented at Alstom Transport, such as the eco-design to lower the consumption of the trains, the adaptation of the alignment of the line to reduce the amount of energy required to accelerate and brake the train, the use of composite materials, to cite only a few. They concluded with some information on the new R&D perspectives for less energy consumption. Our fourth speaker, Mr Christo-phe Brule, APAC Manager Switching and Protection Division, from SOCOMEC, spoke about energy efficiency solutions in Data Centres, introducing the concept of Green IT. He explained that the major value to monitor is cooling consumption, which counts for 50% of total consumption. He also presented a standard Data Centre configuration and the ways to lower the energy consumption, ending his presentation with a case study, showing great results in terms of savings for only a 1% efficiency increase. This seminar ended with a Q&A session, giving the attendees the opportunity to discuss this hot topic of energy efficiency, which is becoming today a key issue for most companies.

flow of energy and data with support from new technology and regulation: the smarter grids. Mr Daniel Dunoye, Business Development Director, Asia Pacific and Ms Stella Tan-Labarrere, Regional Marketing Manager, Asia Pacific, ALSTOM Transport made a jointed presentation on energy savings in transportation. After defining what energy savings means and drawing an overview of the rail sector, our speakers then described four steps to

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

•

EVENTS & GAL A COMMITTEE

•

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

EVENTS & GAL A COMMITTEE

he FCCS 30th anniversary Gala Dinner was a great success, with no less than 430 eminent guests.

Held at the Shangri-La Hotel’s Island Ballroom on 16th May 2009, both the Singaporean and French business communities jointly enjoyed the evening under the patronage of our Guests of Honour Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister of Trade and Industry, and H.E. Pierre Buhler, Ambassador of France to Singapore. We entered the Opera & Fashion’s world of refinement and

creativity and we experienced some of the finest French cuisine in Singapore accompanied by most delicate French wines and Champagne. The evening was a fabulous night where the best of Singapore met the most refined of French creativity. The evening started with a Fashion show presented by the Fashion Department of Raffles-Design Institute, a unique Opera collection especially created for the FCCS Gala Dinner Celebration. Then 3 French Opera Singers,

Alexander Anisimow (Basso), Sami Camps (Tenor), Astrid Defauw (mezzo-soprano), as well as a wellknown local Artiste Nancy Yuen (Soprano) sang throughout the evening a beautiful classic repertory from the Opera. They were accompanied by Alexandre Souptel (violinist) and Eric Watson (pianist). We closed the evening with a beautiful fashion show presented by Romyda Keth, a world famous Franco-Cambodian designer. Thank you to all our guests for joining us at our 30th Anniversary Gala Dinner!

This event would not have been possible without the strong support of our sponsors:

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

•

EVENTS & GAL A COMMITTEE

•

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

EVENTS & GAL A COMMITTEE

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

•

EVENTS & GAL A COMMITTEE

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING T

he FCCS Annual General meeting took place on Friday 29th May 2009 at the Alliance Française.

Mr Pierre Verdière (President) presided the meeting and the AGM committee was composed of Mr Verdière, Mr Jean-Philippe Launay (Treasurer) and Mrs Carine Lespayandel (Executive Director).

Mr Verdière presented the moral and annual report. He highlighted that 2008 had still been a very good year for the FCCS and thanked the team, board members and company members for their active contribution. Mr Jean-Philippe Launay, Treasurer of the Chamber, commented theaudited accounts and the budget for 2009.

The new Executive Committee President Vice-Presidents

General Secretary Treasurer The 2009/20011 Board Members are: Mrs Sandrine Bionda BNP Paribas Wealth Management Singapore Branch Mr Bernard Buisson EADS Singapore Mr Christian Cabrol Total Oil Asia Pacific Mr Jean-Marc Deromedi Aprim Far East Mr Cyril Dumon SDV Asia Pacific Corporate Mrs Christine Etcheparre Technip Singapore Mr Hervé Guinebert Banque Transatlantique Singapore Office Mr Simon Kherroubi Ernst & Young - French Business Centre Mr Jean-Philippe Launay Essilor Asia Pacific Headquarters Mr Alain Mahillon Hilton Singapore Mr Patrick Oszczeda Thales Singapore Mr Jacques Pickering Pickering Pacific Mr Jean-Pierre Raynaud Calyon, Singapore Branch Ms Catherine Rideller Diot Asia-Pacific Mr Paul Rombeek Air France - KLM Mr Eric Saux Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking Mr Bertrand Stoltz STMicroelectronics Asia Pacific Mr Philippe Taverne Cotty Vivant Marchisio & Lauzeral Law Firm Ms Hélène Toury Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (SEA) Mr Pierre Verdière Hermès South East Asia

•

FCCS ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

Pierre Verdière Jean-Marc Deromedi Jacques Pickering Bertrand Stoltz Philippe Taverne Jean-Philippe Launay

NEW MEMBERS

FCCS NEW MEMBERS CORPORATE MEMBERS

MAUBOUSSIN SINGAPOUR

RIGHT MANAGEMENT SINGAPORE

Contact: David NEMARQ, General

Manager

Contact: Peter FIRNHABER, Director Website: www.right.com Sector: Human Resources / Staff Relocators / Education &

Website: www.mauboussin.com Sector: Luxury Goods.

Training.

LVMH WATCH & JEWELLERY SINGAPORE Contact: Marcus STADELMAN, President SEA Website: www.lvmh.com Sector: Luxury Goods.

ENTREPRENEUR MEMBER

ASSOCIATE MEMBER

DIGITAL CONTENT TECHNOLOGIES

IBIS SINGAPORE ON BENCOOLEN Contact: Jean-Louis BARC, Operations Manager Website: www.ibishotel.com/asia Sector: Hotels.

Contact: Laurent FABRY, Director Website: www.dgct.com Sector: IT

INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS Maxime LABEY, Managing Director from CHOPARD (ASIA) Sector: Luxury Goods.

Julien METAYER, Development Manager from PAN ASIA LOGISTICS SINGAPORE Sector: Forwarding / Shipping / Relocation & Removal Services.

AGS Four Winds, for moving with peace of mind

I MAL

I HIT TA

HAI SHANG

UL SEO

ON LOND

BANGALORE

PARIS

SBURG JOHANNE

SINGAPORE

TAHITI

CAPE TOW

PRAGUE

SEOU L

M AD R ID

MAY OTT E

AGS Four Winds, international movers, you deserve the best q \HDUV H[SHULHQFH q $ ZRUOGZLGH QHWZRUN RI EUDQFKHV q )UHH 4XRWDWLRQV q 'RRU WR GRRU VHUYLFHV q +LJK TXDOLW\ SDFNLQJ PDWHULDOV q 4XDOLILHG DQG H[SHULHQFHG SHUVRQQHO q $ PRGHUQ IOHHW RI IUHLJKW YHKLFOHV AGS FOUR WINDS SINGAPORE

No.6 Kwo Kwong ong Min Road #03-00, Singapor Singapore e 628 628709 Tel: +65 6 777 77 11 66 Fa Fax +65 5 6 777 94 09 Email: enquiries-singapore@agsfourwinds.com enquiries--singapor singapore@agsf e@agsfourwinds.c

www.agsfourwinds.com www .agsfourwinds.com f i d

SOF IA

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS BE CONNECTED, BE VISIBLE! Join a platform of more than 300 company members with business interests in France, Singapore and the Asia Pacific region and be at the heart of a dynamic organisation giving you access to people and information!

• Increase your Business Exposure • Get Access to Information • Enjoy our Networking Opportunities • Benefit from our Platform of Services at Privilege Rates

THE FRENCH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN SINGAPORE (65) 6735 5523 – info@fccsingapore.com

With both feet firmly on the ground. Stability and peace of mind are the keys to success. We made them the foundations of our business.

www.ca-suisse.com SINGAPORE BRANCH: 168 ROBINSON ROAD - #23-03 CAPITAL TOWER - 068912 SINGAPORE TEL.: +65 64 23 03 25 ABU DHABI - BAHRAIN - BASEL - BEIRUT - DOHA - DUBAI - GENEVA - HONG KONG - KARACHI - LAUSANNE - LUGANO - MONTEVIDEO - NASSAU - SINGAPORE - TEL AVIV - ZURICH