International Enterprise (IE) Singapore announced that it has successfully facilitated a partnership between Surbana Jurong (SJ) and two SMEs, iFocus Pte. Ltd. (a hardware company) and S3 Innovate Pte. Ltd. (a data visualisation company) to clinch their first lift monitoring project in Guangzhou city. SJ is one of the largest Asia-based urban, industrial and infrastructure consulting firms and it is 100% owned by Temasek Holdings, a sovereign wealth fund in Singapore.
This marks the two SMEs’ first overseas expansion. The project will comprise 100 sensors installed to monitor and analyse up to 600 lifts in private estates and government buildings in Guangzhou. In China, the total number of lift installation and maintenance market size is estimated to reach 5.9 million units and S$9.7 billion by 2020 respectively.
SJ worked with IE Singapore on its overseas growth strategy for smart cities, starting in Guangzhou. Both identified SJ’s established in-house solution in lift monitoring, analytics and testing as the first product to launch, in view of its track record of monitoring 25,000 lifts across multiple brands in Singapore.
iFocus and S3 Innovate have a keen interest in overseas markets, but they lacked track record and connections. So, IE Singapore connected iFocus and S3 Innovate to SJ, enabling SJ to provide a comprehensive solution for lift monitoring. The project utilises SJ’s Smart City in a Box™, a platform integrating multiple smart city solutions.
The platform enables city officials to load customisable applications (Apps) in four key areas – security, efficiency, sustainability and community, on a unified dashboard to monitor developments in a city through data collation and analysis for creating effective solutions.
SJ’s Smart City in a Box™ serves as the platform, while iFocus and S3 Innovate provide hardware (sensors) for lift monitoring and user-friendly data visualisation respectively.
Ms. Kathy Lai, Deputy CEO, IE Singapore, said, “It is very difficult for SMEs to break into an overseas market for the first time. This collaboration enables all three companies to leverage one another’s strengths collectively. iFocus and S3 Innovate benefit from SJ’s in-market reach to capture overseas customers, while SJ tapped into their niche solutions, completing their offerings.”
“Surbana Jurong has over 30 years of experience in managing Singapore’s public housing estates. Our proprietary platform and solution, customised with our partners’ solutions, provide estate managers and city officials an effective way to manage and maintain the lifts. Beyond lift monitoring, Smart City in a Box™ also provides solutions for other aspects of city management. We hope this project provides a springboard into the bigger China market,” added Mr. Wong Heang Fine, Group CEO of SJ.
Mr. Nicholas Soon, Director, S3 Innovate, shared, “S3 Innovate is pleased to work with SJ and IE Singapore on our first foray to China. The collaboration with a home-grown MNC like SJ enables us to leverage each other’s capabilities and we hope to deliver this solution to other cities in the world.”
SJ is now actively seeking to scale up its Smart City in a Box™ overseas. To support this, IE Singapore is partnering SJ to strengthentheir manpower capabilities in project management and business development. SJ plans to work with the two SMEs on more projects. SJ is also in discussions to bring Smart City in a Box™ solutions to more cities across China.
IE Singapore is involved in several initiatives to help local companies gain access to Chinese markets, as well as technology. In August 21 2017, IE Singapore and Ascendas-Singbridge launched the Singapore Manufacturing Innovation Centre (SMIC) in Guangzhou, a one-stop shop to facilitate partnerships between Singapore Industry 4.0 technology solutions providers and Chinese enterprises looking to adopt such solutions. In October, IE Singapore signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with Chinese tech partners to help more Singapore companies gain access to the market and its innovation ecosystem.
