Siemens IT Solutions and Services, the IT business group of Siemens, has announced the launch of its Centre of Competence (CoC) for City Management in Singapore. The facility, the only CoC to be set up outside of Europe by the Group, will support its public-sector business worldwide, using the island as the hub to serve the global markets.

Mr Frischmuth: We thoroughly analysed what would be the best place for us to implement this new CoC and chose Singapore with good reason.

“We thoroughly analysed what would be the best place on earth for us to implement this new CoC and chose Singapore with good reason,” said Mr Juergen Frischmuth, a member of the Group Executive Management, Siemens IT Solutions and Services. He cited the island’s reputation as a model city and place to do business, the large number of multinational corporations based here, and the Siemens presence in Singapore which dates back to 1908.

Mr Chan Yeng Kit, Chief Executive Officer of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, warmly welcomed the launch of Siemens’ CoC, observing in his speech that MNCs can “play an important role to help grow Singapore’s infocomm industry.”

Singapore is in the midst of implementing its iN2015 infocomm masterplan, which involves the development of a secure and trusted next-generation national infocomm infrastructure, and this fits in well with the services provided by the CoC, he said.

The Singapore CoC for City Management will bring together an international and local team with experience in public-sector organisations as well as knowledge of Siemens solutions. Mr Klaus Heidinger, who has notched up years of public sector experience in Europe, will head the CoC here, and will pool local and foreign experts to form the unit.

Siemens IT Solutions and Services is the newest arm of Siemens, having been formed just six months ago by merging the IT capabilities of five entities. Leveraging on a headcount exceeding 40,000, spread across more than 40 countries, its services range from IT consulting and software development to systems integration and management of IT infrastructures, with an annual turnover of more than US $10 billion.