Supporting A Dynamic Business Environment With SOA

22 March 2005 - Welcome Speech By Mr Khoong Hock Yun, Assistant Chief Executive, Industry Group, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore At Breakfast Talk: Empowering Outsourced Business Processes on a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) By Mr Pierre Haren, Chairman & CEO, ILOG, Raffles City Convention Centre.

Welcome Speech By Mr Khoong Hock Yun, Assistant Chief Executive, Industry Group, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore At Breakfast Talk: Empowering Outsourced Business Processes on a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) By Mr Pierre Haren, Chairman & CEO, ILOG on 22 March 2005, Raffles City Convention Centre.

Good Morning,

Mr Pierre Haren, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ILOG
Mr Foo Jong Tong, General Manager, Asia Pacific, ILOG
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. It gives me great pleasure in welcoming Mr Pierre Haren, Chairman and CEO of ILOG, to Singapore.

2. IDA has a long standing relationship with ILOG. ILOG established its Asian presence through the Singapore office, its Asian headquarters, since 1993. ILOG has been an iLIUP partner since 1998 and has created partnerships with more than 30 local infocomm companies. Today, I am happy that this IDA-ILOG partnership is being further strengthened with the launch of the Business Rule Management Systems Centre of Excellence in Singapore.

3. To ensure infocomm technology remains an engine of growth, IDA has arduously strived to seed new economic activities, develop capabilities, and encourage expansion into overseas markets. One key thrust is to tap into the growing Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO, market. IDA is glad to lead the development of BPO in Singapore and we have currently put in place several initiatives to help develop the local BPO industry. These include training programmes, assistance to companies in services delivery, and promoting R&D in outsourcing technologies. Some 1,000 infocomm professionals are targeted to be trained in BPO service provision by 2006.

4. The topic of today's breakfast talk, "Empowering Outsourced Business Processes on a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)" is hence very relevant. SOA in short, promises agility, flexibility and scalability for business processes regardless of whether they are in-house or outsourced. These are attributes that any company should have in the face of a very dynamic business environment.

5. IDA is proud to jointly organise this breakfast talk with the support of the Singapore infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF) and to welcome Mr Pierre Haren to share with us his insights on the evolution of Service-Oriented Architecture and its impact on business process management and outsourcing.

6. Mr Pierre Haren, a leading figure in the European technology community, co-founded ILOG in 1987 and took ILOG public on the NASDAQ in 1997 and on Euronext, Paris in 1998.

7. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Mr Pierre Haren. Thank you.