Following the successful launch of Singapore's e-Government Action Plan (eGAP I) in 2000, the Singapore Government embarked on a $1.3 billion eGAP II initiative to put more services online, cut more red tape for businesses and improve its engagement with its citizens in policy-making.

The Online Application System for Integrated Services (OASIS) project started in August 2001, in response to feedback from entrepreneurs about the difficulties they faced in starting their businesses.

The project resulted in the development and delivery of the Online Business Licensing Service (OBLS) to help create a pro-enterprise environment in Singapore through aiding entrepreneurs to apply licenses and permits with ease.

Ecquaria was appointed by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) to design, develop and implement OBLS, a one-stop business licensing application system.

OBLS was designed to enable the government to achieve the "Many Agencies, One Government" vision to deliver cross-agency integrated services through multi-agency collaboration.

The first stage of the project involved an extensive review of more than 250 business licenses to validate the need for each of them. Irrelevant and obsolete business licenses were removed, reducing the compliance costs on businesses.

In the second stage of the project, the license application processes were simplified or streamlined to provide greater convenience to businesses.

OBLS was officially launched in 2004 within 6 months from the time requirements were being gathered. Leveraging on the Ecquaria Service-Oriented Platform™ (Ecquaria SOP™) as a unified application platform, OBLS is used to host MTI's various license applications as well as facilitate the coordination and implementation of over 69 licenses involving more than 30 government agencies and over 200 stakeholders.

Where a public service transaction involves multiple agencies to complete and fulfill, there is a need to ensure both front and back-end workflows or processes are well integrated across all associated agencies. With the OBLS, first-time applicants can register a business and apply for all required licenses at one website, instead of going to different agencies.

Ecquaria also helped in the enhancement phase of the OBLS project that enabled businesses to complete license updates, renewals and terminations.

"Many Agencies, One Government"

Since its launch in January 2004, more than 100,000 businesses in Singapore have used the OBLS (available via www.business.gov.sg/licences). To date, 84 licenses from 17 Government agencies can be applied online through the OBLS. This allows 80% of all start-ups, or close to 70,000 businesses annually, to apply for the licenses needed to start their businesses without resorting to offline means.

Businesses can also complete Update, Renewal and Termination (URT) of 65 licenses through the OBLS. They can fulfill all their life-cycle licensing needs including making consolidated payments conveniently from one portal.

It is estimated that businesses have enjoyed cost benefits of more than S$41 million (as of 31 Dec 2006).

Agencies participating in the OBLS have also benefited from cost savings through the use of online applications to reduce the amount of time spent on otherwise tedious and manual processes.

The license application processes were simplified to provide greater convenience to businesses. The average processing time for online licences was also reduced from 21 days to 8 days, allowing applicants to obtain the necessary approvals earlier.

OBLS bagged numerous global and national accolades which include the distinguished United Nations Public Service Award (2005), in the Category of "Application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Government: eGovernment" and Singapore's Public Service Innovation Award (Gold) (2006).

OBLS is recently recognised as a Laureate by the Computerworld Honors Program (2007) in Washington D.C.

Note: Figures taken from the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry Factsheet, May 2007