Solutions for the future
From left: Prof Jorge Sanz, Director, NUS Business Analytics Centre; Prof Yeung; Mr Darren Rushworth, Managing Director, SAP Singapore; Prof Rosenblum; and Mr Colin Sampson, Senior Vice President and SAP Ambassador, SAP APJ
NUS and global industry leaders SAP and Swiss Re have shown their commitment to harnessing the digital economy's potential through the recent inking of two three-year agreements, respectively.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with enterprise application software provider SAP, announced on 9 June, will deepen the understanding of business process management and interconnection with data analytics through graduate and undergraduate programmes.
The agreement will give NUS students access to a cloud-based SAP HANA system, the in-memory computing platform for next-generation applications and analytics. Both SAP and NUS will also publish case studies across different lines-of-business, starting with one on the transformation of the finance organisation at SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), due to be completed in September 2015. The two organisations will also partner on capstone projects such as the optimisation of SAP's order-to-cash process in the APJ region, where students from the NUS Business Analytics Programme will study SAP's business processes and systems, and provide business insights using SAP Analytics tools.
"As leaders in education and research, it is important that we leverage these opportunities to educate undergraduate and postgraduate students in emerging problem areas…The integration of information management and process management is a long‐standing aspiration in Information Systems, in Computer Science, and more recently, in Business Analytics education, said Professor David S Rosenblum, Dean, NUS School of Computing (SoC).
From left: Mr Robert Burr, Head of Life & Health Asia, Swiss Re; Prof Yeung; Ms Sharon Ooi, Country President of Singapore, Swiss Re; Prof Rosenblum; and Assoc Prof Teo Yik Ying, Vice Dean (Research), SSHSPH
The other MOU with reinsurance company Swiss Re, signed on 10 June, is a collaboration with four NUS entities ' the Business Analytics Centre, Business School, SoC and Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (SSHSPH) ' to incubate solutions that can overcome large and complex risks created by digitisation, societal and urban challenges. These include ageing populations, advances in healthcare, the challenge of natural catastrophes faced by many Asian countries and changing risk landscapes created by the Internet of Things, where data is created by objects; and Smart Cities, where digital technologies translate into better public services for people.
The partnership with Swiss Re, the first such initiative by a reinsurance company in Singapore, will develop innovations to address the insurance protection gap in Asia and grow the pool of Business Analytics professionals specialising in the insurance industry in Singapore. Swiss Re will offer its global expertise and knowledge to guide graduate students through a series of activities from ideation to research.
Another component of the Swiss Re partnership is the annual six-month Swiss Re Challenge Series, in which NUS faculties and graduate students collaborate on business proposals on big data systems and business analytics. These proposals will include ideas to tackle specific social challenges in Asia and drive economic growth. The most innovative solutions will receive seed-funding from Swiss Re.
Additionally, the reinsurance leader will sponsor a prize to the group of Master of Science Business Analytics students that generates the most innovative business idea that uses cognitive computing technology at NUS.
"Swiss Re's insurance and reinsurance industry experience will allow NUS Business School to deepen the specialisation of our students in a variety of key topics such as insurance pricing, risk management and regulation, said Professor Bernard Yeung, Dean and Stephen Riady Distinguished Professor, NUS Business School.
