Indonesia’s smart city drive to tackle socioeconomic woes: IDC

• Urbanisation and trans-migration leading to many city sustainability challenges
• Recommends e-government procurement transparency and accountability

 
INDONESIA is seeing increased interest and uptake in smart city initiatives to boost domestic productivity and quality of life, and to address the country’s pressing socioeconomic problems, according to IDC.
 
In a statement, the research and analyst firm said it believes city government officials will play a critical role in driving Indonesia’s smart city roadmap 2025, which aims to use digital and other technologies to boost government efficiency and productivity.
 
With increasing urbanisation and trans-migration in Indonesia, there are a number of city sustainability challenges that needs to be addressed, IDC said, citing IDC Government Insights’ recently published report Building Smart Cities in Indonesia – Embracing Digital Transformation and Innovation across Cities.
 
To that effect, the Indonesian Government plans to spend more than US$420 billion on infrastructure projects (for example, telecommunications) over the next five years.
 
As most smart city initiatives focus on collaboration, there is a significant partnering opportunity for smart city government leaders to work closely with experienced solution providers, IDC said.
 
One evident domain for growth is in smart building solutions. Smart city initiatives can tap on the extensive capabilities from a wide diversity of vendors so as to boost existing smart building core capabilities and functionalities.
 
“The majority of Indonesian smart city projects have been initiated by local and regional government authorities. They include Telkom, the Department of Transport, and BPJS Kesehatan,” said Sudev Bangah (pic), country manager, IDC Indonesia and Philippines.
 
“However, many of these projects are funded in silos, and often times, they eventually face long-term operations sustainability issues.
 
“We believe the federal government needs to step up and invest so as to spur the growing momentum of digital city transformations and ensure long-term progress is maintained for smart city initiatives,” he added.
 
While the demand and interest in smart city transformations is notably growing, IDC Government Insights believes that ‘prudent considerations’ for e-government procurement transparency and accountability and programme management competencies need to be in place.
 
This is notably recognised by the Indonesian Government, it added.
 
“The Indonesian Government should focus on empowering city planners with sound and actionable investment advisories; and build close partnerships with the global smart city solution providers,” said IDC Government Insights Asia Pacific Government and Education head Gerald Wang.
 
“[The Government should also] ensure competent operations governances are in place to drive effective return-on-investments and project accountability,” he added.
 
IDC recommends vendors partner with local governments to support smart city pilots and initiatives as another channel to showcase solution functionality, best practices and business benefits.
 
Citizens or consumers are a driving force in the public and private sector adoption of sustainability initiatives, IDC said.
 
The more business and residential tenants understand the benefits of smart building technologies, the more pressure is on building owners to adopt these technologies.
 
Vendors should consider partnering with city leaders on citizen messaging that is aligned to their own campaigns in those geographies where they are trying to grow, the company added.
 
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