Yesterday I gave a presentation for the Services Innovation unit at SenterNovem and the Economic Affairs department. Focus was on how SaaS is one of the important enabling foundations of service innovations. Service innovation is possible through advancements in ICT but ICT is not a transparent factor that makes everything possible. Some functionalities are easy to achieve whereas some are hard or impossible due to the quirky nature of technology.
However, often to little attention is given to the relation between business goals and ICT possibilities. Our statement is that both need explicit attention.
The presentation is ended with a call to start working on a national testbed infrastructure for the development of SaaS services. Espcially a country like the Netherlands can be strong in delivering services by “mashing up” all kinds of basic services due to our strengths in trade. In the development of the inrastructure needed to create an agile business community capable of creating and delivering services worldwide there certainly is a role for the government.