Automation is high-ROI in Singapore, but the gap between a tool that saves labour hours and one that needs a full-time minder shows up in year two, not the demo. Pin down grants, maintenance, and exception handling before you sign.
How to evaluate an AI / RPA process-automation provider in Singapore
- Insist on a paid, fixed-fee pilot on one high-value process (typically 4-8 weeks) with an agreed ROI baseline before committing to any wider rollout.
- Check PSG grant eligibility on the IMDA Tech Depot pre-approved list before buying — eligible SMEs can get up to 50% co-funding, but only on listed tools bought through the scheme.
- Separate brittle RPA (UI-replay bots that break when an app updates) from intelligent automation (OCR, ML, decision logic), and ask for the vendor's average bot-uptime and breakage-frequency data.
- Budget ongoing maintenance explicitly — roughly 30% of build cost per year for non-trivial RPA — and treat a 'free for 12 months' offer as a year-2 lowball to interrogate.
- Map where bots touch PDPA-regulated data and require Singapore data residency, on-prem deployment, or contractual cross-border transfer safeguards rather than a default US/EU SaaS region.
- Define exception handling and human-in-the-loop points up front: who reviews edge cases, what happens when a bot hits an unmapped scenario, and how errors are logged and escalated.
Verify for Ironbook AI
- Confirm key details directly with the vendor — this listing isn't vendor-managed yet.
- Ask for two recent Singapore client references you can speak with.
- Ask for a written scope of services before comparing quotes.
- Request evidence of relevant certifications and their current validity.
Questions to ask
- When the underlying apps or APIs change, who detects the breakage, who fixes it, and what is the typical turnaround and cost?
- How is licensing priced — per bot, per run, per seat — and what does the all-in year-2 cost look like once maintenance is included?
- What is your honest assessment of which of our processes should NOT be automated, and why?
- Can you share two Singapore clients of similar size and sector that we can speak to about delivery and ongoing support?