IBM has successfully completed a core payroll infrastructure modernisation for SingHealth, Singapore's leading and largest public healthcare group.
Led by IBM Consulting, the project involved migrating SingHealth's payroll and custom applications from legacy SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA utilising a Private RISE model.
Johnny Quah, deputy group chief financial officer at SingHealth, stated: "This collaboration with IBM Consulting, with the support of Synapxe, enabled us to upgrade our payroll infrastructure without any disruption to our operations. This migration to a more modern and robust payroll infrastructure is an important step in strengthening our back-end systems, and we are happy with how the transition was managed."
Modernising regulated healthcare infrastructure
The transition positions SingHealth, alongside National University Health System (NUHS), NHG Health, and Ministry of Health Holdings (MOHH), among the first public healthcare clusters in Singapore to migrate to SAP Private RISE.
Payroll remains one of the most strictly regulated enterprise functions, governed by statutory obligations including Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) tax requirements, and shifting compliance mandates.
Running critical payroll operations on legacy infrastructure introduced heightened risks, including escalating support costs, security vulnerabilities, and potential compliance exposure—liabilities that large-scale public healthcare clusters cannot sustain.
"Public healthcare institutions operate under immense pressure to deliver and the systems behind the scenes must be equally resilient," said Abraham Thomas, managing partner at IBM Consulting ASEAN.
As organisations across the region modernise their critical systems, SingHealth’s experience demonstrates that even the most complex migrations can be executed without interruption." Abraham Thomas
End-to-end implementation and system enhancements
IBM Consulting collaborated with SingHealth and payment processing partner 1FSS to deliver an end-to-end transformation that ensured uninterrupted payroll operations for healthcare workers while maintaining strict compliance. Supported by national healthtech agency Synapxe, the deployment delivered several key functional capabilities:
- Integrated HR and finance architecture: Built a modern infrastructure interfacing with workforce management and finance systems to lower data failure risks and accelerate onboarding of new services.
- Flawless data migration: Transferred processes and historical records accurately with zero operational downtime for end-users.
- Architectural simplification: Streamlined core system architecture to enhance operational stability, reduce ongoing maintenance expenditure, and support rapid adaptation to evolving regulatory policies.
- Automated security and compliance updates: Implemented structured mechanisms to continuously incorporate regulatory and security patches, protecting sensitive employee data and minimising audit exposure.
- Analytics-driven workforce insights: Shifted payroll from a pure processing utility into an intelligent data platform supporting workforce analytics, automation, and strategic financial decision-making.
Thomas says IBM Consulting remains committed to helping healthcare institutions across Singapore and ASEAN build the infrastructure foundations that allow them to operate with confidence and focus on delivering quality healthcare that citizens rely on.
