The entire Singapore govt is now on Facebook’s social enterprise platform, Workplace

FACEBOOK just booked a huge client that will earn them an estimated US$1.7 million in revenue every year – its social enterprise platform Workplace will have signed on about 143,000 Singaporean civil service staffers by March 2017.

According to GovInsider, the Singaporean government began implementing Workplace in October, and now has 15 agencies as well as over 5,300 public officers using it. Previously, the government was using its own network called Cube, but while it didn’t fail, it was still “a force to reckon with”, said Head of the Civil Service, Peter Ong, at the PS21 ExCEL Convention last Thursday.

SEE ALSO: Social networking an office distraction? Not with Facebook Workplace

Ong said one of the best things about Facebook’s Workplace is that it allows employees to access the network on their mobile devices without having to connect to the government intranet, and that 84 percent of the officers who have activated their accounts are now “active weekly users”.

Once the whole civil service starts using Workplace, the number will represent about 11 percent of Slack’s entire paid user base, reports Quartz. This makes Workplace’s progress exponential since its launch just a month ago.

Ong added: “We have seen agencies reduce the number of internal emails sent by posting their major announcements on Workplace.” Other benefits include an initiative being hosted on the platform called #ShareYourSkills, which lets public officers share professional skills among agencies requiring help with a specialized task.

Workplace launched in October as a direct competitor to Slack, which pioneered the office-chat space. Since then, Microsoft also launched its own version, called Teams – which means Slack really has its work cut out for it.

SEE ALSO: Shots fired: Slack takes on Microsoft’s ‘Teams’ in full-page open letter

Whilst Slack still remains ahead of its rivals with 4 million daily active users and 1.25 million paying users, according to Digital Trends. However, Facebook’s subscription-only model puts it at an advantage of possibly gaining far more revenue. Facebook announced 1,000 organizations – including Starbucks, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Danone – are now using Workplace in its third quarter earnings call.

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