Singapore SMEs still optimistic despite recession

UK: "Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore are highly exposed to the global market but are still optimistic about spending in the current economic crisis," Claudio Castelli, Ovum Senior Analyst has said. "They represent a mature market for managed services and are keen to minimise Capex. However, mobility is not high on their agenda. A recent report presents the results of a survey of SMEs in Singapore on their progress with telecommunications."

"The economy in Singapore relies heavily on exports. Many of the surveyed SMEs have international operations and are likely to be affected by the global economic climate. However, despite adverse conditions, they are optimistic about investing in telecoms to make their businesses more efficient," Castelli said.

Further, 70 per cent of the companies surveyed believe that investing in the latest telecoms solutions can make their business more successful. Surprisingly they expect their telecoms expenditure to grow, which suggests that they aren’t taking a long-term view on budgets.

"SMEs in Singapore will focus on business efficiency and will avoid considerable up-front capital investments. As a result, a few of them are already using managed services and many others are planning to do so in the future. Compared to their counterparts in other countries they are most keen to adopt managed email applications and desktop software. We expect that the software-as-a-service (SaaS) approach will offer good opportunities for services providers and solution vendors in this market," he added. "Some service providers are already answering to this need and introducing managed ICT bundles for SMEs in this market."

In addition, the share of mobile workers in SMEs is growing but this isn’t reflected in the budget allocated for mobile services. "A majority of the companies surveyed don’t provide wireless devices to employees needing mobility for business purposes. This is a clear indication that users are generally bringing and supporting their own personal mobile devices when at work. We believe this practice is particularly dangerous and might result in business risks. However, this scenario is unlikely to change as SMEs expect their expenditure to grow more on the fixed services than on mobile services," Castelli said.