Published on 18 May 2018

​SMEs should take do-it-yourself approach: Inderjit Singh

​Instead of holding out for government policies to change in their favour, firms should do what they can on their own, said former member of parliament and co-president of the World Entrepreneurship Forum Inderjit Singh.

He was speaking at yesterday's Mitigating Business Uncertainties seminar, part of the Think Big Business Leadership series organised by The Business Times and supported by Canon Singapore.

Mr Singh laid out various ways that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could help themselves and one another.

To tackle business costs, manpower shortages and rental pressures, SMEs can group together to reap the benefits of shared services for functions such as human resources and finance.

They can approach local universities for help with finding technological solutions, and seek alternative financing sources such as public venture capital or crowd financing.

SMEs here could even look at setting up a cooperative SME bank, he suggested.

"Don't wait for the government to change. It may take forever. Just do it yourself," he concluded.

Other speakers also shared views on how to cope in today's economy.

Boh Wai Fong, head of the information technology and operations management division of Nanyang Technological University's Nanyang Business School, suggested that firms adopt "entrepreneurial thinking".

Instead of starting by defining a goal, firms could start by looking at what resources they have, then decide what they can do from there.

Tan Khee Giap, co-director of the Asia Competitiveness Institute of the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said firms should not fear the upcoming goods and services tax hike as it is still preferable to an increase in corporate income tax.

Firms should focus not on cutting costs but on chasing growth, he added, noting that young businessmen he had met do not complain about costs, but are instead concerned with where they should be heading next.

Education consultancy Amdon Consulting's chief executive officer Eric Lam said that instead of competing with giants in their industry, small firms should aim to attract larger companies to partner with them.

He explained how his firm has managed to be cost-competitive by locating certain business units overseas, with a production team in Manila in the Philippines and a development team in Yangon in Myanmar.

Running two shifts in his Manila office also makes his firm better able to respond to clients' needs quickly, and is more efficient in terms of equipment and space, he added.

In the ensuing panel discussion on fake news and business intelligence, Mr Lam and Mr Singh also highlighted the importance of local partners as sources of reliable business information about new markets.

"Macroeconomic indicators may not be reflective of business sentiments, and business sentiments as reported in the media may not reflect the sentiments of those partners you actually work with," noted Mr Lam.