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SINGAPORE SMALL BUSINESSES CONFIDENT IN 2018
Thursday 15/03/2018
AsiaNet 72674
SINGAPORE, Mar. 15, 2018/Medianet International-AsiaNet/ --
Small businesses in Singapore are showing a strong pick-up in confidence in 2018, according to a new survey released today.
The findings, from CPA Australia's eighth annual Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey, follow extensive surveying of nearly 3,000 small business operators in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Mainland China.
CPA Australia's Head of Policy, Paul Drum FCPA said the outlook for 2018 is strong, with 57.0 per cent of businesses expecting to grow, even as Singapore's small businesses experienced weaker growth in 2017.
"While 2017 saw the lowest number of Singapore small businesses that reported growing since 2014, many expressed a high level of confidence in the Singapore economy and in their own growth prospects for 2018.
"Fifty-seven per cent of small businesses in Singapore are expecting to grow in 2018, the best result for Singapore since the 2012 survey" Mr Drum said.
The survey results again showed that businesses that are applying digital technologies in their business are significantly more likely to be growing strongly than businesses that are not.
In comparison to Australia and New Zealand, Singapore's small business sector is more digitally capable, with a significant majority using social media for business purposes, and nearly four in ten businesses earning more than ten per cent of their income from online sales.
"Singapore's small businesses could, however, benefit from a stronger focus on new digital payment options, such as AliPay, ApplePay and WeChat Pay. Only 30.2 per cent allow customers to pay through this technology, well below China (65.5 per cent) and the survey average (42.7 per cent).
"With Singapore's excellent communications infrastructure and world-leading support for small businesses, we expect Singapore's small businesses to move quickly to invest in new payment technologies.
"The results show investments into new technologies are likely to have a fairly quick and positive impact on the bottom line of many small businesses. 35.1 per cent of Singapore respondents that invested in technology in 2017 stated that such an investment has already resulted in improvements in profitability," Mr Drum said.
On cybersecurity, Singapore's small businesses typically do not believe that their systems will be cyberattacked in 2018, with only 35.4 per cent believing it likely such an event will occur, which is higher than New Zealand, but well below Vietnam, where 80.7 per cent of businesses expect an attack.
Despite this result, a significant majority (around 70 per cent) are acting to protect their systems. The most common steps Singapore's small businesses are taking to protect their systems include regularly backing up data and storing that backup in the cloud or offsite; making staff aware of the risks of downloading programs or opening attachments from untrusted sources; and using a spam filter on their email systems.
Adding to the more positive sentiment in 2018 is an increase in the percentage of Singapore's small businesses that expect to innovate through the introduction of a new product, service or process in 2018 than in 2017.
"This improved result reflects stronger confidence in Singapore's economy and small business environment in 2018. The Singapore Government's strong support of innovation has no doubt also contributed to an innovative culture emerging in many of Singapore's small businesses," Mr Drum said.
The sector reported facing several challenges, including increasing costs and increasing competition. Singapore small businesses were the second most likely of the markets surveyed to identify both of these factors as barriers to their growth, and were likely to nominate staff costs as most detrimental to their business, followed by costs for materials.
Despite the increasing cost of staff, 26.6 per cent of Singapore's small businesses expect to add to their staff numbers in 2018, an increase from last year's survey.
The CPA Australia Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey provides annual insights into the views of small businesses across the region and forms part of a longitudinal study that began in 2009.
A summary of survey results for Singapore (in English) can be viewed here:
https://www.cpaaustralia.com.au/~/media/corporate/allfiles/document/professional-resources/business-management/small-business-survey/2017-market-summary-singapore.pdf?la=en
The full results of the CPA Australia Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey (in English) can be viewed here:
https://www.cpaaustralia.com.au/professional-resources/business-management/small-business/asia-pacific-small-business-survey
-ENDS-
Contact: Joanna Chek on +65 6671 6546 or media@cpaaustralia.com.au
SOURCE: CPA Australia
--BERNAMA
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