Doing Business in Singapore

• This webinar provided insights when entering Singapore market
• It covered the demographics, culture and landscapes when doing business in Singapore
• Setting up an entity, fundraising and innovation landscapes were also addressed

August 8, 2019: Singapore is well-known for many items, from multicultural society to one of the largest financial centres in the world. With such diverse and lucrative landscape, many are open and willing to set up businesses here. This draws relevancy to the Webinar conducted by Jeslin Bay and Paddy Tan, Co-Founders of BlackStorm Consulting.

In the opening, Jeslin had introduced the demographics and cultures. Singapore has no natural resources and relies heavily on manpower. As a result, there is a large pool of talent created in the transitional country. This is encouraging for companies as they can find the suitable and appropriate candidates fast. On the other side of the coin, this can be demoralising for startups as they may need to pay a premium on the salaries to attract relevant personnel due to the high cost of living.

In addition, she talked about other aspects such as high uncertainty avoidance and collectivism. When dealing with Singaporeans in business sense, everything needs to be properly documented and fulfilled so as to reduce the uncertainties as low as possible. This can be attributed to the strict laws and regulations enforced within the country. Singaporeans also tend to place politeness over honesty as this can be deemed offensive to the other party if feedback are conveyed bluntly.

Paddy went on with the setting up an entity in Singapore. As compared to other countries in Southeast Asia (SEA) such as Cambodia and Laos, it takes within 2 working days to register a new company in Singapore. In addition, corruption is also relatively low in this country. The ease of doing business can better help in allocating time and resources on hiring, functioning and even signing of legal documentations.

Other topics such as corporate taxation, Central Provident Funds (CPF) and distribution of employment were also covered summarily in the webinar.

Lastly, Paddy mentioned about the funding and innovation landscapes. Singapore has a larger pool of funds compared to other countries, attracting many active startups to establish base here. Some of them have even gone through Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to obtain funding for operations and developments. Furthermore, the government initiate a number of funding schemes to encourage and support entrepreneurship in Singapore. This forms a vibrant ecosystem for startups, accelerators, incubators and investors. Coupled with tighter compliance and rulings compared to the neighbouring countries, Singapore is a safe haven for many investments.

About BlackStorm Consulting

BlackStorm Consulting (http://blackstormco.asia/) is a boutique growth consultancy firm that specialises in corporate strategy, profit management and investment management. We mainly serve clients in four sectors: FinTech, Gaming, Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT), and manufacturing.

Our clients and connections are internationally present and range from small and medium sized businesses, MNCs, to government agencies.