SPRING S'pore supported 9,000 SMEs in 2014, will create 22,000 jobs

SPRING effect helps SMEs add $8b to the economy
Funding and manpower assistance helping them weather restructuring
By Wong Wei Han, The Straits Times, 7 Feb 2015

AT A time when small firms are coping with labour shortages and rising competition, SPRING Singapore has ridden to the rescue.

Its helping hand to Singapore companies last year will create an estimated $8 billion in value-add for the economy while adding 22,000 jobs when fully realised.

This is the highest value-add ever projected by SPRING and beats the $6.16 billion value-add projected for 2013, the agency said yesterday.

The number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) tapping the agency's support grew from around 3,000 in 2013 to 9,000 last year.

With the economy restructuring, SPRING has found different ways to help SMEs - from money to ideas to talent.

For those that want to become more productive, it has been offering $5,000 per voucher under its Innovation and Capability Voucher scheme.

Last year, about 9,700 vouchers were granted - up from 1,738 in 2013 - to around 7,000 SMEs, SPRING chief executive Tan Kai Hoe said yesterday.

Nature Vegetarian Restaurant, for example, used the vouchers to introduce a wireless paging system that helps customers call staff.

"That helps us cut down our customers' waiting time and, in turn, improve our sales by 5 per cent," director Edmund Toh said.

In 2014, we supported more than 9,000 enterprises. Thank you partners - your dedication will take us a long way!
Posted by SPRING Singapore on Friday, April 17, 2015

SPRING also helped tech start-up 1RWave develop tracking tags to monitor patient movements and matched the company with Tan Tock Seng Hospital for test-bedding.

Chief executive Kuan Yeh Cheang said: "There's a lot of help being dished out to SMEs like us. What we have is a luxury that many other countries don't."

And since small firms struggle to attract manpower, SPRING has managed to match more than 600 applicants and interns with SME employers, Mr Tan added. Meanwhile, SPRING-funded Centres of Innovation have helped 360 SMEs develop technology solutions.

Mr Tan said that for each dollar it spends, SPRING aims to create a value-add of $20.

He later told The Straits Times that 90 per cent of the companies taking SPRING's help to raise their game were small and micro outfits.

"However, these projects will take one to two years to be completed. Hence, it will take some time before the impact of these projects can be felt," he said.

Mr Kurt Wee, president of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME), told The Straits Times: "I believe SPRING as a lead SME agency has done a great job... Partly due to its help, SMEs have been able to survive the economic restructuring so far.

"Now our key concern is not asking for more government help - our main worry right now is the volatile economic environment."

CIMB economist Song Seng Wun noted: "Creating an $8 billion value-add to GDP is impressive. Having a government body dedicated to SMEs is important because SMEs are still the backbone of Singapore as they contribute more than half of economic output and offer over 70 per cent of employment.

"This is still the early stage of restructuring - much work remains to be done. And if restructuring is to succeed, we can't afford to lose a large chunk of our economy in the process, or not have a government body overseeing this part of the economy.

"But the Government can only help so much. The SMEs themselves must now up their ante."

Single SME body does not make sense: SPRING
By Lee Yen Nee, TODAY, 7 Feb 2015

Enterprise development agency SPRING Singapore yesterday dismissed calls by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) for a single body to champion the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) here, saying the various agencies offer vastly different expertise.

SPRING chairman Philip Yeo said: “IE’s (International Enterprise Singapore) skills are in trade, trade exhibitions and opening doors. For that, it has offices overseas. SPRING focuses on companies that are here, helping them grow locally ... So this idea of a one-stop shop for everything doesn’t make sense.”

In its Budget wish list, the SBF last month called for the setting up of a single government body to champion the development of SMEs in a co-ordinated approach to help the sector overcome surging business costs, productivity declines and the impact of economic restructuring.

Mr Yeo made his comments at SPRING’s 2014 year-in-review yesterday, when the enterprise development agency announced that it supported about 9,000 SMEs last year, nearly three times the 3,400 companies it helped in 2013.

Close to 90 per cent of the companies were micro and small enterprises with S$10 million or less in annual revenue. SPRING said the 12,000 upgrading projects that it is working on with these firms will create S$8 billion value-add to the economy and 22,000 jobs when fully implemented.

SPRING’s chief executive Tan Kai Hoe attributed the surge to greater awareness in the SME community about the need to raise productivity and competitiveness amid the ongoing economic restructuring, as well as the enhancement to the Innovation and Capability Voucher scheme.

The scheme, originally meant to help defray the costs of consultancy services, was expanded last year to allow SMEs to buy solutions that could help them improve productivity. The enhanced scheme was tapped by more than 7,000 SMEs.

One of them, Nature Vegetarian Restaurant, used the voucher to install a wireless paging system that allows customers to page the wait staff whenever they require service. With this, the restaurant has cut down customers’ waiting time and now needs only three instead of five wait staff during peak hours. It also saw sales increase by 5 per cent.

“Manpower is a problem in the F&B (food-and-beverage) business. We try our best to train staff but many of them don’t stay for long, so we thought of using technology (to help with the situation). Now we can turn around tables more quickly during peak hours,” said Mr Edmund Toh, director of Nature Vegetarian.

SPRING also said it increased its outreach efforts by adding two more SME Centres last year, bringing the total to 12 islandwide. This helped the agency to reach out to about 160,000 SMEs last year.

Mr Tan said: “We probably have come to the second phase of the productivity journey and I think it is now not enough to just focus on building efficiencies. I think it is also important to look at ways to build on growth.”