In the space for growth, Singaporean government advisory groups frequently see consulting as an important tool for companies to be more competitive, preparing for and reacting quickly to concerns and adjusting to economic and business changes. As both business problems and consultancy services grow, independent professionals and independent consultants remain active in Singapore. Local and global consulting companies play a big role in supporting various industry groups in the country. To sustain continuous growth, businesses have consultants with methodological variety. The sourcing strategy can demonstrate diversity. Smaller local companies providing consulting services outside the field or business. Other local companies offer market-specific services. Some organizations use various approaches but keep all consulting resources inside the business. Others would use large consultancies in general. Consulting resources can also come from abroad.
Singapore is an important service center that serves the entire Asia region. The economy of Singapore is driven primarily by trade, business service, finance, and manufacturing. Since joining the European Union in 1995, Singapore’s business and economic structures have made significant changes, including the reduction of the budget deficit, emphasizing the macroeconomic policy of strengthening the economy, monetary stability, economic growth, leaving space for market needs, and addressing the long-term challenges of population aging by increasing productivity. An increase in productivity and a focus on economic restructuring can be seen gradually by the government.
Consultancy is a popular strategy for business operations, and benefits are expected from it when using advisory inputs to achieve production and trade or investment targets. A variety of important services can be obtained from consultants, including strategy development and the instruments for accomplishing projects, and in some cases, financial consulting. The 2010 Conference Board Survey of Chief Global Econometric points out that consultants, in particular, have the knowledge and capacity to make things happen to ensure that established roles are fulfilled. By investing in improved growth opportunities and returning more money to the bottom line, consultants are expected to elevate their clients’ competitiveness.
Importance of Business Consultants in Singapore
In addition to the changes in the advisory market, consulting services are also a dynamic area of SNV activity. Current survey results show significant increases in highest-paid consultants. Large SNV consulting firms account for about the average salary of Singapore local consultants, which is about 220,000 SG$. For international consultants, the average salary is 150,000 SG$. Project managers account for a slightly lower valuation, with an average of 163,000 Singapore dollars, while BAs earn 63,000 Singapore dollars. E-business consultants earn $50,000 Singapore dollars.
This demand for external expertise and external know-how to safely guide transformation processes has led to rapid growth in the demand for business consulting services in the country and an unprecedented demand for top business consultants. This is reflected in double-digit annual growth rates in the Singapore advisory market, as well as demand from clients. In 2000, the market for management consulting services in Singapore had a value of 515 million Singapore dollars, with other consulting services accounting for 930 million Singapore dollars. By 2025, the market is expected to grow to approximately $2-3 billion per year in order to consulting services and the broader consulting market. Beyond Singapore, consulting services include both management, IT, and development advisory services. The Asia-Pacific region has experienced double-digit growth in the past year, with a total consulting market value of $60 billion in 2019.
Singapore’s world economy is booming once again, and the island nation is entering a new phase of development. As the industry is driven by technological advances, industry convergence, and digitization, Singaporean companies are constantly changing and branching out. In this dynamic environment, business consultants play a key role in driving business growth in various market sectors. Not only can they help generate innovative ideas, they can also provide strategic advice and seek the fastest and most effective way to implement sustainable business growth plans. Alarmingly, corporate domestic investment is falling behind. There are doubts about the economy’s ability to grow and an urgent need for strategic innovation and digital transformation. Singapore’s consulting market is booming.
Benefits of Hiring a Business Consultant
Through implementing consultancy initiatives, the enterprise’s ability to apply best digital practices can be accelerated. Based on literature search, the need for a business consultant Singapore to drive digital transformation is the ability to develop a clear vision and well-developed strategies that are pivotal in the pursuit to innovate. Unfortunately, smaller and local businesses do not have the luxury of knowing the trajectory until they are on the rebound of the Cisco hype, having to wait and continuously experiment and fail many times before finding the perfect mix. Secondly, the ability of a good business consultant Singapore to bridge organizational silos, contrast digital initiatives that are required cannot work in silos. Viable consultancy can go a long way to bring service lines together, forming an orchestra of digital transformation. Providing valuable intelligence and hands-on bicultural direction, including appropriate hiring and staff development. This builds an organizational vision, fosters a budding culture while evolving existing ones. It requires a business consultancy firm to believe in and act upon talent as an enterprise asset.
As local businesses in Singapore must deal with increasing competitive pressures, such as ever-increasing digital disruption and the impact of Covid-19, it becomes more challenging to widen their base of potential consumer groups. Specifically, as the increasing public tendency moves towards online shopping behaviors underpinned by the recent crisis, having an effective online strategy is integral. Business executives in Singapore are also realizing the necessity of initiating the organization’s digitalization journey, given Singapore is a Smart Nation and its push for digital transformation as part of its Singapore economy transformation blueprint. Given the strategic consulting gap, many current technology consultants simply do not have the skills necessary to bridge the gap between technology and strategy. The pressure to get that strategy piece right has never been greater. As a consequence, the business consultancy industry is collectively gaining importance in existing as well as emerging technology markets.
Strategies for Business Growth
Denoted by the company’s operations effectiveness and its positive impact on competitors as well as the company image. The business model and its unique selling proposition is a mixture of product, back-end operations, price and marketing. And the recipe of the heavy reliance on the inner elements mixed with the company’s prosthetic company vague/self-proclaimed iconic status and with the command that no word of the final product or the production process leaves the four elegant walls of the company. The exterior gaze of the other companies/world offer a hazy metaphor of operations conducted behind the veils. From product to production is an unknown passage which does little to wow the competitors or entice the final clients.
Success in business can come from a variety of sources and it can be pursued and measured in myriad activities. Despite the vast selection of business practices, appropriate adjustments in the activities and performance metrics allow for reliable performance management and help guide the company in the polysemic and hazardous waters of business. The profit-based metric seems to have gained a major vote from business stakeholders and the general public since business success measurement has no express drive from the soft sciences. While advancement has been made, soft science tools require fine-tuning to measure immeasurable assets that accompany business evolution. Business is no longer just a mere closed entity. It is now a complex super system, with the product, internal processes and relation with the external elements and the state (public, fiscal structures chronology of growth/marketing efforts, and the like).
Market Analysis and Research
SMEs face challenges on multiple fronts in the digital economy. New technologies have democratized market access but increased competition levels. Rapid shifts in customer expectations require SMEs to constantly innovate across products, services, business models, and customer experiences. Talent issues continue to dog SMEs as they transition into a digital era. This means that companies of all sizes have to develop a culture conducive to innovation and provide learning and development initiatives to foster upskilling among employees – talent management is now an essential part of digital transformation initiatives. For a smaller company that has less capital to invest, these challenges become amplified. Accompanying digital business transformations will go a long way in turning around the SME landscape in Singapore. The need for business consulting is generated by these factors, making SME consulting a people-centric and adaptable industry.
Singapore’s enterprise landscape is diverse. Large enterprises and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) form the backbone of the sector. Within the SMEs segment, very small enterprises (sole proprietorships or those with less than ten employees) constitute 96% of the sector, making it a hotbed for start-ups in Singapore. Singapore is home to over 220,000 established SMEs, each one representing unique opportunities for both existing companies and new growth. Growth potential is further fueled by a digital-savvy population. Driven by innovation, SMEs in technology and technology services, in particular, are playing a major role in Singapore’s economic future. These firms are part of the 190,000 non-sole-proprietorship SMEs that contribute to 36% of the nation’s GDP and provide jobs to 71% of the Singaporean workforce. Singapore is fast becoming a knowledge-embracing, innovation-driven economy with a strong focus on entrepreneurship. These dynamics are creating demand for transformative business consulting services by SMEs.
Developing Effective Business Plans
The authors defined a business plan as any formal or informal document that describes the type of business operations, financial structure, service and product offerings, sales and marketing approach, operation models, management team, government structure, and the operations’ final objectives. They echoed their views based on the fact that the drafted business plans had undergone several scholarly discussions, including wordy textbooks for academia, and diverging views were representative of the marketplace views in the business community. Industries with similar operational models and business ideas received different pieces of advice, thus creating a kind of one-size-fits-all growth approach. What emerged took managers to a greater degree of understanding about its firm’s technical capabilities and its market potentialities and knowledge before the achievement of a firm’s goals. How to develop an effective strategy and business planning process has not been effectively documented in the literature. Therefore, developing an effective business plan is not the first thing suggested by managers during strategic management timeframes.
The starting point of the business plan was to understand Singapore’s advanced economy status and benchmark its innovation-driven growth towards knowledge explosion. Revamping the Singaporean enterprises to be market leaders was important, but it was equally crucial to prepare for the next growth engine. One part of businesses built intellectual properties as one source of differentiation, while another part centered on services that were skilled and knowledge-based. The gap that was identified led to our collaboration strategies focused on the companies that were restarting or starting the business. A company needed to align its strategy towards growth, and enterprises in the startup mode needed to create a demand strategy that would help the management develop the required skills so that the enterprise’s product could address the market demand for their services and products, which would ultimately result in profits. The results of our research showed that enterprises depended on strategic choices that helped secure a sustainable competitive advantage in the market and seized the most potential growth strategies apart from defending short-term success in a volatile market environment.
Implementing Growth Strategies
There are many examples of companies growing in the after-crisis period, particularly if they have adopted the PEIG method in the selection and implementation of a development strategy. PEIG is the priority model that could explain why companies following consultants’ advice on strategy achieve better post-consultation performance than companies independently planning their growth strategy following implementation referral triggers. After the implementation, the company ceases collaboration with the consultant and the future performance is indicated by the real effective management of the acquired tool. Even if the company offers regular monitoring of the implemented tool and services in evaluating used software, the strategy could still be correctly identified only under certain conditions.
Except for a very small number of businesses that are still making the case against a digital age, all businesses today face technological transformation and the necessity to go online. Many businesses need to mentally and physically transform themselves. One such company is a manufacturer and supplier of large fire-safety systems. They had been in business for over thirty years and had grown over the decades. However, they only grew at the speed of distribution. The company never went out to look for new customers. When the government announced new regulations for safety equipment, their orders collapsed. Production stood still. However, it is a large and experienced company. Having received a loan for the purchase of an existing property, new products were quickly designed and immediately brought to market. Soon the largest customers of the new enterprise were brought back under contract and their growth would take them beyond where they had been at the peak of the original business cycle.
Role of Business Consultants in Driving Growth
The purposive sample for this study is SME representative of the Singaporean SME sector, with businesses employing between 10 and 500 and are past the formative stage, defined using the number of years in operation. A structured survey was used to gather information from SME key decision-makers. To account for the survey design’s added complexity resulting from two subpopulations of consultants and SME, a logistic regression was used for the data analysis. The logistic regression model was able to explain 67 percent of the variation in the predicted and observed response variable scores. Findings indicate that most firms in the study were positive and believed that having engaged business consultants previously led to growth. Results report that engaging business consultants is associated with the highest level of annual sales achieved by a firm and the perceived likelihood of annual sales growing. Engaging external consultants has a greater likelihood of customer size increasing. The not statistically significant that engaging penta-level external consultants mean that these consultants did not add value to a firm size measure, but does not negate the impact of employing external consultants on any of the associated growth outcomes because significant predictor status would have rendered that subpopulation PHSM null (i.e., at zero).
Academicians have been reporting for the past two decades that a growing number of SME leaders have sought business management consulting at different stages of the business development process. Yet, the results are counterintuitive, showing a significant decrease in business performance after consultants were engaged. To complicate research findings, clients of business consultants avert consulting performance expectations. I, therefore, have sought to answer the question ‘why engage business consultants at all, given that research results on their impact on performance are rather disappointing, and clients’ experience and expectations of consultation are incommensurate?’ The causal model introduces the role of business consultancy in driving business growth and builds on Dyson’s (1991) model of business growth and Lockett’s (2008) model of management consulting.
Identifying Opportunities and Challenges
- Business consultants can add value in two broad domains—helping companies to review, assess, and articulate their current capabilities and structures, then to identify opportunities and form strategies that will help them to grow in an increasingly complex environment. This is internal, practical, technical, and sometimes operatic. It is visible and can be quantified and measured by evaluating day-to-day processes to guide strategic thinking and longer-term awareness of how the capabilities and structures they have acquired may help them adapt and evolve in the future, or to realize that new capabilities may be needed to capture more value from the markets they serve.
- Effectively identifying opportunities and pain points is a well-trodden route to growth and success in any business. But, business consultants can make this effort far more effective. As much recent literature has it, businesses at various stages of growth need different things to develop. As well as the monitoring and data needed to make decisions that will drive this growth, management with the knowledge to process it, expertise in assessing its implications, and the ability to plan strategy are important. The development of capability increases business resilience and likelihood of business success, and may also increase the psychic income of business owners and their managers.
Providing Expert Advice and Guidance
Business consultants provide expert advice and guidance on various areas related to business strategies. The consultants in Singapore who participated in the study covered some aspects such as value generation, business models, competitive advantage, and business model innovation. They were also involved in ways to reduce market uncertainties. Also, they were keen on supply chain strategies, cost leadership strategies, operational excellence goals, innovative key drivers, cost structures, managerial and operational specific knowledge, organizational scope, operative variety, roles of suppliers and buyers, resource constraints, goals orientation, demand and supply variations, and traditional and technological resources. Again, their emphasis on strategic issues demonstrates growing demands for aggregate supply-side drivers that encompass supplier financial health. It could also be that the use of business consultants enables the client companies to identify, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the key breakthrough strategic drivers, as well as explore strategic objectives, ensuring that they are consistent with broadly communicated goals.
Management consulting services. Most business consultants who took part in the research study in Singapore worked in business strategy and business transformation. Those were followed by operations management, compliance, and risk and cost reduction. The findings are in line with the typical areas in which business consultants provide consultancy services in the literature. The focus on strategic issues and implementation challenges relates to the increasing uncertainty and complexity in the global business environment, as strategic decisions have become riskier and more unpredictable, and complex to execute. Thus, the consultants play a critical role in navigating organizations through the turbulent business environment.
Implementing and Monitoring Growth Initiatives
An organization does not always need to have an organizational restructuring to adapt to an environmental change. The organization is continuous and goes through a series of changes in its lifetime. If the organizational size is small, the process is informal. However, when an organization grows, the process becomes more complex and significant. Management of growth ensures cost-effectiveness in the long-term. If the growth is improper, the consequences will also be imbalanced. Organizations often level off in growth and development. With time, the market and its products also reach a saturation point. The institution’s performance with its weak productivity may not sustain forever. For bringing about high productivity and accelerating growth, management of implementing and monitoring of strategies needs to be effective.
Some academics and business executives argue that the best strategy is the one that can be truly and successfully implemented. If a business organization cannot accomplish the tasks associated with strategy implementation, it should not plan or think about strategy at all. This chapter explores what strategy implementation includes and how it is usually performed in organizations. It is fairly challenging to exist on an ongoing basis in a competitive situation similar to that encountered by organizations. The organization needs to be adaptable; the strategy needs to feature flexibility and it should be feasible, too. An organization must be able to adapt its resources in response to changes in the environment. Effective organizational structures can facilitate the implementation of strategy. Evaluation and control is the foundation of effective strategy implementation.
