Posted by Reginald Singh, VP for Asia
Already a huge advantage for businesses around the globe, cloud computing holds additional bonuses for businesses in Singapore in the wake of the government’s initiatives to promote productivity through technology via subsidies.
As noted in a recent ZDNet article, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam recently said the government will hand out S$500 million (US$394.71 million) over three years to support five key initiatives aimed to helping smaller enterprises increase their ICT (infocomm technology) adoption.
This concerted effort by the Singapore government to make its workforce and economy more productive while teaching businesses to operate in a tight labor market presents a huge opportunity.
In fact, small and midsized businesses in Singapore can see 80 percent of their implementation costs for emerging technology covered. It’s an unprecedented opportunity and, while all grants must go through a government process, cloud ERP efforts have won some approvals. NetSuite is listed as a software provider on the IRAS Accounting Register.
NetSuite is not alone among cloud software vendors, of course, but it’s important for businesses to be aware that not all cloud software is the same. Amidst the headlong rush to take advantage of these incentives and the promises of government reimbursement made during sales presentations is the underlying reason for having these programs – improved productivity.
On-premise software built before the Internet even existed and simply moved to a hosted environment is not a modern, efficient business system. Buyers need to know the difference between the fake cloud and true cloud. A true cloud system is multi-tenant, allowing thousands of users to share the economies of scale of a single code base. Believe me, multi-tenancy matters.
It enables scalability that lets your business software grow as your business grows. Customizations carry forward automatically, so businesses aren’t susceptible to version lock, being left several versions behind because of the disruption caused by on-premise upgrades. It offers pay as-you subscription pricing that comes out of operational expenditures vs. capital. The business world is changing rapidly in Asia and you don’t want to be stuck making bets on where you put large amounts of capital.
Business management software decisions have long-lasting implications. Take advantage of government programs where you can, but stay focused on the long-term advantages cloud can bring: scalability, agility and adaptability to the rapid changes in business.