The Knowledge to Decide

With e-commerce set for steady growth in Singapore, e-shoppers may have to shell out more to pay for taxes on goods ordered from overseas sites. Will online shopping become expensive if Singapore adopts recommendations by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)? Spire Research and Consulting shared its insights, published on Channel News Asia’s news portal. The retail sector continues to contribute a major chunk to Singapore’s economy. However e-commerce – dominated by overseas merchants – is on the rise. This eventually leads to more money outflow along with tax revenue loss and puts local businesses at a competitive disadvantage. Spire highlighted the fact that revenue from e-commerce amounted to SGD4.5 billion in 2013, where 55% consisted of cross-border transactions. This is a tax impact of close to SGD 200 million in a year. Experts agreed that overseas online retailers are not taxed on income generated from Singapore consumers, whereas

Spire Singapore collaborated with the Singapore Children’s Society for the fifth consecutive year, in support of AmCham Singapore’s Corporate Community Day (CCD) 2015. This is the eighth year in which Spire has been participating in the CCD program, which aims to promote corporate volunteerism. Spire Singapore took beneficiaries of the Singapore Children’s Society to an ice-cream making session. The children were excited to have the chance to create their own flavors and decorate their creations, while picking up a useful and fun skill. We were honored by the visit of Ms Mary-Gardner Coppola from the US Embassy, who joined in the ice-cream making session. Ms Coppola interacted with the beneficiaries as well as the staff and volunteers of Spire Singapore and the Singapore Children’s Society. She and Mr Japnit Singh, Spire’s Senior Director, had a great time judging the ice cream creations. Their conclusion? All were magnificent. Spire is proud to support the wonderful

Singapore celebrated its golden jubilee as one of the world’s developed economies. Following the death of founding father Lee Kuan Yew and the current global economic headwinds, can economic momentum be maintained? Japnit Singh, Senior Director, Singapore and India, of Spire Research and Consulting shared his insights in China Daily – Asia Weekly. Singapore has successfully built a strong foundation for its economy with human development indicators such as education, life expectancy and per capita income on a positive high. Singh cautioned that the nation needs to focus in order to take bold and productive political decisions without becoming complacent. Moreover, it would be interesting to see if the next generation of political leaders would take difficult decisions with the same firmness and transparency as the founding fathers have done in the past. Singapore’s GINI coefficient – calculated as the ratio of income of the top 20% of population with the bottom 20% –

Service standards in Singapore are still not at par with some Asian counterparts. Can Singapore build a strong service culture? Leon Perera, Chief Executive Officer of Spire Research and Consulting shared his insights in The Business Times – Views from the Top section on how Singapore can inculcate higher standards of service. Service standards begin with a strong foundation right from school. Ample opportunities to practice good service in school through role-playing games and competitions will help inculcate this culture. Perera opined that it is crucial that older students undergo at least one internship that involves a front-facing role. The objective of this should be to instil an ethic in humility – to serve customers with pride and not view it as humiliation. This standard should be reinforced in the workplace by business leaders who set a personal example. Business leaders should set aside time to serve customers directly, underscoring the importance of good servi

Singapore’s online retail market grew from SGD717 million in 2010 to about SGD1.08 billion in 2014, and is projected to reach SGD2.06 billion by 2019. Will traditional retailers change their business strategies in response? Japnit Singh, Senior Director of Spire Research and Consulting, Singapore and India, shared his insights on Channel News Asia – Today Online. As online retail continues to record increasing sales in Singapore, traditional retailers are struggling to keep up with the fierce competition. As the retail sector is a major component of Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), this results in money and tax revenue flowing out of the Republic, since e-commerce is dominated by overseas merchants. Many Singaporeans now prefer online shopping. Singh highlighted that out of the estimated SGD4.5 billion generated in the e-commerce space, 55% involves cross-border transactions. The obvious benefits include Goods and Services Tax (GST) savings as well as lower prices, b

Spire Singapore collaborated with the Singapore Children’s Society for the fourth consecutive year, in support of AmCham Singapore’s Corporate Community Day (CCD) 2014. This is the seventh year in which Spire has been participating in the CCD program, which aims to promote corporate volunteerism. Spire Singapore took beneficiaries of the Singapore Children’s Society to a pizza making session. The children were thrilled by their new-found ability to make their own edible creations. They enjoyed the morning while at the same time picking up a useful and confidence-building skill, not to mention many fun facts about the history of pizza. We were honored by the visit of Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy Blair Hall, who joined us with his wife Valerie. Valerie joined in the pizza making session. Blair and his team interacted with the beneficiaries as well as the staff and volunteers of Spire Singapore and the Singapore Children’s Society. The enthusiasm did not di

Spire Research and Consulting’s CEO Leon Perera was privileged to deliver the first Opening Plenary address at CloudAsia 2014 held in Singapore on 29-30 October. He shared key insights from Spire’s study on Cloud computing usage in Singapore’s financial services industry (FSI) and recommended approaches to increase Public Cloud usage in the FSI. At the Opening Plenary of CloudAsia 2014, Leon Perera, CEO of Spire Research and Consulting shared that some Financial Institutions operating in Singapore were already using the private Cloud for non-core applications. However the study found that Financial Institutions were hesitant to further explore Public Cloud adoption for core applications involving production data. The study recommended approaches to increasing Cloud usage for core applications through the creation of prescriptive codes of conduct for FI-vendor contracting as well as security. The study concluded that an opportunity currently exists for a multi-stake-holder

Singapore’s 2013 economic growth was revised upwards from 3.7% to 4.1%, thanks to a last-minute surge in manufacturing. Does this portend better times to come? Leon Perera, Chief Executive Officer of Spire Research and Consulting, shared his views on Singapore’s economic performance on Channel NewsAsia – Business Central . Perera commented that Singapore’s economic growth exceed expectations and this reflected an improving climate for exports, mainly driven by developed country growth. This would last into 2014 because of the on-going recovery in the US, improvements in Northern Europe, the momentum from Abe-nomics in Japan and a still-respectable showing from China. On the other hand, the domestic retail sector was losing some ground. Perera shared that this was partly due to a slowdown in tourist arrival and spending growth, as a result of slower growth in regional economies like China and India. In contrast, the wholesale market will see some forward momentum on the back

Singapore will mark its 50th anniversary of independence in 2015. In conjunction with the country’s upcoming Golden Jubilee, Leon Perera, Chief Executive Officer of Spire Research and Consulting, shared his views in The Business Times – Views from the Top section on what Singapore’s economy and society would look like in 2065. In the future, technology would have eliminated much of the manual labor that humans perform today. Robots will revolutionize work in the home, elder-care as well as the personal services industry. Commercial space flight will accelerate the growth of globalization and enhance innovation, thanks to people being able to meet face-to-face with far less time spent in travel. On the other hand, 3D printing coupled with big data analytics will revolutionize the traditional manufacturing model of economies of scale in favor of mass customization. In addition, stricter Green and ethics regulations will foster Greener, safer and fairer processes in the work