As the global economy faces major uncertainties with growing trade conflicts, nervous financial markets and signs of slowing growth, it’s having the downside impact for Singapore economy and global economy in general.
Singapore economy that is projected to grow by 1.5% to 3.5% in 2019 from around 3.3% in 2018, has been growing at a mildly slower pace in the beginning of 2019 at just under 2.5%. Aside from slowing economic growth, Singapore will have to watch out for the inflation rate that is expected to rise by 1.37% in 2019 from 1.04% in 2018. When the sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time known as inflation occur, the entire economy will be affected as well.
When we talked about inflation, we often focusing on consumers’ side. However, the business might have the same impact as to what impact the consumers get. If the price of food, commodities, and other goods and services were rising, it would affect the cost of living, the cost of rent, and even the cost of doing business.
Doing business while facing inflation can be difficult as the cost of inventory, material, and even labour cost may increase while you still have to maintain your competitiveness in the industry. Moreover, for the small businesses, the slightly rising cost has a big impact for their businesses.
While inflation is often part of natural processes of the growing economy, it’s important to take step to manage inflation ahead of time. Instead of having the usual expensive process which demand you to keep the cost at the low level, it will be better to implement a new technology which maintain the cost or even reduce the cost by automation while considering the productivity of the companies. This trend is largely used as the tool to stay competitive. Implementing a technology would serve as a support system which helping the company in the day-to-day process to be more efficient and helps to reduce the business process cost as it moves the entire process into a cloud system and eliminating the need to store many information and documents in a physical storage which will be costly.
Using technology doesn’t mean that the process would turn into a zero-budget process, technology still have its cost for you to be able to fully use it. The implementation of technology means to reduce the cost and still maximize the company’s potential, moreover during the slow economic growth and inflation. In this case, you would need to find a technology that best suits your needs and is still offering the reasonable price.
What price would be the reasonable price for technology depends on how the solution helps you to survive and stay competitive in the industry while having the most potential of your resources. You also need to consider its cost and how it stands compare to the cost of the usual process. An automation technology might charge S$ 3 to 5/person and isn’t it still reasonable for the slow economic growth?
You may think again to pay around S$ 3/person for an automation technology but it’s highly reasonable in the difficult economy. Investing through technology, how it supports the day-to-day business operation including simplifies the heavy administration process and ultimately reduce the business cost on the storage and materials, is rather less expensive because you can get the benefit in the long term. It is better than paying for the tools which can be used only for the moment and become a waste later, not even bringing a much better result for you to survive the inflation.
It is the best solution to use technology in facing a slow economic growth and inflation that demand the business to change how it operates and to get the most of its resource while maintaining the overall cost. With a reasonable price in the rising average prices, technology can be beneficial in long term more than the usual process which cost more as it’s not only serves as support and storage but also maintain the company productivity in the long term.
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