Firms project higher revenues from better productivity and expanding overseas with help from EnterpriseSG

SINGAPORE: When food manufacturer Lim Kee wanted to expand overseas after being part of the local food and beverage industry for more than 40 years, it tapped Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG).

With the agency’s help, it has now ventured out of Singapore for the first time and into the Philippines. The firm is now in negotiations with two major retailers in the Philippines to distribute its products, which include steamed buns and meat dumplings. 

"As a very small SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) … we may not have the know-how of what's happening in the market. So tapping on (EnterpriseSG’s) existing networks, their knowledge and so on and so forth, it helped to validate what we considered as our go-to market strategy,” said the firm’s head of business development Ang Khim Wee.

Another company in the healthtech industry also got help with developing its product - an artificial intelligence-powered device with temperature sensors to detect when hospitalised patients are about to get out of bed. Nurses are then alerted and can assist them, preventing falls.

"The initial capability development was one of the biggest support that we have received from EnterpriseSG, and that landed us with a research collaboration with … Tan Tock Seng hospital,” said CEO of CoNEX Healthcare Tan Swee Yen.

“Because of that, we were able to then work very closely with the clinicians on the ground to co-develop the product and the solution that truly meets the operational challenges that global healthcare institutions are (currently) facing.”

LARGE-SCALE PROJECTS

The two firms are among 2,300 that EnterpriseSG transformed last year through large-scale projects, it said in a report released on Thursday (Jan 23).

While the number was fewer than the 3,000 in 2023, the impact was larger, Mr Lee noted, said the agency’s chairman Lee Chuan Teck.

“It was a lower number in terms of total number of companies, but the outcomes that they are projecting from these projects are much stronger,” he said at EnterpriseSG's annual media briefing on Thursday.

He added that in 2024, on average, each company was projected to increase its revenue by S$8.6 million  (US$6.4 million) per year - about 50 per cent higher than the figure for 2023.

These rewards are expected to be reaped from increased productivity, innovation and overseas expansion.

Over 12,000 new jobs are also expected to be created. In total, EnterpriseSG helped 11,500 enterprises last year, up from the 9,300 figure in 2019.

BASIC UPGRADES, OVERSEAS OPPORTUNITIES

The firms that did not go through big transformations got help in areas like such as digital solutions and exploring overseas opportunities through trade fairs and partnerships. 

While China and India remain the top markets for businesses expanding abroad, interest is growing in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, EnterpriseSG noted.

Still, the agency said that it could be tougher for firms to seize these opportunities.

"What is clear to us is that international trade flows and investments will be increasingly regulated and taxed. This is a new reality and I think our companies will have to learn to adapt,” said Mr Lee.

“When there are changes to international rules on capital flows, new tariffs, those may affect them, and we have to help them navigate, construct their supply chains, construct their investment mix to be more resilient to such changes."

US President Donald Trump, who started his second term in office on Monday, has threatened tariffs on imports from several nations, which is expected to disrupt global supply chains.

SUPPORTING NASCENT SECTORS

To support companies in nascent sectors like precision medicine, EnterpriseSG is building connections with partners in established markets to help them access customers, investors and expertise.

Advancements in technology mean that precision medicine will allow firms to develop products that are more effective in providing healthcare to countries all over the world, especially given the ageing demographics, said EnterpriseSG managing director Cindy Khoo.

“That presents business opportunities for companies in Singapore that can provide those services for more precise diagnostics or therapeutics services,” she told CNA’s Singapore Tonight on Thursday. 

She said that SMEs in this space may have the capabilities and solutions, but not scale yet.

“We need proof of concept and to pilot and … to show a track record so that we are able to link our local companies with overseas partners like Mayo Clinic (in the US and) like Charité in Germany, which are very established healthcare institutions that will take on our solutions and then scale them within their networks,” she said.

Ms Khoo said that while the global business climate may hang in the balance, there could be a silver lining.

“The great uncertainty actually also presents opportunities with the great reconfiguration of global supply chains," she said.

"That's where we can look for opportunities, where our companies can disrupt maybe existing suppliers, and then provide our services and goods to the rest of the world more effectively."