Should businesses have a higher purpose beyond never-ending growth and revenue? Many of the most successful Singapore brands have shown that balancing profit and purpose may be a better way forward.

As with most other free market democracies, Singapore is faced with the challenge of increasing economic activity while ensuring that everyone enjoys high living standards. Unlike many other countries, however, Singapore takes a characteristically minimalist approach to government intervention.

To achieve its goal of uplifting lives, the Singaporean government incentivises positive investments and entrepreneurship as a way to enable ordinary Singaporeans to enjoy a high quality of life.

What Are “Businesses for Good”?

Though the Singaporean government is open to a very wide range of foreign and domestic investments, it actively tries to encourage growth in areas that it deems strategic. These areas include manufacturing (particularly petrochemical, electronics, machinery, and equipment manufacturing) and services (including financial, logistics, wholesale and retail trade, and business services).

However, the country also encourages investments in areas that are not yet major components of its economy. The country actively promotes R&D and innovation in promising but capital-intensive areas such as food technology, green housing, biotechnology, digital technologies, and cybersecurity.

This government support is encouraging the growth of these lynchpin industries in Singapore through tax breaks, research grants, as well as networking and partnership opportunities. Already, these efforts have borne fruit and Singapore is poised to become indispensable in these spaces in the near future.

While these industries may not all be directly related to each other, from the Singaporean government’s perspective, investments in areas that drive “business for good” all balance profit and purpose, and they share the following things in common:

1. Focuses on Value-Creation

With extremely meagre natural resources, Singapore is unable to sustainably engage in extractive economic activity, such as fishing, mining, and agriculture. While the country has a relatively large, high-quality labour pool, it does not act as a sweatshop to the world, either.

Instead, its economic planners have chosen to focus on industries that create value. Its mainstay industries leverage the country’s competitive advantages in human resources to create high-value products and services. This helps assure the country of steady revenue while allowing it to reduce risks and shift to meet emerging global trends.

2. Enhances Life Quality

While it actively courts investments, Singapore does not compromise on the welfare of its citizens and the surrounding environment. Singapore has some of the world’s tightest environmental controls, especially for a country that is considered to be one of the world’s most vibrant free-market economies. As a key player in the economy, the government also incentivises and actively promotes corporate social responsibility among Singapore-based businesses.

3. Addresses Future Needs

The Singaporean government tends to offer incentives for industries whose successes may be the foundation for future growth in multiple areas. Sustainable business models that are seen to have a positive long-term effect on the community at large are also prioritised for these incentives.

How Are Lives Uplifted by Positive Investments?

Positive investments don’t just bring profits to investors and businesses. They also benefit the wider Singaporean community in various ways. These investments uplift lives through the following means:

1. Job Creation

As a general rule, investments lead to job creation. This goes beyond the jobs that the investors directly create. Every organisation depends on other businesses for supplies, services, and other needs. When there is an uptick in investments, many of these supporting businesses will also hire more employees.

Likewise, all of the employees of these organisations also help create additional job opportunities with their disposable income. With their income, they create demand for consumer goods, real estate, transportation, recreational activities, and much more. The demand for these is, in turn, met by entrepreneurs who also create even more jobs.

Thus, investments are generally considered desirable, especially if the value generated by these is recycled through the community.

2. Technological Innovation

Homegrown innovations create value that further benefits the country and its people. Because of this, Singapore has taken steps over the decades to cultivate a capacity for high-level R&D. Additionally, innovations in Singapore are secured by robust IP protection laws and initiatives.

Thanks to this unique focus on innovation, many of the most successful Singaporean brands have developed tech patents, products, and services that are used throughout the world. The widespread use of these innovations by foreign customers, in turn, helps further develop the Singaporean value chain.

3. A Sense of Shared Purpose

The qualities of “positive investments” are broadly communitarian and are focused on “growing the pie” or developing the entire value chain for everyone. This approach is mostly in line with the values Singaporeans and many Singaporean expatriates share.

As such, Singaporean workers understand that their efforts benefit everyone in the community, and not just a select few. This view is further reinforced by the country’s low corruption rates and people-centred infrastructure and public policies. Furthermore, this perception encourages Singaporean investors and entrepreneurs to reinvest in the country, helping uplift it even more.

Can Businesses Be a Force for Good?

So far, this seems to be the case in Singapore. Several homegrown businesses have shown that they could lead their respective markets and still be a force for positive societal change. Though Singapore’s experiment is still young, it has already shown that encouraging the right kind of innovation is a viable and sustainable path to improve everyone’s lives.

 

What are your thoughts on businesses for good?

 

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