Legacy Foundation Business and Leadership

Archive for January, 2010

Singapore International Business Corporation

Offshore financial centers are coming under strict scrutiny because of the regulatory pressures exerted by organizations such as OECD. In the present scenario Singapore with a strong reputation as an international financial center offers a tax system that is equally attractive to resident and non resident companies alike.  Singapore’s status and reputation as a trusted and responsible business and financial hub committed to the international efforts to combat cross-border tax evasion, is attracting high net-worth individuals and companies who seek unsullied image along with effective tax management. Singapore Company, if properly-structured is an attractive, tax-efficient corporate structure to conduct international business. Certain inherent provisions make a Singapore resident company an attractive entity for holding foreign investments. Similarly a non-resident company is not subject to Singapore income tax on foreign sourced income if it is not received in Singapore. Therefore non-resident companies are also an attractive vehicle as international holding or trading companies

Features of Singapore Company

Ø       Minimum paid-up capital of just S$1 and allows 100% foreign ownership

Ø       Minimum 1 shareholder is required and corporate shareholders are allowed, the details of shareholders appear on public register, however nominee shareholders are allowed. Nationality of the Shareholder does not matter.

Ø       Minimum of one director and need at least one Singapore resident director. Corporate directors are not permitted. The details of directors appear on public register

Ø       Details of beneficial owners are publicly accessible

Ø       A natural person must be appointed as company secretary who can also act as a director, but in the case of sole director the same person cannot serve as company secretary and director.

Ø       Must file annual accounts

Ø       For companies with an annual turnover exceeding S$ 5 million, annual audited accounts are required to be filed with the Registrar. The accounts are required to be audited by Singapore auditors. For companies with an annual turnover less than S$ 5 million, annual accounts need to be filed but there is no auditing requirement.

Ø       Must conduct Annual General meeting

Ø       A registered office in Singapore is required
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For most online business owners, having excellent pay per click marketing campaign is easier to achieve through the services of trusted and reliable PPC providers or PPC search engines. Indeed, there is a big chunk of truth to that. PPC search engine giants like Overture and MSN are really good choices for a PPC campaign. Through the years, PPC search engines have made reputable names for themselves. They have made a large following from small online businesses and wide base of big clients as well. They have worked wonders and miracles to help online businesses gain unsurmountable exposure and help generate more sales for hundreds of products and services.

Just to be different and daring, as what businesses should be, I wonder why don’t online business owners look for other options for their PPC campaigns? By other options, I do not mean that they drop the services of the PPC provider they have come to trust. What I mean by other options is resorting to other modes of availing PPC services. The usual routine would be to go directly to a PPC search engine and avail of its services. I wonder if it is possible to have a middleman to bridge the business and the PPC search engine, like a real estate broker or a car sales representative. The idea may be unpalatable at first glance for it immediately connotes added cost. But if one has an open, unbiased mind about it, there could be added benefits as well. After all, wanting to have more benefits inevitably requires additional inputs or cost. What really matters is that the benefits are greater than the cost.

I brought up this thought of mine to a colleague who knows a lot about the PPC industry. I was relieved when he told me that my idea of a middleman is not at all far-fetched. He actually said that a lot of online businesses are already hiring services of individuals to manage and run their PPC campaigns, affiliate programs, and other online sales and advertising strategies. He also informed me that aside from hiring a middleman, others even hire consultants for their online businesses. He even said that he himself is contemplating on having a consultant for his online apparel business. When I asked him if he already has a name in mind, he was quick to answer Mark J. Welch. Read the rest of this entry »

Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors) and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal).

Strategic planning is the formal consideration of an organization’s future course. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:

“What do we do?” “For whom do we do it?” “How do we excel?”

In business strategic planning, the third question is better phrased “How can we beat or avoid competition?”. (Bradford and Duncan, page 1).

In many organizations, this is viewed as a process for determining where an organization is going over the next year or more -typically 3 to 5 years, although some extend their vision to 20 years.

In order to determine where it is going, the organization needs to know exactly where it stands, then determine where it wants to go and how it will get there. The resulting document is called the “strategic plan.”

It is also true that strategic planning may be a tool for effectively plotting the direction of a company; however, strategic planning itself cannot foretell exactly how the market will evolve and what issues will surface in the coming days in order to plan your organizational strategy. Therefore, strategic innovation and tinkering with the ‘strategic plan’ have to be a cornerstone strategy for an organization to survive the turbulent business climate.

There are many approaches to strategic planning but typically a three-step process may be used:

Situation – evaluate the current situation and how it came about. Target – define goals and/or objectives (sometimes called ideal state) Path – map a possible route to the goals/objectives

One alternative approach is called Draw-See-Think

Draw – what is the ideal image or the desired end state? See – what is today’s situation? What is the gap from ideal and why? Think – what specific actions must be taken to close the gap between today’s situation and the ideal state? Plan – what resources are required to execute the activities?

An alternative to the Draw-See-Think approach is called See-Think-Draw

See – what is today’s situation? Think – define goals/objectives Draw – map a route to achieving the goals/objectives

In other terms strategic planning can be as follows:

Vision – Define the vision and set a mission statement with hierarchy of goals and objectives SWOT – Analysis conducted according to the desired goals Formulate – Formulate actions and processes to be taken to attain these goals Implement – Implementation of the agreed upon processes Control – Monitor and get feedback from implemented processes to fully control the operation

Best of luck with your efforts to turn vision into ideas that will be consolidated into your organisations processes to reach the goals set out by your management.