7 Reasons Why Register Company in Singapore

7th February 2018by acefinancial acefinancial No Comments

7 Reasons Why Register Company in Singapore

Over the years Singapore has provided a proper and conducive environment for doing business both for international and local businesses. The business laws are in place, there is adequate workforce, and the market is ever growing. Opening business in Singapore is a plus with high chances of success.

We are addressing reasons why register business Singapore is the best choice you can ever make.

Here are seven reasons:

Number one Place for Doing Business

Prominent reports like that of the World Bank group classify Singapore at the top two under the category of “Ease of doing business.” This means that the business environment of Singapore is the most conducive.

Tax rates are Affordable

The tax rates affect business. In Singapore, these taxes are comparably low. The corporate tax is at 17%, and the Goods and Service tax is at 7%. These taxes rank Singapore among the top 10 in the world by the economic forum report. Shareholders are not taxed after the tax is deducted at the corporate level.

Availability of Telecom and Internet Facilities

The Internet is a necessity for companies that require international transactions. Not just that. It is also paramount that communication is in place for access to material, to keep in touch with clients and so on.
Singapore provides very high speeds of the internet all over the country with telecommunication infrastructure. There are internet companies that have launched up to 2Gbits high-speed fiber internet connections.

Skilled Labor

For any profitable venture, you need to get a workforce that is efficient, skilled and affordable. Singapore is the right place to get that. More than 54% of Singapore workers are highly skilled based on research by World Economic Forum. In the entire Asian continent, the workforce in Singapore stands out as the best and most motivated.

Affordable and wide transportation network

Singapore has a great internal road network that allows movement of vehicles to the interior parts of the country. Besides, Singapore has the best airport in the world and the busiest seaport. The airport has direct connections to the developed countries and developing economies like America, Europe, the Middle East, China, India and Southeast Asia.

Flexible Immigration Policies

If you are planning to move permanently to the place you want to build your business, then Singapore is the best option. For value adding individuals, the government has made a provision for work permits that can be accessed easily. In addition to that, the procedure of processing Permanent Residence (PR) is really flexible.

Incorporation Process is Easy

To successfully register business Singapore, you must contact a professional firm from Singapore to register the company. Foreigners cannot directly register their companies. This can take three days in three steps according to the provisions of the law, and this will cost you less if you compare this with other countries.

Now you know Singapore is very open for business opportunity and not just that it is a vibrant economy that is ever evolving at the same time.

Jobs are changing. But two skills will always be in demand

19th October 2017by acefinancial acefinancial No Comments

Jobs are changing. But two skills will always be in demand

Fifty years ago, work in developed countries was full of relative certainties. Aside from the periodic recession, most nations were at or near full employment.

Rapid productivity growth was underpinning an improvement in living standards.

A university degree was a meal ticket to a high-paying, secure job as a professional. And for workers with a high school diploma, jobs on manufacturing assembly lines offered a pathway to middle-class prosperity and upward mobility.

Now we live in a much less certain world.

In many countries, recovery from the latest recession has been gradual and protracted, with unemployment and underemployment coming down only slowly.

Global productivity growth has decelerated sharply, as has pay growth. Cutbacks of private sector benefits and the government safety net are forcing workers to bear more risk than they did in the past.

And while their economic impact has thus far been muted, automation and artificial intelligence raise the spectre of mass displacement of workers.

Performing under pressure

So what are workers to do?

We often hear that workers will have to plan ahead, engage in continuous retraining to upskill themselves, and expect to radically pivot multiple times throughout their careers.

That’s a lot of pressure to lay on a person.

It’s hard to know what types of skills are most important to learn, or how to best position yourself to succeed in the face of changing economic times.

Your skills are dynamic

Today the World Economic Forum releases its 2017 Human Capital Report, which evaluates countries on how well they’ve equipped their workforce with the knowledge and skills needed to create value – and be successful – in the global economic system.

At LinkedIn, our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. That’s why we’ve partnered with the World Economic Forum to contribute to the creation of the 2017 Human Capital Report.

One of the unique advantages of LinkedIn data is the way it can be used to analyse the labour market in an unprecedentedly granular way. We can break down human capital into its most fundamental and critical component unit: skills.

We track the supply and demand of 50,000 distinct skills as provided by our members. This allows us to identify geographically where there is a shortage of particular skills, or where they are in surplus. It allows us to identify which skills are emerging, or growing rapidly, or are persistent over time, or shrinking in popularity.

We can identify the “skills genome” – the unique skills profile – of a city, a job function, or an industry. These types of insights make it possible to advise on which skills are needed when the economy next changes gears.

Our research in this year’s Human Capital Report explores the skills genomes of different university degrees over time.

There are certain skills commonly held by all types of college majors; there are other specialty skills that are unique to specific fields.

So, which skills should you learn?

We found that, across diverse fields of study, there are certain core, cross-functional skills that underpin a career.

These include 1) interpersonal skills, like leadership and customer service, and 2) basic technology skills, like knowing how to use word processing software and manipulate spreadsheets.

Having a strong base in these cross-functional skills is important across industries and job titles – and also gives people the capacity to pivot careers when needed.

Retraining becomes a lot easier when you need to learn just one or two new things, rather than an entire new field of knowledge.

While cross-functional skills are versatile and likely to stand the test of time, they aren’t necessarily the ones that will launch you into a lucrative career off the bat.

Indeed, our data shows that younger generations tend to study more specialized fields than their predecessors, and today’s travel and tourism or international studies majors have more niche and specialized knowledge bases than, say, the history major of yore.

This broader economic trend towards specialization reflects a widening economy that demands more specific skills from the workforce as it grows.

Skills for life

What is clear is that interpersonal skills are unlikely to be rendered obsolete by technological innovation or economic disruptions. In a changing workforce, it’s having a strong foundation in these versatile, cross-functional skills that allows people to successfully pivot.

Learning the latest or hottest technology skills shouldn’t come at the expense of investing in the basic, core skills that people need to be successful in the workforce.

Helping governments to better understand, analyse and approach the development of their human capital in this way is our ultimate hope.

For more research into the skills held by today’s global workforce, check out the full 2017 Human Capital Report here.

Source: Written by Guy Berger, Economist, LinkedIn

How office work can kill you

19th October 2017by acefinancial acefinancial No Comments

How office work can kill you

Every hour spent sitting increases the risk of dying by heart disease as much as 18 per cent… even if you exercise regularly.

Computers and smartphones have revolutionised the way we work, but our health is suffering in insidious new ways. The tip from ergonomics experts is: don’t just sit there, do something.

If you are reading this article on a screen, chances are that your spine is slouched and your neck is protruding forward. If it’s a mobile device you are using, your turtle-neck posture will be even more pronounced.

When the Australian Standard for screen-based workstations was written in 1990, a workstation meant a desktop computer on a permanent desk.

Today, with the advent of mobile devices and trends such as hot-desking and BYO devices, a workstation could be anything from a laptop to a tablet or smartphone perched on your lap, palm or pillow, on a bus or in bed. This is leading to increasingly contorted postures as we pretzel our bodies to peer into the screens of our gadgets.

While the Australian Standards haven’t been updated for more than 25 years, the list of ailments afflicting the bodies of sedentary, screen-based workers has. Physiotherapists and ergonomists are now treating new conditions such as tech neck and email apnoea, as well as back pain and wrist pain. The scary thing is that the more time we spend online, our bodies go off-line, and vital signs of life diminish – we move less, blink less, even breathe less.

Sedentary death

The risk of sedentary death syndrome (SeDS) has never been higher, with 75 per cent of a typical workday spent seated, according to recent estimates. The term SeDS was coined by medical researchers to wake us up to the fact that excessive sitting is a way to slowly kill yourself.

“When we focus intensely … we tend to inhale and hold our breath.” Tania Clifton-Smith

Every extra hour spent sitting increases the risk of dying by heart disease as much as 18 per cent, according to a 2010 study of 8000 people by the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute. That’s true even if you exercise regularly.

Email apnoea

Auckland-based physiotherapist Tania Clifton-Smith, who specialises in breathing pattern disorders, says she sees many people affected by email apnoea. The term is a play on the serious condition sleep apnoea, where sufferers stop breathing for very short periods, or shallow breathe while they sleep.“When we focus intensely, such as when texting, typing hard or answering emails under pressure, we tend to inhale and hold our breath,” says Clifton-Smith.

This unconscious reaction occurs many times a day, and if you add in stress and a slumped posture, a typical day’s work can become a high-risk activity for low-grade hyperventilation.

“People are usually unaware that they are holding their breath and think their breathing is fine,” says Clifton-Smith. “They can’t believe that something so simple could be causing such severe symptoms as insomnia, a foggy brain or anxiety.”

The Nijmegen Questionnaire (PDF), which Clifton-Smith uses to assess dysfunctional breathing patterns, also lists symptoms such as tight neck and shoulder muscles, dizziness, poor digestion, and heart palpitations.

Tech neck

A study by New York spinal surgeon Kenneth Hanrsraj demonstrated that when you lower your head to look at a screen, it creates much more pressure on your neck than you might imagine.When your head rests in a neutral position on your shoulders, the pressure it creates is equal to the weight of the person’s head – which is usually about 5kg.

A 15-degree forward tilt of the head increases the weight on the cervical spine to 12.2kg, Hanrsraj estimates. At 30 degrees, the weight increases to 18kg, and at 60 degrees, 27.2kg. That’s like carrying a suitcase around on your neck for several hours each day. The result? Tech neck.

Ergonomist Sue Chennell, director of Sydney- based Shared Safety and Risk, says smartphones are the main culprits causing tech neck.

“People spend about three hours a day on their smartphone, often doing activities that require quite a lot of concentration, such as booking flights or responding to email,” says Chennell.

Symptoms of tech neck include chronic pain in the neck, shoulders, upper back and upper arms, disc injury and associated nerve pain.

Pain distracts the brain

Employers should be interested in addressing discomfort well before it becomes an injury, says Kirsty Angerer, ergonomist with Humanscale, who has worked with companies in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and now Australia. Not only does early intervention reduce treatment costs, it’s also important for productivity, says Angerer, as “pain distracts the brain”.Workers who experienced a pain condition in the preceding fortnight lost an average of 4.6 productive hours a week, found a survey of 28,902 American adults, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003.

“Standing is good, but stepping is better.” Genevieve Healy, University of Queensland

Digital natives who have grown up with a computer mouse in their hands are emerging as a significant client group complaining of discomfort, according to Angerer.

“I will often go to do an assessment expecting to see someone aged over 40, but the person can be in their 20s and spending 12 to 18 hours a day working on screens,” she says.

The 20:8:2 cycle

Professor Alan Hedge, from the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University, has been studying workplace ergonomics for decades and its impact on health, comfort and productivity.He has recently distilled research findings into a 30-minute formula designed to keep our joints, muscles and metabolism healthy: 20 minutes sitting, eight minutes standing and two minutes of movement – the 20:8:2 cycle.

However, is it possible to tear ourselves away from our digital screens and concentrated stream of thought this often?

The workplace trial, Stand Up Victoria, which involved 231 workers, was designed to test the feasibility of the “stand up, sit less, move more” message. Its results, published in 2016, showed that you can reduce daily sitting by one hour and 40 minutes, through a best-practice intervention involving individual health coaching, social and leadershipsupport, as well as sit-stand desks.

The trial also reported significant reductions in workers’ blood glucose levels. Changes were small but the group was already healthy. “In people who are overweight or have diabetes, even greater health gains can be achieved,” says associate professor Genevieve Healy, lead study author from the School of Public Health, University of Queensland.

Is standing sufficient, or do you need to move?

“Standing is good, but stepping is better,” says Healy. Some biomarkers, such as blood glucose and blood fats, respond to simply getting up; other biomarkers, such as body weight and body fat, are likely to respond more to movement which involves greater energy expenditure.The Stand Up Victoria study demonstrated that achieving a simple behaviour change – to stand up more – requires a concerted effort.

Until the design of our work tools makes regular movement natural and easy, we’ll need to raise our body intelligence in order to avoid the high toll of sitting all day at a screen.

“Listen to your body,” says Healy. “It’ll tell you when you need to move.”

Check your vital signs at work

Move

Move every 30 minutes by standing up, taking a short walk, doing some stretches, or at least changing your posture.
Increase how much you stand by standing up to take phone calls, standing in meetings or standing at the back of the room during long presentations.
Increase stepping by having walking meetings, taking the stairs or getting on and off public transport one stop early.

Breathe

Practise breath awareness throughout the day.
Focus on the exhale first, which helps to relax your muscles. Lengthen the exhalation for a relaxation effect.
Breathe in and out of your nose.
Breathe into the lower chest and abdomen, rather than the upper chest.

Source: Physiotherapist Tania Clifton-Smith, www.breathingworks.com

See

Don’t forget to blink to keep your eyes moist!
Take a regular eye break by looking into the horizon – this relieves the strain on the ciliary muscles involved in close vision.
Adjust lighting to reduce glare on your screen.
If you are aged over 40 and wear glasses, get a special prescription for computer use, otherwise you’ll need to tilt your head back.
Get a regular eye check – poor vision can contribute to neck and shoulder problems.

Source: Jennifer Long Visual Ergonomics, www.visualergonomics.com.au

Sit-stand desks

Select a design with a platform large enough for a mouse and documents.
Ensure correct set-up from the start.
Start small, and limit your standing time to no more than 20 minutes at a time. Excessive standing can exacerbate joint problems and lead to pooling of the blood around your ankles.
Work out your prompts for standing, such as a time of day or type of task.
Wear comfortable shoes.

Source: By THEA O’CONNOR (https://www.intheblack.com/articles/2017/10/01/office-work-can-kill)

Singapore online grocery to triple by 2020

19th September 2017by acefinancial acefinancial No Comments

IGD forecasts that Singapore’s online grocery market will triple in growth over the next three years, from US$91 million to US$350 million by 2020.

At the end of 2016, IGD valued online grocery to have a 1.2% share of the Singaporean grocery market. Reflecting rapidly changing shopper habits in the region and increased investment in the online channel from retailers and suppliers, IGD is further forecasting online to take a 4% share of Singapore’s grocery market by 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 39%.

“Shopper habits are changing rapidly in South East Asia and in a compact city such as Singapore, with its relatively affluent population, big expat community and high penetration of internet and smartphone usage, there are huge opportunities for online grocery to meet these evolving needs. To make the most of this opportunity, retailers and suppliers must work together to ensure they really understand online shoppers and can tailor experiences and products to suit their personal preferences,” said Nick Miles, IGD’s Head of Asia-Pacific.

He noted that retailers are looking to improve the overall online experience, by getting the basics of search functions, favorites, images and information right for shoppers. At the same time, they’ll be aiming to make delivery options as convenient as possible, whether that’s through shorter timespan delivery slots or greater choice of click and collect points throughout the region.

According to IGD 80% of shoppers cite convenience as their number-one reason for shopping online. He expects Singaporean shoppers to have very similar preference when heading online for their groceries.

“We also expect online grocery retailers in the region to encourage shopper loyalty through personalized offers and products, plus subscription models and delivery saver passes. On top of that, shoppers in the region are increasingly connected via mobile, so ensuring a seamless shopping experience no matter what device they are using will be critical. Coupled with an increased focus on using innovations such as voice-activated technology, virtual reality and robotics, we predict huge opportunities for those retailers and suppliers who really invest in making the online grocery channel work for them in Singapore,” he added.

Sourced: Published by Questex Asia on 28 Aug 2017

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