Singapore firms rank cost pressures as "most challenging business priority"

Growth and increased competition were runner-ups.

The findings were revealed in Deloitte's new report titled "Fuelling the Asian growth engine – talent challenges, strategies and trends."

"Singapore is a developed and free-market economy, generally applauded for its acceleration to economic success in a few decades. Aside from the recessionary years, its real economic growth rate for the last twenty years has been at least 7%. In 2012, Singapore has been ranked as the most competitive city in Asia by the Economist Intelligence Unit, primarily due to its physical capital, financial maturity and global appeal," prefaced Deloitte.

"Fundamental to its competitiveness has been its openness to the rest of the world. However, uncertainties in Europe, sluggish growth in the United States, and a slowdown in China have been weighing down on Singapore’s economic prospects," it added.

Deloitte said that with this context, Singapore respondents rated the top three most challenging business priorities they are facing right now. The results are as follows:

• Dealing with cost pressures (88%)
• Driving business growth (84%)
• Dealing with increased competition (80%)

Deloitte added that respondents highlighted that competition has some downstream effects, such as increased focus on quality and value-add (85%), and promotion of innovation (81%).

"Rising costs and competitive pressures have exacerbated challenges on the talent management front as well. A look at Singapore’s talent cycle shows that talent retention poses a critical problem for a large majority of respondent organisations (88%), followed by talent attraction (75%). The talent attraction problem in Singapore appears to be more due the market supply: 90% of organisations reported challenges due to overall scarcity of talent," Deloitte noted further.