More SMEs to get help with business growth under extended EnterpriseSG programme

SINGAPORE – A scheme that has been helping small businesses improve their operations has been extended for another year.

Partners for Business Growth (PBG), which was set up by Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG), began in a pilot form in October 2020 and has gone from strength to strength.

The scheme involves experts from the 10 SME Centres across the island spending about a year with select small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), helping them develop growth strategies and fine-tune their operations.

It was due to end in May 2024 but will now run until May 2025, said Ms Low Yen Ling, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry as well as Culture, Community and Youth, who was speaking at the SME Centre Conference 2024 at Sands Expo and Convention Centre on July 31.

Happy Fish Swim School, which teaches swimming in Singapore and Malaysia, is one firm that swears by the scheme.

It took part in the PBG programme in 2023 and developed an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that helps answer customer queries, saving the firm about 10 hours of manual labour a week.

The school can now handle inquiries more efficiently with the chatbot while customers get instant responses.

It is also working on using AI to generate performance graphs and charts with details such as swim coaches’ student-retention rate and the conversion rate of students who attend trial lessons.

“We spend about two to three hours a week generating these graphs manually, so we are aiming for this to be done instantly with AI in the future,” said Mr Tan Jian Yong, founder and chief executive of Happy Fish Swim School.

The PBG programme has already helped around 250 local firms and is expected to support an additional 70 companies that have a consistent track record of revenue growth, scalable business models and business transformation ambitions. 

Business development advisers from SME Centres work alongside the firms to provide customised support and advisory services.

These include one-on-one diagnosis, developing detailed business plans in areas such as digital transformation, talent development and internationalisation, co-developing road maps with objectives, business coaching, as well as implementing growth initiatives.

EnterpriseSG said the 250 or so SMEs that have participated in the PBG scheme have seen increases in their revenue and growth in their business networks, developed new capabilities and expanded to new markets.

Bio-innovation company UAL Biotech, which participated in the PBG programme in 2022, developed an AI integrated digital platform.

The firm, which was started in 2003, manufactures organic bio-solutions that eliminate harmful chemicals and antibiotics in food sources and supports the agriculture and aquaculture as well as animal feed and farm sectors.

Its AI integrated digital platform will allow the company to automatically segment its clients based on geographical proximity, a task now done manually. The platform also gives the company access to a broader base of clients from new target markets such as the Philippines, India, Indonesia and the United States, where UAL Biotech registered its bio-innovation solutions.

Ms Low also said at the July 31 event that generative AI (GenAI) solutions for marketing and sales as well as customer engagement will now be supported via the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG). Such solutions were tested in the GenAI Sandbox for SMEs programme, which was launched in February by EnterpriseSG and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and has supported more than 150 companies over three months.

“From today, solution vendors can apply to become an IMDA pre-approved vendor and list their GenAI solutions on PSG,” said Ms Low.

By the year end, SMEs can adopt these solutions with up to 50 per cent grant support, she added.