In today’s ever-evolving business landscape, many companies have turned to digitalisation to improve their business processes and operations. Paper documents are gradually being converted into digital formats, accounting software is being supported by the cloud, and manual processes are being automated. From cloud computing to Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital tools are aplenty in the modern era. The Singapore Government is constantly looking to push the digitalisation agenda, through the implementation of grants and initiatives that support companies looking to digitalise.

Data Source: Singapore Business Federation

However, one often cited hurdle to the digitalisation journey is cost. The idea of financial strain can make the process seem unattainable to smaller companies. A survey done by the Singapore Business Federation found the top three reasons why companies feared digitalising: The perceived cost of technology adoption, hiring experts, and resolving cybersecurity concerns.

The good news is that digitalisation doesn’t always have to come with a hefty price tag. There are ways to make your digital transformation strategy more affordable. With flexible and dynamic solutions such as SPTel’s bandwidth on demand as well as expertise in the form of Managed Services, even the budget-conscious can digitalise without breaking the bank.

Paying Only For What You Need

Firstly, managing your spending is key to ensuring cost-effective digitalisation. Businesses need to have clear visibility of their costs and usage to avoid unnecessary expenses. That’s where SPTel comes into play. Services such as our Business Broadband come with a Bandwidth Utility Dashboard that automatically tracks your usage. We are the only provider to furnish a utilisation dashboard to everyone who has signed up for any Internet service with us because we aim to be fully transparent with users and providing insights to enable better budgeting for their digital transformation. This means that users can check their usage to see if they are fully utilising their subscription, see their utilisation trends to see if there is an increasing or decreasing trend and also set thresholds to receive alerts so that pre-emptive action can be taken. This ties in well with SPTel’s Bandwidth on Demand solution.

SPTel’s flexible payment models are all about buying only what you need. Bandwidth on Demand (BoD) services allow customers to purchase additional bandwidth when needed and receive the upgrade within 2 minutes. There’s no long-term commitment, and cost is based on bandwidth or time-based usage. With the Bandwidth Utility Dashboard assisting you in your planning, you can arrange for additional bandwidth in advance if you see an upward trend as you gear up for a major online sale or even react immediately when you receive alerts, by purchasing additional bandwidth on the spot and only pay for the amount you consume. This will allow you to quickly react to changing requirements and capture the surge in incoming orders during sales periods for example without having to oversize your network.

Affordable digitalisation is all about investing wisely. You should only pay for what you need and avoid getting locked into long-term deals that might lead to overspending. Our pay-as-you-go approach not only enhances flexibility and speed, but also makes digitalisation more cost-effective and accessible for businesses of all sizes.

Managed Security Services

Another major cost factor in digitalisation is the need for technical expertise. If you’re looking to start from scratch, you’ll need access to expert opinions and cybersecurity options. By choosing a service provider that includes these services in their packages, businesses can significantly reduce costs.

SPTel’s Managed Security Services go beyond simple threat detection. We offer solutions for outsourced security monitoring, Managed DDoS Protection, and much more to protect your digital data.

Additionally, with our Integrated Operations Centre (IOC), which is supported by our world-class Security Operations Centre (SOC), SPTel helps monitor your business operations. We aspire to provide you with timely alerts and actionable insights. Furthermore, our service packages are flexible, catering to different customers’ needs and budgets. Instead of being chained to a yearly contract, you can choose to pay for cybersecurity services like DDoS attack mitigation only when you require to activate them.

We also provide the option of deploying and managing cyber security solutions virtually. The advantage of a virtual deployment is that you won’t need to change up hardware or physically install upgrades. If you upgrade to a new bandwidth plan or purchase a new Firewall from us, we can have the solution set up and deployed on your devices within hours. This eliminates the need for hardware maintenance and management, making your digitalisation journey affordable and hassle-free.

Renting Instead of Buying

The next way to make your digital transformation project affordable is to reduce your hardware footprint and physical costs. If you’re trying to set up something like a digital inventory management system, you may need to purchase hardware to support it.

This is where SPTel’s Bare Metal as a Service comes into play. Traditionally, companies attempt to set up their own servers on-site, which involves significant investment and operational costs. However, our service allows you to rent our dedicated servers for your business needs, eliminating the need to purchase and maintain on-premise infrastructure. You can also choose to start with a small deployment and scale up as your needs increase.

This cloud service brings the same low-latency benefits as on-premise servers, ensuring that your operations run smoothly and efficiently. And since it’s cloud-based, you can easily scale your service needs. As the physical servers are owned by us, you won’t need to worry about maintenance or upkeep.

Subsidies on Digital Technologies

A crucial aspect of affordable digitalisation is leveraging available grants and subsidies. Keeping an eye out for them can help you save significantly when adopting digital tools. For businesses in Singapore, there are several pre-existing grants, such as the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG), an initiative by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).

SPTel has several services that these grants can be used on, such as the Managed Firewall solution. This next generation firewall (NGFW) is subsidised by up to 50% under this grant, and is monitored by SPTel’s 24/7 integrated IOC. You can find out more about the pre-approved packages here, to save significantly.

Affordable tech solutions such as this can help save significant amounts of money, making sure your digital transformation initiatives can run smoothly. Be sure to seek out these value producing opportunities to keep your digital transformation initiatives flowing smoothly.

Embracing Digitalisation in Business

As we’ve seen, digitalisation doesn’t have to break the bank. By making strategic decisions and remaining well-informed, you can keep your upgrading process sustainable. The digital technologies that SPTel provides can help you save costs in the long run, while reaping a multitude of other benefits. With a business class digital services provider like SPTel supporting you, digitalisation is within your grasp—and it’s more affordable than you might think.