There are over 300 professional secretarial firms and individuals in Singapore providing professional secretarial services for the registration of businesses as well as the services required. Singapore’s professional business environment may benefit from these companies. Nevertheless, this may seem to be a tough job for overseas businesses without any expertise in corporate law or familiarity with local governance techniques as there are substantial regulations and regulatory requirements involved in starting a business, managing and reporting as well as unique Singaporean rules which may differ from foreign tradition. Subsequently, the research results may help to better understand the Singapore business environment and its services provided such as the implementation of complete regulatory permission, processes, frameworks or governance requirements as indicated by relevant authorities.
The importance of corporate secretarial work should not be underestimated. Company secretaries play a crucial governance role within any Singaporean enterprise, functioning as “adherents to good governance principles”. Similarly concluded that the corporate secretary is the “bedrock” of corporate governance. The creation and maintenance of corporate as well as regulatory compliance, by designing, implementing and sustaining corporate governance procedures that safeguard the reputation and strategic practices of a company, are part of the secretarial duties and responsibilities. Furthermore, discipline may assist in achieving long-term worth, confidence and the level of shareholders as well as stakeholders. Based on the above, it is essential for Singapore stock market entrants without a perfect understanding of business governance legislation to ask for technical advice in business governance.
The Importance of Corporate Secretarial Firms in Singapore
It is difficult to imagine the existence of firms which do not require any secretarial and administrative services. In Singapore, regulations stipulate that all companies must appoint a suitably qualified person to be their company secretary to ensure that they comply with the Companies Act and other government requirements. The role and duties of the company secretary are numerous and are by no means limited to being merely administrative and secretarial. The requirement of the company secretary is evidence of itself the significance placed upon the role. The corporate secretarial firm provides not only accounting, auditing, taxation and consulting services that client companies require but also secretarial and administrative services which must be satisfied regardless of the business nature and size; it is in this way that the corporate secretarial firms in Singapore have made a mark for themselves in the Singapore accounting industry, so to speak.
Corporate secretarial firms in Singapore have been informally thought of as the unsung heroes of the administrative systems of companies. It is indeed no small feat to expect an in-house company secretary to understand all the compliance and filing requirements and to be capable of meeting them within the strict deadlines. Therefore, the importance of a corporate secretarial firm has been widely appreciated as companies turn to them as a cost-effective, accessible form of professional help. How have the firms managed to capture and dominate this very niche field? Are they the power players that this thesis aims to explore? This section shall shine the spotlight on the corporate secretarial firms before addressing the research problem, questions, and contribution they made to the thesis. Top corporate secretarial firms in Singapore provide an array of services to assist companies in meeting their corporate governance obligations and legal requirements.
Most corporate secretarial firms in Singapore realize this, which explains why their respective managements have been pursuing their fair share of strategies with a view to positioning their organizations for the future. Thanks perhaps also to the city-state’s pro-business image and edifice, some of them have even succeeded in taking their businesses regional, an outcome not all may have anticipated upon starting their respective journeys. Compliance solutions can be hard to communicate and even harder to differentiate because, in essence, all providers need to complete similar tasks for their customers as required by statutory legislation and regulation. Also, different verticals may have different regulatory requirements fueling the need for specialized, vertical-specific solutions. To be a leading technology solution provider to a number of industries allows CS solution providers to use the specificity of the requirements to develop more domain expertise and also provides a more tried and tested solutions.
With Singapore’s status as Asia’s de facto headquarters and a key foreign direct investment destination, corporate secretarial firms in Singapore have generally been doing brisk business. As the city-state seeks to entrench its position as the region’s business power center, more companies should become interested in what the republic has to offer them. This would translate into even more business for the service providers currently supporting corporations here — corporations with present or future interests in the republic. Smaller corporate secretarial firms’ plans to invest in the country must therefore continue apace. However, investors are spoiled for choice in Singapore: Secretaries today want to display their worth not just through fees but also through their regional expertise since many companies have regional corporate aspirations.