I started a project management business in Singapore that catered to large scale, mostly in distress, IT projects... IT refreshes, server consolidation, managed services support, and call center setup. I also managed service operations in Asia on a temporary basis for a year for a large MNC. Here are a few of the things I observed while I did this.
- Except for a handful of people, a large IT support call center company shut down in Singapore and moved its entire operations to Manila. I was involved in trying to sort out a huge support mess for the client I was working for.
- Another large managed services company shut down its call center in Singapore and moved it to Kuala Lumpur. I was contracted to get it up and running.
- A large global bank moved its in house call center services in Singapore and Manila to an outsourced call center managed in Manila. At the same time, they moved a large number of back office functions to Manila, and they replaced all local bank onsite support staff with managed services support staff. I ran the project to make this happen. By the time it was all said and done most of the country IT managers had been eliminated in favor of a much smaller regional management staff.
- A large MNC outsourced all onsite support services. All local staff were replaced with cheaper support services staff. The IT managers for each country saw their jobs turn from technical to reporting, and eventually, their jobs were eliminated in favor of regional vendor management.
- A large MNC moved all of its tier 2 support services from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Some 50 techs and system architects were given the choice to move to KL at reduced pay or move on. The VP overseeing the operations wasn't included in the move, and now there are just a handful of IT people in Singapore, mostly reporting to the global PMO.
- This same MNC had its vendor management operations in KL for things like managed services, printer support, phone support, and global cloud management. The staff was shrunk by more than half as global support teams took over management responsibilities. Of course, this meant that the people in KL were on the phone at 8 at night, while the Americans were on the phone at 7 in the morning, but so what. The manager is now part of a global vendor management team.
- Here is the biggest difference I observed between the time I arrived in 2004 and the time I left in 2013. When I got to Singapore, the MNC's may have been global but IT operations were regional. When I left most every MNC I was aware of had consolidated its IT operations into a global PMO based in Europe or the USA. The only exception that I am aware of is Standard Chartered which moved its global operations to Singapore.
- For example, the first time I did a PC refresh for a MNC, I reported to the regional IT VP and all of the decisions concerning servers, asset management, software management, security, etc, were made at the regional level. The second time I did a refresh and managed services rescue for this company, the entire project was designed and managed out of a European PMO.
This move towards global PMO's essentially destroyed my business model. Selection of vendors and project managers was now being done in Europe or the USA. The MNC's wanted vendors with global scope and a single contract (not that I ever saw this work out very well but that's what they wanted). Gone was the regional responsibility and relationship.
I also watched the erosion in Asia of high level IT staff and associated managers within banks and MNC's, as the design and build functions were moved to the global PMO and the implementation and service operations were outsourced to the low bidder, usually on a global contract.
Thus, I would say to you: While I am sure there are probably senior level positions still available, this trend towards globalized and centralized ICT management is only going to accelerate as IT services become more and more of a commodity. Why keep your own servers when you can virtualize and do it all in the cloud? Why keep tech teams in each country when remote access is the norm? Why keep senior IT management in Asia or South America when the whole thing is being run out of Europe or the USA?
I judge that if you had a desire to work in Singapore, you'd need to be connected to the global PMO for operations. And yes, I've seen executives rotated in and out to "understand" what the folks out in the hinterlands are doing... and that's South America as well. I just don't think you'll have much success rolling into Singapore and getting a job... you're going to have to do it where the management power lies.
Yes, there are still opportunities in security, or working for an IT (HP, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba) or managed services vendor, or for a project oriented company like Datacraft but the business is cut throat and the pay sucks. Because of the MNC's desire to cut costs, it has been a scramble to the bottom in terms of pay, skills, and qualifications of the people that are being hired. It used to be the goal of the MNC's I contracted into to set IT support expense at about 1 percent of revenue... now the goal is one half of one percent.
You're not going to get much traction in local companies, either. You didn't do national service with all your buddies, you don't have a network, you don't speak Chinese, and face it, you're Ang Mo... the white outsider.