Partnering Google, internet provider MyRepublic takes battle with telcos to enterprise sector

Upstart internet service provider MyRepublic has been on a crusade to end the dominance of Singapore’s incumbent telcos — SingTel, StarHub, and M1.

While battling mainly in the consumer space, the company has today announced a serious foray to win the hearts and minds of the country’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which make up about 50 percent of Singapore’s GDP.

It has rolled out three enterprise plans catering to businesses, priced at SGD186 (USD146), SGD499 (USD391), and SGD999 (USD783) per month before the seven percent goods and services tax. The contracts carry a two-year commitment.

The download and upload speed of 100Mbps is roughly equivalent to SingNet’s top-tier eVolve Fibre Broadband plan, tagged at SGD238. StarHub’s 12Mbps business fiber broadband costs SGD209 monthly.

MyRepublic has also teamed with Google Apps, Mako Networks, and Singapore-based OSINet to bundle additional services into its business products.

Through Google Apps, SMEs can create their own web domains and company email addresses, as well as use tools like Gmail, Calender, Hangouts, Docs, and Drive. Mako Networks enables business owners to monitor and restrict office internet usage to prevent “cyber-slacking”.

Finally, OSINet would grant businesses the ability to replicate features of a large IT department without the costs of hosting their own web server infrastructure.

Every user will get a private System Integrator through the MyRepublic Partner Program. These are essentially part-timers who are engaged and trained to sell the company’s products to the community. They are now also equipped to set up the company’s internet service and cloud offerings for customers.

The new plans are in part a response to customer demand: For a while, the company has been receiving requests from consumers for a business product. And until recently, it has been offering its consumer plans to SMEs, chalking up 300 sign-ups.

Despite being a young company with a smaller footprint compared to its rivals, MyRepublic has managed to keep its prices competitive through several means.

It’s all in the cloud

First, it holds no servers in its office. Everything is hosted on the cloud, including its entire billing and CRM systems. Typically, software required for a telco to operate would cost about SGD300k to SGD500k to implement, says KC Lai, co-founder of MyRepublic. But it has been able to bring costs down to SGD 80k with a monthly running cost of about SGD 2k.

Its Partner Program, which functions in a similar manner to the commission-based insurance industry, keeps upfront costs low by paying partners only upon customer acquisition. About 22 percent of its sales are generated through this channel.