Another reason is the stability of labor supply. He added Intertrust Group conducted study through a human resources firm to compare the labor supply between the two markets. Although the problem of high turnover rate is shared among many enterprises in Hong Kong, the labor supply in Singapore appears to be more limited, said Shum.

"Our study shows people tend to stay and are less likely to move around," he said. "It is actually more challenging and costly for us to hire in Singapore."

Nevertheless, there are other costly investment areas for Intertrust Group. On top of its own data center, Shum noted the company also needs an external secondary site, but the cost for co-location services could be steep. It was only through achieving a substantial saving in other areas by working with its global partner Dell (www.dell.com), Intertrust Group was able to complete the deployment within budget, he added. But he was impressed with the high quality of co-location facility available locally.