With costs rising across the board and consumer demand stagnant or falling in many industries, it's crunch time for a growing number of businesses.

You would think that anything that keeps costs down while maintaining or even improving business processes would be welcomed with open arms.

So why aren't companies beating a path to the doors of infocomm technology (ICT) providers that claim to do just that?

It is true that businesses here have been investing steadily in ICT products and services over the past few years.

Official data released late last month revealed that revenue from Singapore's infocomm sector grew a respectable 13.8 per cent last year, passing the $50 billion mark for the first time.

Sales were projected to continue growing this year. But it appears now that a more sober assessment might be called for.

A new survey of IT (info technology) spending, albeit covering only the manufacturing industry, projects moderate growth in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) of 5.6 per cent in 2008.

This growth will be driven mainly by China, India and Thailand.

And Singapore? Well, according to this report by Manufacturing Insights, an arm of research group IDC, IT sales in Singapore's manufacturing sector will actually shrink in absolute terms in 2008.

It should get better over the next five years, though not significantly so.

On the surface, the findings are disturbing. After all, manufacturers, of all industry players, would be expected to see the advantages of infocomm technology in streamlining the industry's complex supply chain and marketing processes.

If they are holding back on ICT investments, how can we expect other businesses, and consumers themselves, to do otherwise?

Closer examination reveals a more reassuring picture. Simply put, Asian manufacturers are reacting to expectations of falling demand.

Even then, they are continuing to to increase their IT spending, even if only moderately.

More to the point, key IT investments in performance-enhancing areas like enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management are already in place.

Tech's promise is being realised here. Adoption of infocomm technology in other industries, most notably retail, naturally lag manufacturing, which is technology-centric by its very nature.

Looked at positively, this simply means huge opportunities for ICT vendors.

In Singapore, for example, the expenditure on ICT by businesses is mostly on hardware such as computers and networking equipment, and on business and commercial software that smoothen day-to-day transactions.

Not many have committed to newer offerings - solutions for a mobile work force, for example, or online strategies that open up new markets - that could help companies be more flexible, more effective, more profitable.

They need to make that leap. And ICT vendors should seize the opportunity to take their clients to the next level; in doing so, they would help not just themselves but their clients, and the economy as well.

This article was first published in The Business Times on 4 July 2008.