becoming super global

snow leopard SG

there was another article about being global. although singapore is already a global city, cities all around the world (especially the third world) are becoming global as well so there's a need for us to stay ahead and become even more global - super global.

this strategy (or lack of it) ignores the law of diminishing returns which says that if you're already 90% global, becoming 91% global will consume a disproportionately greater amount of energy and resources than before.

then there is also the law of limiting factor which says that if you have three factors contributing to one outcome, the factor that is present in the least amount will limit how much outcome you have at the end. in the case of say tourism, assuming a simple model as:

tourism = function (globalness, worldwide demand, proximity to demand)

if globalness = 90%, worldwide demand = 80%, proximity to demand = 65%

then law of diminishing returns says that increasing globalness from 90% to 91% will not do any good because the limiting factor is still 65% (proximity to demand).

we were told that the tourist promotion board has been trying for years to promote singapore but to no avail. maybe someone up there has been trying to tell us something all these years but we weren't listening?

it is futile and frustrating trying to become good at something we're not gifted at. i'm not saying we totally abandon but ought give it our best effort and stretch ourselves fully. however, it shouldn't be our major preoccupation and we're better off channeling our energies into those things we're born to excel in.

if you look at any world map that is split across the pacific ocean (most maps do anyway), you'd realise that singapore is tucked right at the bottom right corner of the world. the primary sources and destinations of tourism - europe, united states, maybe japan and now china, generate tremendous traffic amongst themselves but if you were to try and trace their routes of travel you'd hardly find singapore featuring along their paths. we're simply not on the main caravan route ...

what should becoming global mean to us?

snow leopard SG

we've been so engrossed with the idea of bringing the world to our island that we've forgotten that globalness works both ways and reaching out to them is as global as bringing them in. as it is, there has been a flurry of bilateral, regional and international trade links being established with new trading partners like the middle east countries. these are good first steps in themselves but may not amount to much if at the end of the day we do not know what we want or what we can get out of them.

switzerland has often been quoted as the example to look up to but i wonder if we've been studying them correctly. switzerland is not at all a very cosmopolitan country. Zurich, the financial centre of continental europe is, compared to singapore, a small town really. the whole place is like a picturesque postcard of snowy mountains and ski resorts, a good place to spend a peaceful weekend but not at all an exciting place to live in. in fact, i once bumped into a swiss who owns several art galleries here who told me exactly just that, that switzerland is nothing but a postcard of beautiful but boring mountain sceneries.

if we were to follow the example of switzerland, then vibrancy and tourist arrivals are really not essential ingredients for economic success. they are not the only means with which to prosper.

but switzerland is the home of famous mutinationals like ABB and Nestle. this i feel is what globalness ought to be for us and we should strive to become multinationals ourselves delivering value all around the world. but we can only deliver value provided we possess the technological edge over the rest of the field.

if you look at our government linked companies, what capabilities do we possess? there's a lot of collaboration with multinationals but at the end of the day, what is the value we add to the final product compared to the value added by the multinationals? just take any large scale public project say the upcoming biometric passports. what is the value add from NEC and Gemplus? what is the value add from NCS and SNP? printing and programming have become commodity skillsets that countries like china and india can supply very cheaply. but biometric and chip technologies are as yet the intellectual strengths of the MNCs. we need to be MNCs ourselves but to do that, we need to acquire more than just commodity skillsets.

the problem is that we've been 'high class technicians' for our MNCs for so long that we've only known how to produce things they have designed or invented. we've never learnt to create things for ourselves. so when a cheaper technician comes along, the MNC just packs and goes and we're left scrambling for another MNC. as long as our strategy remains unchanged, we will always be enslaved and be at the beck and call of the MNCs.

we're not stupid. we have brilliant people but our creative energies have been wasted on low value added work that did not add to our long term competitiveness. we're beginning to develop our own research capabilities in the life sciences but if you would just look at our government linked companies, there're lots of talent waiting to be unlocked, if only we know how ...