Kampong Days - Remember Singapore Weblog - Worth Reading

[neddy]

Old man is like a parent who nurtured the young child called Singapore from birth. Unfortunately the child was raised to become highly dependent, trained to follow instruction, lacked the ability for independent thought, creativity or entrepreneurial pursuit.

Sound like the current generation of Japanese.

 

[RandomNexus]

I can't speak for the rest of the Singapore companies but in the one that I was involved in the answer is "YES".. we did focus on quality.. "YES"... we did try to develop the brand.. we spent probably more than a million bucks in 2 years with the branding side of things.

When it came to quality, we spent even more ISO, TQC, Demming's methods, JIT, on line real time monitoring via robots using lasers.. whatever we thought the Japs and Koreans would be doing we put in the effort to do the same thing. After all, our products were going to the same end customers in the USA who could do side by side comparisons of quality levels and reliability.

Sadly, we just could not match our competitors. I make no excuses. We tried and we were beaten. As Singaporeans, we simply did not have the same technological depth as the competition. If ours was the only company that failed on the international stage, it would have meant that our management team was not up to scratch. However, history has revealed that none of our local counterparts succeeded either. They had all closed shop in Singapore by the mid 2000s. From this fact, the only conclusion I can draw is that Singaporeans, myself included, aren't as good as the Japs and Koreans when it comes to making quality products in the electronics industry.

Talk is easy. We had hundreds of well meaning "advisors" providing strategic advice of the sort that you are now providing. If you ask me, it's like advising the Saint Andrew's Rugby Team how they can beat the All Blacks. It's not going to happen. The genetic differences and the vast chasm between the two teams in skill levels makes beating the ABs in a game of rugby simply impossible. However, Singaporeans could easily beat them in IQ tests which goes to show you have to choose your battles in the game of life.

As for LKY's role in causing our failure I have to categorically state that he played no part in it at all. If anything, his organisations were very, very helpful and kept us going for longer than we expected with financial and technological assistance. I don't blame my lack of creativity and technical know how on LKY. In fact, I thank him for providing me with the opportunity to be part of the manufacturing world in the first place. As I mentioned earlier, I doubt if Lim Chin Siong, JBJ, Lee Siew Cho, David Marshall etc would have created the Singapore that enabled me to retire at 40.

That is good nuance to what you said.

Let me cite my experience with a Korean entrepreneur. Once he comes up with an idea or ideas, he would work non-stop to study and pursue. He would go without much sleep very day till he comes to a conclusion whether he can move forward. Once he does, he continues to plough hard work into it. His work ethic and drive are simply incredible, and I could not match him, as a matter of fact, he just told this is very common back in his hometown.

Tough competition, and its incredible hard pressures, are what make one thrive and move ahead of the others. Look at Malaysia which seeks to emulate Japan and Korea, in its drive to create an auto industry. It fails miserably pumping endless billions of dollars. All 3 countries had something in common - that is to begin with a zero base. Japan and Korea succeeded. I think it got to do with the talent base and mindset of the people in each of these countries. Malaysia, with their predominantly Mats, are merely dreamers and secondly, it is unrealistic given their lack of large population base yet they embark on this dream, now nightmare. Both Japan and Korea benefited from its early years of selling first to its own population, before developing its technology and expanding to capture the global market. The same is seen in electronics and semicon manufacturing.

However, competition and terrible pressures has its bad side. The price paid for in the social dimension of society is high. It is not to say one is right or wrong. Both sides have its pros and cons. If you move on one side, you have to accept that there is a price to pay for. Either way, one has to make a decision and move ahead. Both Korea and Japan came out of terrible wars, and its early pioneers went thru the sufferings as they went through a hard life willingly, to forge a future. They need the economic growth - they need to be fed never mind the social price to pay. Their empty stomachs demand such a course of action. It is that simple. It will be the later generations who enjoy them and will forget them and complain about the social price to pay. The same is true now for Singapore and its young generations.

If you cite the example of my Korean friend, how many folks here will emulate him and do what is necessary. We simply lack the self-reliant drive and the competitive spirit. Already, Singaporeans are already a whining lot, complaining about everything that economic growth has brought about. If you have spent time blaming LKY and its elites, there you have it. It has explained the Singapore mindset that is emerging - blaming others and not taking stock of your own responsibility.

 

[RandomNexus]

Manufacturing was great when it came to creating employment and business opportunities. Seagate, at its height employed 15,000 people over 3 shifts at its Tuas facility alone. This giant entity probably created another 50,000 jobs at subcontractor level. Even a low tech enterprise that manufactured styrofoam packaging material and shipping cartons for Seagate generated 100 jobs and made a couple of Sinkies multi millionaires.

R&D doesn't do that. Neither does the medical/pharmaceutical industry.

That is history. Yes, my friends benefited back in those days of outsourcing. Just good money!

 

[Leongsam]

Let me cite my experience with a Korean entrepreneur. Once he comes up with an idea or ideas, he would work non-stop to study and pursue. He would go without much sleep very day till he comes to a conclusion whether he can move forward. Once he does, he continues to plough hard work into it. His work ethic and drive are simply incredible, and I could not match him, as a matter of fact, he just told this is very common back in his hometown.

I suppose I have to add one more reason for our failure and that was our inability to work as hard as the Koreans. I used to get to the office at 7 am. By 6.30 pm, I was emotionally and physically drained and couldn't take anymore. Most days we were headed for Orchard Road by 8 pm, to reward ourselves with what we thought was a well earned break, to our favourite pub to listen to Tania.

I guess the Korean you know would have still been hard at work while we were getting drunk.

 

[eErotica96]

I suppose I have to add one more reason for our failure and that was our inability to work as hard as the Koreans. I used to get to the office at 7 am. By 6.30 pm, I was emotionally and physically drained and couldn't take anymore. Most days we were headed for Orchard Road by 8 pm, to reward ourselves with what we thought was a well earned break, to our favourite pub to listen to Tania.

I guess the Korean you know would have still been hard at work while we were getting drunk.

bro, maybe it's because you worked in an america mnc. in a japanese mnc, things would be very much different in your era.

 

[RandomNexus]

Old man is like a parent who nurtured the young child called Singapore from birth. Unfortunately the child was raised to become highly dependent, trained to follow instruction, lacked the ability for independent thought, creativity or entrepreneurial pursuit. SO the first 25 years was wonderful. Not anymore. He does have to take responsibility for getting the model wrong and he was told. NZ has a smaller population so why the difference?

Scro, I do not think the model is wrong or simply right. There is a price to pay to establish a law and order society. There are both sides to the picture. If you establish the eminence of law and order, you permit transparency and promotes business tremendously. The promotion of business is an important first of Singapore's economy. There is the social good as crime rates go down. Singapore has this good advantage of transparency of law in this global economic arena.

The education system here is a follow through of the traditional Chinese Mandarin system of examinations, allowing one to rise if one can succeed in scoring well. We do not have much of an alternative in its early days. The people are too poor and illiterate. We have merely 47 years of nationhood. It is in the latter part of nationhood that Singapore tries to inject more varied creativity learning in our education but that will take time. The initial growth of economy requires more workers to fit into the system. If one suggests one needs entrepreneurs, they do not come out just like that. You need a culture and system, and honestly speaking, Singapore in its early days, does not require it. We simply lack the enormous capital to sustain these entrepreneurs even if we have them. The Korean and Japanese conglomerates are backed fully by government and capital and give rise to a strong small business elite which controls much of country's wealth. Yet, we do not have them and if we do, it creates more income disparity than now.

It is nice to say we need entrepreneurs and blame the government for not doing so and creating a culture for it. Our economic growth trajectory took off from a very poor capital and resource base and till that is established, it can focus on how to develop its entrepreneurship later on and that is no easy task. Also we took our growth from service sector and MNCs which have the capital, technology and expertise. You cannot beat them simply as a sole entrepreneur without strong capital backing, and a strong base to begin with. All these MNCs have been playing the business game well and there is no way you can beat them. Try inventing an incredible phone, and when you push it in the global market, anybody can copy it. Even so, our mindset and competitive drive are not sufficient to rival those in Korea, Japan etc. Ideas, though important, are not enough as they are easily copied, and if to be patented, requires further capital and resources, and even then, so many ideas in millions have already been patented well before you start to think you have imagined an ingenious one.

As for IT, which is the emerging source of entrepreneurship in America, China and Korea, again, we are at a disadvantage as you examine the skills of our IT professionals, and we do not have the base nor scale of an industry here at all. I got a group of brilliant friends who have built an IT company from scratch, they still make money from contracts given by the local government and unable to compete globally. So much for local entrepreneurship and it is not that they are not smart.

Entrepreneurship is not so simple to develop as coming from folks with just creativity and independent thought.

 

[Leongsam]

bro, maybe it's because you worked in an america mnc. in a japanese mnc, things would be very much different in your era.

It was a local company.. owned by sinkies [I was a sharedholder] and run entirely by sinkies initially. We hired a Taiwanese technology director because the Taiwanese are pretty good at electronics manufacturing too but it didn't save us.

 

[neddy]

As for LKY's role in causing our failure I have to categorically state that he played no part in it at all. If anything, his organisations were very, very helpful and kept us going for longer than we expected with financial and technological assistance. I don't blame my lack of creativity and technical know how on LKY. In fact, I thank him for providing me with the opportunity to be part of the manufacturing world in the first place. As I mentioned earlier, I doubt if Lim Chin Siong, JBJ, Lee Siew Cho, David Marshall etc would have created the Singapore that enabled me to retire at 40.

I disagree somewhat. Japan Honda is a good example of how they succeed in making cars despite not getting Jap govt MITA help.

It will be interesting to review if Singapore lack a missing ingredient to create world-class manufacturing because the government has played such a major role that starve the non-government sector from creating this ingredient for world-class manufacturing to succeed.

Other tiger economies did not have LKY as well.


Also, will Singaporeans go that extra mile, or are they easily contented.
I have an example of the Rolex Oyster watch. We all know oyster shells look very nice.
So far, only the Japanese come out with a cutting age way to use this byproduct of nature to turn it into the luxury watch face.
There is this nameless factory outside Tokyo employing only 6 workers, using precision engineering, create this uniquely thin product for watch makers like Rolex, Omega.

This kind of stubborn pursuit of quality is what beat Singapore. Whether is it welfare, grants, R&D, government can only do so much, it is the private sector, the industry that can create depth.

 

[eErotica96]

It was a local company.. owned by sinkies [I was a sharedholder] and run entirely by sinkies. We hired a Taiwanese technology director because the Taiwanese are pretty good at electronics manufacturing too but it didn't save us.

i thought you mentioned something about america mnc earlier on. sad to hear that. no electronics company can survive long by relying on cheap labours alone.

 

[Leongsam]

I disagree somewhat. Japan Honda is a good example of how they succeed in making cars despite not getting Jap govt MITA help.

You've lost me. I don't know what point you are trying to make. My point was that LKY is not the cause of our problems. He did the opposite and created many opportunities.

 

[Leongsam]

i thought you mentioned something about america mnc earlier on. sad to hear that. no electronics company can survive long by relying on cheap labours alone.

I said I started off working for American MNCs. The discussion now is about a sinkie company that I had a share in.

Nowhere did I say we were relying on cheap labour. We started a factory in China for that. The Singapore plant had expensive labour, expensive technicians and expensive engineers and managers but we thought that if we succeeded in the high end game, we could still be profitable. We failed.

 

[krafty]

ha...most funniest joke! my friend's girlfriend who used to work in japanese mnc, told us the jap managers would pass around pornographic magazines to one another under the guise of thick files.:p

bro, maybe it's because you worked in an america mnc. in a japanese mnc, things would be very much different in your era.

 

[RandomNexus]

I suppose I have to add one more reason for our failure and that was our inability to work as hard as the Koreans. I used to get to the office at 7 am. By 6.30 pm, I was emotionally and physically drained and couldn't take anymore. Most days we were headed for Orchard Road by 8 pm, to reward ourselves with what we thought was a well earned break, to our favourite pub to listen to Tania.

I guess the Korean you know would have still been hard at work while we were getting drunk.

Yah, exactly. I think my friend is "weird". Thinking like it, I had it and admit defeat. I lost and simply cannot make it.

Another anecdote is this - when the Jap man is asked how big his child is, he will put 2 hands out, aligning them horizontally to indicate the length, instead of gesturing the vertical height .. the reason by the time he gets home, all he sees is his child sleeping .. that is supposed to be normal. What a life!

 

[eErotica96]

I said I started off working for American MNCs. The discussion now is about a sinkie company that I had a share in.

Nowhere did I say we were relying on cheap labour. We started a factory in China for that. The Singapore plant had expensive labour, expensive technicians and expensive engineers and managers but we thought that if we succeeded in the high end game, we could still be profitable. We failed.

sorry bro, i missed out a couple of your replies in between this thread. basically, your company failed on technology? had your company succeeded in innovation, it still be feasible to operate in singapore?

 

[eErotica96]

ha...most funniest joke! my friend's girlfriend who used to work in japanese mnc, told us the jap managers would pass around pornographic magazines to one another under the guise of thick files.:p

which part is funny?

 

[Leongsam]

sorry bro, i missed out a couple of your replies in between this thread. basically, your company failed on technology? had your company succeeded in innovation, it still be feasible to operate in singapore?

I doubt it and certainly not in today's environment The most innovative countries in the world all do their manufacturing in China today. There is no way Singapore could compete.

Manufacturing in Singapore will never be the economic engine of growth again. Singapore has to find something else that it can be very good at. The trouble is nobody knows what that is. The govt does not have the answer and neither does anyone else. The world's foremost economic consultants wouldn't be able to provide the magic formula for growth either.

You take 2 million Singaporean Chinese, add some Malays, some Indians and a whole bunch of 2nd rate foreigners and give them 695 sqkm and zero natural resources to work with and try to figure out how to sustain an economy to support a first world standard of living for everyone. It simply isn't possible.

 

[eErotica96]

I doubt it and certainly not in today's environment The most innovative countries in the world all do their manufacturing in China today. There is no way Singapore could compete.

Manufacturing in Singapore will never be the economic engine of growth again. Singapore has to find something else that it can be very good at. The trouble is nobody knows what that is. The govt does not have the answer and neither does anyone else. The world's foremost economic consultants wouldn't be able to provide the magic formula for growth either.

You take 2 million Singaporean Chinese, add some Malays, some Indians and a whole bunch of 2nd rate foreigners and give them 695 sqkm and zero natural resources to work with and try to figure out how to sustain an economy to support a first world standard of living for everyone. It simply isn't possible.

being a financial hub is more feasible in the long term survivor of singapore than a manufacturing hub.

 

[jubilee1919]

being a financial hub is more feasible in the long term survivor of singapore than a manufacturing hub.

Trading has always been our forte. We have always been strong in providing services to various industries.

 

[krafty]

not really, financial industry will be in a mess for the next 10 to maybe 20 years, that was one reason why i asked about blue and white collar job in my other thread...:o

http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?136457-will-you-work-as-white-or-blue-collar

being a financial hub is more feasible in the long term survivor of singapore than a manufacturing hub.

 

[krafty]

i thought that you were saying that japs are very hardworking, no...?

which part is funny?