Commentary

Service excellence is the buzzword these days and companiesin Singapore relentlessly seek ways to raise their customer service levels, believing this to be the key to better marketplace outcomes. But is this sufficient?

If you think that professionalisation is all that is critical to the success of your family business, think again.

In 1997, a ground breaking McKinsey study exposed the "war for talent" as a strategic business challenge and a critical driver of corporate performance. Then, when the dot-com bubble burst and the economy cooled, many assumed the war for talent was over. It's not.

The influx of foreign talents into Singapore labour market has always been one of my top concerns. I believe the majority of our local PMEs (Professionals, Managers & Executives) view foreign talents as taking away their career opportunities in Singapore. Hence I jumped at the invitation for a Dialogue Session On Labour Market Testing and National Jobs Data Bank with Mr Patrick Tay, Director, NTUC Professional, Managers and Executives Alignment Unit (PME Unit).

Income inequality in Singapore is one of the highest in the developed world, which has recently raised concerns about the cost of living amongst other economic issues. While Singapore might rank as one of the most productive economies in the world on a GDP per capita basis, this doesn’t translate into happiness or perceived success for Singaporeans.

In our work life, we are all too busy striving to achieve our KPIs and do good our responsibilities. Naturally, you would expect to taste success for the hard work you paid off. In real life, it may not be just a simple case of ‘you reap what you sow’. In the journey of attaining the desired outcome, setbacks and rejections somehow inevitably attempt to block our path towards success.

 

For years now both locals and expatriates of Singapore have been sending funds into Australia to take advantage of higher interest rates paid on deposits relative to what can be earned in Singapore. Nobody can blame them for this or even be surprised given the 3.5 – 4.5% interest payable that is possible within Australia, but what else must these investors be considering when it comes to making this investment.

Some of us may have read BBC’s twitter feed early Wednesday morning on our way to work and had a shock. The news report was on yet another malicious attack by a Syrian group, but this was a domain name hijack and the victim was The New York Times. In January 2012, the Russian embassy in Singapore found their website attacked similarly by Syrian hackers.The NewsOn 27 August 2013, Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a group loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, successfully hacked into an Australian registrar’s system to alter DNS zone records of the domain addresses NYTimes.com, HuffingtonPost.co.uk and Twitter.com. Insodoing, they managed to alter WHOIS information to reflect themselves as public owners of these domain addresses, changed the nameservers to those of a Syrian Electronic Army server and re-directed genuine website visitors and tweeters to phishing sites of their choice.

It was interesting to read that Singapore Airlines (SIA) passengers can now use their mobile phones and the Internet on long-haul flights between Singapore, Newark and Los Angeles.

As the medical tourism movement grew in popularity over the past decade, Vishal Bali has had a front row seat watching the industry flourish in his role as the Group CEO of Fortis Healthcare Limited, a healthcare provider in the Asia Pacific region. From his vantage point, Bali notes, “There have been significant changes in the forces of globalisation of healthcare patients. The trend is maturing and geographies are shifting. Healthcare providers in different countries are taking strategic positions to compete for the global healthcare consumer “

Good communication will be the key to closing the salary expectation gap between candidates and employers in Singapore

In previous parts of this series, we discussed why a domain address can be your strength, your weakness, an opportunity or a threat to your business locally, regionally and globally. You understand why having a defensive and expansive portfolio of domain names is important for your business.

Singapore’s taxi’s have something new to complain about. Visa. The company have banned the payment method from all Singapore cabs. Is this just a PR stunt from Visa or a serious play to be the people’s champion?

“What movie ‘42’?” I can hear you say. Not, perhaps, the best way to start, and no doubt a phrase that would make a studio executive’s blood run cold. However, ’42' is a movie that, unless you live in the US, you won’t have seen.

There's an emerging trend for the digital detox. Some upmarket travel agencies are promoting holiday destinations on the grounds there are no phone signals or wifi, and an upscale London department store has opened a Silence Room, where people leave phones (and shoes) at the door and cut off from city and retail life.