Commentary

Do you plan your career by design or luck? After more than twenty years in the headhunting industry in Singapore and Asia Pacific, and having read thousands of resumes and interviewed thousands of candidates, I noticed three career trends.

The topic of COE is unequivocally synonymous with the topic of money. It is far from uncommon overhearing drivers, as well as aspiring would-be drivers, complaining on the duress to pay for the right to drive.

Marketers, be in the know: E-mail marketing is anticipated to increase by 4.34 billion on 2016. Do not misconstrue that the current social media phenomenon trumps the email marketing approach.

The often said joke amongst loyalty professionals in Singapore is that every Singaporean resident has 10 credit/bank cards in their wallet/purse – one for every bank in Singapore.

There’s this interesting product you’d like to find out more about. You visit their website, but the images of the product don’t display. It could be your Internet connection; you hit ‘refresh’ a couple of times, but the images still don’t render.

Video has and continues to drive telecoms traffic growth, but the kind of video traffic that is going to strain the network in the future isn’t what you might think…

All you have to do is look around Singapore to know that brands are powerful. In fact, most Singaporeans are so loyal to certain brands that they stick with them for life. If brand-name products can evoke that kind of loyalty, why can’t people? Well, they can!

“There may be comfort in numbers” © Roger La Salle

Every full-time freelancers in Singapore will hear surprising things said about them at some point of their career. They find it surprising because their working life is not what others perceived it to be. If you have thought about becoming a freelancer, you cannot assume what you know are facts.

The support of arts and culture in Singapore is growing significantly. More companies are giving to the arts, and they are also, in general, giving larger amounts.

Yet again, the dark clouds of recession loom over the global economy. Growth forecasts are being cautiously rolled back and businesses worldwide are holding their collective breath in wary anticipation of another difficult economic period.

There is much doom and gloom about the imperilled state of the world—the GFC, troubles in Europe, a decline in economic growth, jobs at risk. You could be forgiven for thinking the end of the world is just around the corner.

It is heartening to see many companies in Singapore investing substantially in customer insights. But the returns on these investments differ substantially from one company to another. The key reason for this difference lie in the degree of intelligence the customer insights bring to companies. Better ‘quality’ customer insights bring about a higher degree of intelligence and hence offer a greater competitive advantage to companies. For example, insights arising from analyses that focus on customer modeling (allowing for predicting customer behavior) bring about far greater competitive advantage than those using descriptive statistics.

"If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living." - Gail Sheehy

You have the power to create the ideal environment for communication, one that creates a positive experience for you and others around you.

It has already been established that mobile internet is the fastest growing and most powerful medium for reaching customers. Singapore is a great example of how mobile has changed the Marketing landscape. You may not be able to reach an average Singaporean at their workplace or even at home, but you can most certainly reach them on their mobile phone.