Commentary

So you're a young Singaporean professional. Go out there. Travel. It’s the best thing you can give yourself after finishing that final report you’ve spent grueling nights typing in your office cubicle.

(Or how they can create greater value by focusing on experience rather than price.)

Mention Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and most small to medium business sized business owners in Singapore would likely dismiss it as something that only the big companies and big multinational companies need.

As the 21st century dawned on us, it unceremoniously enmeshed us into this cyber era. As the tectonic clash continues to rapidly grow in the Silicon Valley region, the evidence of this cataclysm can be felt miles away in South East Asia.

Singapore is becoming one of the world’s premier hub for quality printing presses, even our national newspaper boasts quality color printing bringing about more vibrant colors and smoother fonts.

It's no secret that the advent of social media and Internet technologies has caused a massive shift in the way that business is done around the world. While opening up vast opportunities, the plethora of options out there today makes it very easy for marketing to lose control over messages.

A good business meeting can leave you feeling energised, enthused and five years younger. A bad one can leave you wanting an immediate change of job or even career. We all complain about having too many meetings, but when they work, they generate new ideas, revenues, energy or goodwill. How can we make sure this happens? The three elements of meetings A meeting has three parts: before, during and after. There’s lots of advice given about the ‘during’ part. Time-keeping and staying on topic are crucial. So too is ensuring that verbose participants don’t drown out diffident ones. There’s also lots of advice available about the ‘after’ – such as the importance of being clear about agreed outcomes, follow-up actions and deadlines. Least attention is paid to the ‘before’ stage. But in my experience the planning stage can make or break a meeting. Define the purpose of the meeting: Meetings are so much a part of corporate life that people often hold them as a ‘default’ option. Too many meetings have vague intentions: a weekly team meeting or progress update, for example. The best meetings are action-orientated, with clear aims or desired outcomes. Limit the numbers: Generally, the greater the number of participants, the greater the risk of them losing energy. Think about whether people really need to be there, or whether they could be updated about the outcomes. Handle this diplomatically: make people feel that non-attendance liberates time in their schedule, and not that they’re being sidelined. Agendas are not just a formality: Agendas are crucial to good planning. They should be distributed in time for participants to read them, and act on them. All participants should know exactly what preparations they need to do beforehand. Set the stage: I think of this like a play or film. No matter the quality of the script and the actors, plays or films don’t really work unless they also have the right venue, set, lighting and sound. There are a range of ‘staging’ elements you need to consider.

In Singapore the acceptance of failure is close to non-existent. No matter how unrealistic zero failure may seem, failure is not an option.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore take up 99%[1] of all enterprises on this island. This is indeed an overwhelming figure, coming to think of it. They employ 7 out of every 10 workers, and contribute over 50% towards the National GDP[2].

Social media has indeed transformed itself to be the new mainstream in marketing brands and businesses mainly because of its convenience, practicality and usability. But just like any kind of business strategy, not all companies get to succeed in achieving their sales objectives via social media.

“Let’s do a sales promo ad. It will entice people to purchase more products. Yes! That sounds great! Insert a big blurb stating the discount and a huge photograph of the product. Can you send us a first draft tomorrow at 4pm?” Sounds familiar? As an agency account manager in Singapore, what would you do next? Would you go and brief your creative team exactly what the client told you and get them to do the first draft within the time line stipulated by the client? Let’s get back to this question at the end. My journey in this amazing business of ideas has taught me many a lesson. Some lessons are learned quickly. Some…take time. Like with any form of business, it is important to learn the basics. Secret to a solid structure is a good foundation. As an account management person in an agency, it is important to learn how to answer this question: What are you selling? This is the paramount question you need to ask yourself as soon as you get a client brief. What are you selling? Even though it sounds like a simple question, you need to sensitize your thinking to the soft elements of your client’s product/service. After all, in a world where physical product features become parity overnight, the soft elements do make the biggest difference. Does Adidas sell shoes? Apple sell communication devices? Coke sell cola? Are Apple products the best in the market? As consumers, the majority of us believe they are the best. For most of us, we cannot imagine our lives without our precious ipads, iphones etc. Does Apple sell only due to its product features? Or is there something else that binds all Apple products together? Something intangible that all of us as humane beings drawn to? What is this magical element? Is it the fact that Apple was the first brand to sell us a completely new style of living? Is it because Apple decided to sell us ‘fashion’ and not communication devices? Is it because of the uplifting feeling you get when you buy into the ‘Apple lifestyle’? What are you selling? It is an intrinsic branding question. A question, which every account management person needs to figure out. Be it a launch, branding ad or even a sales promotion, it is critical that you incorporate what you are ‘trying to sell’ into every piece of communication. So, next time you get a new client brief.. If it’s to sell             - shoes… you might want to ‘really’ sell ‘self-belief’.             - credit cards… you might want to sell ‘convenience’             - wireless products… you might want to sell ‘freedom’             - tourism… you might want to sell ‘exploration’ The trick is to analyse and deduce the most intrinsic humane value the product is associated with. Something I would like to call ‘Brand Humanisation’. Let’s go back to where we started this conversation. Would you do exactly what the client wanted? Well, that’s a completely different conversation. But you know where to start. No matter what the client brief is… start with: What are you trying to sell? Think about it. Even if it’s your next big interview. What are you trying to sell?

“Why my website always show up at the bottom of the search results?” “How can I make my page more search-friendly?” Have you asked yourself these questions?

Cloud computing continues to occupy the minds of CTOs of large enterprises, but to many SMB owners, it remains a puzzle as many still do not have a clear idea of its business implications, operational benefits and cost-effectiveness.

"Brands with local businesses: Learn the key methods of driving sales through Facebook and understand how fans really work to increase your revenue."

Yacht chartering in Singapore has seen an upsurge in demand in the last 4 years. This can be seen by the number of companies in the yacht charter business and the number of yachts they operate. Prior to 2008 there were only a handful of companies offering charter yachts, with as few as half a dozen yachts.

In this series of 10 short essays, I will provide ten easy rules for you to adopt to instill innovation at the core of your company in Singapore or the rest of Asia. These rules are bold and will surely contravene inherited teachings and convictions. 1. Don’t listen to customers; observe them Unlike what we are taught in Marketing 101 MBA classes, customers rarely know what they want. The gap between needs and beliefs is the trap that separates "good" from "great".