Don't Call me Boy

It wasn’t my finest moment today but I ended up storming out of the office after throwing a few kind Hokkien words at the Living Desert who had made the mistake of commenting of my cleaning the company shredder after jamming it. It didn’t help that the company Grinch, an Irishman who reads Breitbart News, decided to add in his ten cents to a machine he has utterly no connection with.

I’m not proud of being in a situation where I couldn’t think of wanting to do anything else except to do damage to someone who usually inspires feelings of puppy dog cute and to the Grinch. I just saw red and it took control to prevent myself from doing violence on the spot.

However, what I will say is that this incident evolved around the shredder – a machine that is often used by lawyers, liquidators, accountants and anyone who spends any length of time around pieces of paper regarded as “confidential,” or “classified.” The shredder in this office is often used as it is shared by at least six-people dealing with special documents. While the machine is used by six-people, only one person seems to have any knowledge of how to clear the shredder – me. While it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to clear a shredder, it usually requires a little bit of movement beyond the office doors and its considered degrading work by people who have qualifications. So, when two people who have never even cleared the shredder decided to become experts on clearing the shredder, I snapped.

I raise this very personal incident because it touches on one of the most prominent subjects today – namely the subject of inequality. If you look at statistics relating to the subject, you will note that the world is becoming even more unequal, where the “haves” seem to be getting hold of more of the pie and share of the ever-increasing number of “have nots” seems to be growing regularly.

Singapore, the country that I’ve called home for the last two decades is a particularly good example of how the ‘haves’ have visibly increased their share of the pie and the ‘have nots’ have seen their number grow and their share of the pie shrink. Our hyper efficient government takes great pride in the fact that an increasing number of billionaires have decided that having a home in Singapore is a necessity and at the same time thinks nothing of exploiting people from less fortunate countries. When you talk about the maids being paid a “princely” salary of less than SG$500 a month, the standard reply is that, “It’s a lot of money where they came from.”

One of the most interesting things about “inequality,” is the fact that it’s not produced many revolutions. You would expect the ‘have nots’ to get angry enough to do something pretty violent and nasty in order to get a more “equitable” share of the pie. However, they generally haven’t. Why is that?

The answer, according to the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Dr. Raghuram Rajan, is chance or rather belief in the system. Dr. Rajan argued that the poor don’t rebel if they believe that there’s a chance that they can improve their lot or if not the lot of their kids if they merely work hard and play the game well enough. 

Rebellions only happen in places where the poor see their lot as being stuck there for all eternity no matter what they do. America, despite the inequality remains fairly peaceful. Every penniless migrant to America believe that he or she can achieve the “American” Dream if he or she works hard. By contrast, the Middle East got shook up by the Arab Spring because people found it impossible to achieve anything for themselves whatever they did.

The other key factor is behavior. A few years ago, the Algerians in Paris rioted because they were tiered of being addressed as “tu,” (the informal French version of “you,” usually used by an elder when addressing a junior.) A similar point was made by “African-Americans,” in the deep South who rioted in the 1960s – they were tired of being addressed as “boy.”

I believe here lies the crux of the matter – people can accept income inequality but up to a point, they won’t accept being treated as anything less than human. The poor are not asking for a hand out nor are they asking for pity. What they are asking for is a bit of dignity and respect.

I think of the Little India Riots in 2013, when a group of Indian and Bangladeshi workers rioted and the police had to struggle to contain the violence. Much of the chatter was around how people of South Asian origins could not handle their liquor and didn’t understand our local culture of respecting law and order.

What many people forgot was the fact that an Indian worker was killed and when the police came onto the scene, they seemed more intent on protecting the bus driver who had run over the worker than in providing justice for the worker who had been killed. It was, as they say a clear-cut case of disrespecting people.

The rage of an individual is an ugly thing. The rage of a mob is worse. The best is to ensure that there is no reason for rage and in a society of ever increasing despite between the have’s and have nots is to ensure that those who “have” remember to allow the “have nots” to see a glimmer of hope and to respect menial task as a stepping stone into better things.

SMEs – the challenge of creating jobs amidst innovation

Can Singapore show the way?

By Gurdip Singh - Correspondent Press Trust India (PTI).

Published in http://www.fii-news.com/smes-challenge-creating-jobs-amidst-innovation/

Girija Pande 

Technology is fast changing manufacturing landscape for large enterprises in every country. These enterprises are consequently restructuring and often downsizing. Consequently it is essential to simplify the regulatory architecture to create meaningful jobs and innovation in the Small and Medium Enterrise (SME) sector in future.

Ancillary links to large industries with long term supply/services contract to help scale and internationalise;
Availability of trained manpower; and
Burden of regulations which cost and more importantly waste precious time.

As India progresses with growing its Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Singapore-based industry veteran Girija Pande shares his views on recent developments in SME sector globally – especially reviewing what Singapore is doing to remake this sector for future challenges.

Pande’s thoughts are important and urgent both for Indian MSMEs/SMEs and the regulatory agencies in India. India is one of the world’s fastest growing economy with millions of MSMEs/SMEs upgrading to be Tier II or Tier III players in the global manufacturing space.

 Girija Pande, Chairman Apex Avalon Consulting Pte Ltd of Singapore and Past President of Tata Consultancy Services Asia Pacific, writes:

Quote:

I must confess I have like many others – including many governments of late – taken a strong liking to SMEs and their future.

With Digital tech revolution creating Manufacturing 4.0 with Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud-based technologies, it is clear that in the medium term, large industries in manufacturing or services will need to ‘reinvent’ themselves to survive.

In this decade-long restructuring, these enterprises will certainly not be able to create large scale jobs as in the past, in fact many of them will be downsizing employment.

All Governments have understood this oncoming disruption – hence the sudden priority on growing MSME/SME sector in each country.

India needs to urgently grasp this disruptive moment and focus on how to accelerate employment in the SME sector by deregulating it as fast as possible.

Globally, SME sector – which includes both services and manufacturing including startups, listed/unlisted companies and the non-profit or social sector – will be the one to create bulk of jobs in the medium term in most economies – some even in the new gig economy.

My contention is that for SMEs to continue to innovate and create meaningful jobs for the bulk of our relatively lesser skilled brethren, we need to prioritise rightsizing the current SME regulatory architecture, amongst other measures required to keep them going.

With a bit of innovation applied to a dream, this store can become

Consequently, from the point of view of employment any regulatory change which can improve their survival chances is welcome, certainly for the vast number of ‘mom and pop’ businesses.

I have observed these SMEs closely from many angles. I have created one, mentor a start up, serve on Boards of a Fintech Fund and a listed SME company. I also work with small social organisations which deliver very useful services to the community.

These have given me insights into their unique problems which were not apparent to me when I was running large global companies around Asia, the largest being Tata Consultancy across the Asia Pacific markets.

Challenges that these SMEs face can broadly be grouped under four broad areas:

Availability of risk and working capital;

Many solutions are being proposed in countries about how to tackle shortage of capital and manpower for this sector but it is the regulatory cholesterol which in my opinion presents the greatest challenges to their growth.

Singapore is similarly grappling with this challenge despite its well known efficient economy.

The Singapore SMEs are also ones which will create bulk of future jobs. Being a high cost open economy with manpower constraints, Singapore’s SME sector, unfortunately, faces greater challenges to survive in this volatile and uncertain world.

This Store 

The recently formed Enterprise Singapore (ES) defines SME companies being those with turnover under S$100 million -constituting nearly 90% of enterprises in Singapore.

Of these nearly 160,000 small/micro enterprises with turnover between S$1 million to S$10 million – constitute 80% of the total.

This could be a useful guide to define what constitutes SMEs.

These micro enterprises employ nearly half a million Singaporeans while all SMEs (with turnover under S$100 million) employ nearly 2.2 million – over 70% of the total employees in Singapore.

Most of the focus has been on provision of finance and Government agencies in Singapore have done a reasonable job with grants and tax incentives.

Many trade associations – including my own, Singapore International Chamber of Commerce – are attempting to assist SME members with links to larger Multi-National Corporations'(MNCs) working on Industry Transformation Maps (ITM) created recently to improve enterprises productivity and to assist in digitising them.

These efforts are laudable but still not sufficient till we right size the regulatory architecture impacting SMEs.

This will require a delicate balancing act by many Government departments who need to be focussed on cost/benefits of each and every regulation and look to light touch where possible. Undoing regulations to promote ease of doing business is a major thrust of the current US government as well as the Indian government.

One shining example in Singapore was the waiver of compulsory audit of annual accounts of SME’s with turnover under S$1 million announced few years ago. Similarly not levying Goods and Services Tax (GST) on such enterprises. For start ups and micro enterprises such simple regulations are a boon beyond belief.

However, there are many more in the statute book which could be modified or eliminated pragmatically. Could we for example, in some instances, move towards reporting rather than approval based regulations in some instances?

SME’s will not need to wait for approvals but work to build or grow their enterprises and report compliance when done. Time is of essence for SMEs and anything that can be done quickly and painlessly can make a difference between success or shutdown.

Do we need listed SMEs to fill up pages on sustainability as required by Singapore Exchange rather than a one pager? Many other instances abound, I am sure and we will find them as we look deeper.

Singaporean bureaucracy has a sterling reputation for innovative thinking. For example Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has taken an excellent lead to create a unique regulatory sandbox to allow startup Fintechs to innovate and prosper. This is likely to make Singapore a Fintech hub in Asia.

Is there a need to create such a regulatory sandbox for SMEs under Ministry of Trade and Industry or Enterprise Singapore, where myriads of regulations which impact them are reviewed in detail for their applicability to SME’s, some retired while others put in such a sandbox for trials.

It will certainly go down as Innovation Singapore style. It may also save many SMEs from possible extinction. Unquote.

-/fii-news.com

Sticking with Your Own Kind

I recently had an argument with someone who had the potential to offer me a job. He stated that he was willing to offer me $2,500 a month to work for him and it was more than what I was getting. I then pointed out to him that I knew how much he was paying an Italian girl who was working in the same job, which was $1,000 a month more than me and I also was fully aware of what he was paying a Belgium fellow, which was $2,000 a month more. My point to him was that I brought in far more business than the Italian or Belgium but was being offered considerably less to do the same job.

In a fit of desperation, he conceded that while I did a good job for him, the Italian girl in question had “big boobs,” which the customers liked. Still didn’t hold water because I did point out to him that my bald head and fat tummy was still bringing in more money to his pocket. I gave him a way out – mentioning that this was a discussion that we should avoid when both us had just finished one beer too many. However, it was very clear that it wasn’t fun for him to be in a situation where he’d have to tell me that I was the wrong colour.

I think of that incident because it reminded me of what a good Australian friend of mine once posted on my Facebook wall – people tend to stick with their own kind. He made the observation that his Chinese manager had a tendency to hire Chinese and the Indian had the tendency to hire Indians. He further observed that it wasn’t limited to race – he noticed that short people hired other short people and I then pointed out I am a bald man who was hired by another bald man.

All these anecdotes point to one single truth – as much as people talk about opposites attracting, we’re ultimately more comfortable with people who are like us. People who are intrinsically different from us are somehow scary and we somehow find ways to avoid people that are outside are comfort zone.

I, for one, am guilty of this. When I first meet people, the questions that I ask, are those that are designed to look for a common experience, something that says, “we’re the same.” When I meet a Singaporean man, one of my first questions is inevitably, “Which army unit did you come from?” National Service is, after all, the one shared experience that all Singaporean men have and, in my mind, the army unit sort of defines the individual’s character. I remember my day job boss hiring someone whom he was impressed with because the guy did his ACCA whilst still serving in the army. I cringed because if he had time to study, it meant he wasn’t out there with the guys in the field – this was a desk jockey (he turned out to be a nice enough kind but……….)

Being a combat troop in National Service - Not an experience I relished but one that I take pride in and having gone through

I have reference points with people from other parts of the world. I remember meeting a New Zealander who didn’t like sport and I just blanked out – Kiwi who doesn’t appreciate the All Blacks – something must be wrong there.

So, as you can see, that as much as I preach the value of diversity, I am often guilty of looking for comfort zones and staying with my own kind, whether its an “own kind,” based on race, religion, sports team etc. Let’s face it, it’s much easier to bond with someone whom you have something in common with than someone you don’t.

My father will probably shoot me for this remark, but I thank the thousands of pounds he spent on sending me to England because it taught me to appreciate rugby and cricket. Somehow, most of my patrons in latter life would be Indian Nationals and the ability to talk intelligently about cricket and Indian politics was the best way to ensure that I remained on their radar. I also ended up meeting plenty of Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans.

Chucher's College, the place that taught me to appreciate Rugby - a game that would help me bond with Kiwis. 

The ability to bond across cultures is a priceless gift and being able to find “you own people,” is inevitably a wonderful thing.

I am also grateful to Churcher's College for teaching me to appreciate cricket.

However, there is a downside to it in that you tend to get “group think.” When you throw the same people together, you’re bound to get people thinking in exactly the same way and do things exactly the same. Take the Singapore government as a wonderful example. Everybody in the Singapore government tends to have the same background – Same junior college, same military unit, same university and same post graduate school. The common trend amongst our military top brass for example is – basic degree in Cambridge and Business School in the USA.

The good part of the system is that, you get genuinely smart people running the show. Dummies may make it into Cambridge but they get weeded out quickly. The downside is that you get people from the same experience, the same background looking at things in exactly the same manner. So, while things work relatively well in Singapore, you tend to find that the same solutions that were great in the 1960s being applied to the problems in the 2010s.

In a way, diversity has to be forced into the systems. I know of a venture capital firm run by former clients of mine, where the two partners take pride in the fact that they are like “chalk and cheese.” These venture capitalists celebrate their differences because they feel that their strength lies in their differences. Their results seem to speak for themselves.

Perhaps, the answer is thus – give people reasons to come together. Give people reasons to bond and find common ground. Find a reason for giving raising up people who are different from you because in the end, diversity, however painful it is to put into practice, is good for us because it forces us to grow beyond out comfort zones.