Time To Do Away With Time Costs

Boon Gan Ng

Senior Legal Associate at VanillaLaw LLC

I want to qualify this article by stating that I have never rendered a time cost bill in my entire life. My firm works for a fixed fee in exchange for a well defined scope of work, and I have never seen a client ask to switch to time-cost billing. Even though time cost billing is still a prevalent practice in the legal industry, none of my peers seriously defend it, and we have to acknowledge the problems that it creates for everyone involved.

The customer

1. You have no idea how much you're going to spend in the end until you get your bill. This makes planning and budgeting for legal costs difficult, especially if you run a business with a recurring need for legal services.

2. Some law firms offer to reduce your costs by getting junior lawyers or non-lawyers to do part of the work. But you have no way of verifying who actually did the work, even if they presented their timesheets to you.

3. Do you choose someone who has a higher billing rate who might be able to get the job done faster, or a younger lawyer with a lower rate who hopefully will produce a smaller bill at the end? (But what does this have to do with the quality of service you receive?)

The firm

1. Customers will bargain with you and ask for discounts after you present the bill. You come under constant financial pressure even though you thought you gave the customer advance notice of your rates.

2. If you and the customer can't reach a consensus on the appropriate amount to pay, you have to apply for taxation. You have to spend more resources to get what is owed to you, and even then there's no guarantee that you'll get everything you want.

3. Everyone has a slightly different idea of what a reasonable rate is. Even if you inform the customer of your hourly rate beforehand, you still can be accused of over-charging. Unless you are the sort who thinks any publicity is good publicity, your reputation will take a hit.

The associate

1. You are only as good as the hours which you an record as billable hours. Anything else which is not billable might be considered wasted, depending on how your firm weighs other activities such as business development.

2. To add insult to injury, you have to spend time recording the time you spent which is even less billable time spent. Granted, this activity can be alleviated by practice management software, but you rather spend time on more productive pursuits.

3. You feel pressured on both sides - the firm which has an interest in maximising profits, and the client who has an interest in a lower bill or financial certainty.

Time cost billing should go the way of the dinosaur, given how it has no relation to the value which law firms create for customers. Is our value the time we spend with or for customers? Some people take the view that only what can be measured can be valued, but if you have an instinctive or reflexive dislike for financial uncertainty, then deep down you already know that time cost billing is not for you. Lawyers need to take a hard look at ourselves and ask if time cost billing serves everyone's interests.

When Vision Lies with the Old

My aunt once made the point that Singapore is an unusual place. She observed that in other parts of the world, the youth are generally very idealistic and become less so once the reality of making living sets in. By contrast, the youth in Singapore are very materialistic and become less as they get older and realise that there’s more to life than chasing the almighty dollar.

This fact was personalized by recent events from a close family association. I’m talking about Professor Tommy Koh, our former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who has been positioning himself as a champion of various social issues. It started out when he called Section 377A a “bad” law and urged the “LGBT” Community to keep trying to get the law removed. Professor Koh has recently gone as far as to publish letters in our national newspaper to suggests that we need a “rule book” on how to treat our domestic workers.

By contrast, Professor Koh’s son, Aun Koh, who describes himself as a “journalism-trained entrepreneur,” seems to have gone the other way. Mr. Koh decided that it was time to tell us that while Singapore could do better in some of its social instincts, he can “no longer blindly defend free speech.” Mr. Koh argued that Singapore’s educated population that had gained prosperity and peace in a multicultural society had done it, partially because the government had the good sense to control things. Mr. Koh’s comments can be read at:

https://www.todayonline.com/commentary/why-my-attitude-towards-free-speech-has-changed 

This is just one example of a father-son duo where the son appears to be more “pro-status-quo” than the son. The Singapore system has one amazing success – it has turned children of dissidents into its greatest champions. Janadas Devan, the government’s spokesperson was the son of a former President (Devan Nair) and then there’s our Senior Minister of State for Ministry of Communications and Information, Dr. Janil Puthucheary, who is the son of a dissident (Dominic Puthucheary).

What accounts for this difference? You could argue that you got to look at the stages of life. Professor Koh, for example, is a highly established figure. He’s reached the stage where he’s got nothing left to prove and there’s nothing else for him to gain. He can afford to speak his mind and you could say his priorities are now focused on trying to right the kinks in the system.

By contrast, Mr. Koh is at that stage where there are things for him to aspire to – hence, he focuses on the “nice” bits that the system offers and defends it. You could call it the stage of knowing what’s good for you.

To be fair, there is much to commend in the Singapore system. As long as you conform to certain expectations, you will not starve. While I’m not exactly a grand winner in the system, I’m grateful for certain things about Singapore like basic safety. I don’t sit up at night worried that my 20-year old might not make it back home if she’s going out with her mates late at night for a few beers.

However, while Singapore may stack-up pretty well against most places, we got to remember that it is not “perfect.” The nation has social issues to address. Take the example of homeless people. OK, I don’t face the line of homeless people outside my door the way I did in London – but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Furthermore, unlike London, where the louts were inevitably young, ours are inevitably the elderly and frail. Unless you have a criminal amount of money in the bank, Singapore is a dreadful place to be old, sick and frail.

I can understand people wanting to defend what they have but there should also be a need to want to make society better and this often requires energy, which should come from the young. You should not expect the old to drive social change just as you should not expect them to be carrying heavy loads.

Isn’t it time we look to our aspiring young and remind them that speaking out for social change is good an investment for everyone? When you do your part to make the world a better place it rewards you in return.

What Do We Have Against the Obvious?

One of the nicest things about living in Singapore is the fact that it’s an exceedingly practical place. The government’s that have lead Singapore, have generally veered on doing the “practical” thing and governments have always worked on the principle of doing “What’s Right rather than What’s Popular.”

The results have been good. Singapore is probably as close as it gets to having a perfect society. We are rich and our “social” issues tend to centre around life getting expensive for Professional and Middle-Class people rather than riots in the streets and violence against particular communities.

Yet, there is one area in which the Singapore government fails spectacularly, namely the question of 377A, the act in which criminalises anal sex between grown men. For the last decade, whenever the topic of 377A comes up, Singapore’s normally pragmatic and rational government rushes to pander to the illogical and irrational. I think of Professor Thio Li-Ann’s speech in parliament in 2007 and ended up marveling at her ability to deliver a long speech without a single rational thought (“We must reject the argument from consent” -being a line from that speech, which is the last thing you’d expect from a learned law professor when discussing laws governing sexual behavior) and yet she managed to convince a room filled with highly intelligent rational people that she had a point. Our rational and pragmatic government decided to come up with a compromise that mocks the concept of the rule of law – keeping the law but promising not to actively not enforce it.

It’s bad enough when you have the government being held hostage to a peddler of nonsense. Then, it gets worse when a government that is so famously principled and pragmatic being the said peddler of nonsense.

This happened recently when the Attorney-General’s chambers responded to three challenges in the court on the constitutionality of 377A. These challenges were heard in court after a former Chief Justice, two former Attorney Generals our former permanent representative to the UN came out to express points that stated that this particular section of the penal code was not only no longer relevant to a modern society but pointless and bad for the legal system. All of the men in question are regarded as highly intelligent establishment figures that no reasonable human being could dismiss easily. You'd expect the establishment to listen.

Another interesting fact about these hearings was the fact that experts of sexuality were called upon to give evidence on the nature of homosexuality. This wasn't just about the concept of equal rights but about the scientific nature of homosexuality. The experts on both sides pretty much agreed that homosexuality is an inborn condition - you are either gay or not and you cannot be "converted" into not being gay. Once again, with the scientist pretty much in agreement, you'd expect our normally rational government to listen

Yet, despite the obvious arguments from the people who knew the law and the science, the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC) decided that it was time to retreat to the irrational arguments used by Professor Thio previously to defend keeping a law that most rational people knew made no sense :

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/attorney-general-377a-challenges-constitutional-rights-do-not-include-sexual-freedom-or?fbclid=IwAR3jAPCw0_RG_l6DqbSVyELO7SyKEsINcfrNiAWSicT65Zd5psAxjx55iXo

If you read through the AGC's argument, it is clear the only  rational argument the  was the fact that the courts were the wrong venue to strike out the law.  Let’s look at some of the things said:

“Unqualified rights inherently contradict a key tenet of our Constitution, which is that the interest of the larger community is placed over the interest of the individual,”

It's always interesting to notice how those who believe this law should be kept inevitably talk about "the greater good of the larger community," trumping individual rights. Nobody has stated how this law serves "the larger community," nor has anyone explained how allowing two consenting adults to engage in an intimate act in the privacy of the bedroom would harm the rest of society. Surely, you'd expect the AGC to make its case with proof rather than to talk about a concept in vague terms.

Then there was the argument at homosexuals could control their attraction therefore the act did not discriminate:

Even” Mr Ong’s experts had acknowledged that a person experiencing homosexual attraction can voluntarily control whether to perform the act or not. “

This argument isn't just legally dubious - it doesn't make common sense. All of us feel attraction to all sorts of people but  we only act upon the attraction only when it's mutual. I, as a heterosexual man, am very attracted to the many attractive women around me. However, I don't pounce on the them and I've only slept with women who want to sleep with me.  I can control my urges and I am not a criminal for sleeping with women who want to sleep with me as much as I want to sleep with them.

What is true of myself, as a heterosexual man is also true of homosexuals. The wider homosexual community is not  asking for permission to pounce on people its attracted to. They merely asking for the same rights as everyone else - namely, if you average homosexual finds someone he's attracted to and is willing to do to bed with - he will not be labeled a criminal for doing what is natural for him to do when he meets someone who reciprocates sexual attraction.

The most ridiculous point made by the AGC was against the former Chief Justice’s point that the law had served no purpose because the government’s policy was not to enforce it.

“Section 377A is fully able to serve its purpose, which is to send a certain moral signal, by its mere existence regardless of whether and how it is enforced.”

When you read this argument, you're bound to wonder if the AGC's lawyers are so hyper intelligent that they can create a purpose for laws outside thin air or they are so dreadful that they have to resort to their personal feelings.

Morality and legality may overlap in many cases but there is a distinction. Morality is personal. We as individuals and society can find many things sinful and abhorrent but whether they should be legal or not is another question. We have laws that we enforce because we want to ensure certain outcomes for the greater good of society.

If you follow the AGC's argument on sending out "moral signals," you then have to ask why the government permits the sale of alcohol, does not criminalise adultery and even allows casinos to be built. Adultery and gambling are considered sins in most religions. The evidence to suggests that adultery, alcohol and gambling hurt innocent parties outweighs the evidence that of allowing two consenting adults to engage in a private act in the privacy of the bedroom.

So, following the AGC's argument, shouldn't we send a "moral signal" against drinkers, gamblers and fornicators? 

We have thrived by being a society that is rational and reasonable. Isn't it time, we listened to rationality on this subject and not allow the prejudices of people against a community to dominate our proud legal system? 

How can Managers be more successful in cross cultural environments ?

By Mr. KV Rao 

Spoke at the recent Asian Management Conclave, in Singapore where a large no of Directors / Deans of Management Schools attended. It was an interesting interaction. Here are some snippets ... 

Where theory intersects practice, it a place of pure bliss. ! 

I shared the life stories of  6 successful individuals, (none having any formal management education), who have either worked for me or I have known them closely enough, to sketch the common traits. They span from Russia, CIS, Singapore, Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos.. and each of them have mastered the art of being successful in a cross cultural and non-native environment. Some characteristics they have are :- 

• Risk Takers. Exceptional positive attitude to life.
• Non-judgmental, build trust and strong relationships.
• Learning on the fly, and continuously reinforcing the learning curve.
• Humility and direct communicators. Don’t leave you in doubt.
• Curiosity and live life to the full - show cheerfulness.
• Adaptive and respectful to cultural diversity.

They substituted what they lacked in education with the wisdom of doing the yards in the markets. 

In international business, success is not about knowing a lot, but doing a lot, trying a lot, with the ability to navigate in rough weather, where you have no google maps !. Often the emphasis on analysis, modeling, makes young MBA managers tilt more to a left brain leaning than a whole brain activity. Need for touch and feel, and using ones senses to succeed in a cross cultural and diverse Asia, needs honing personalities with real life experience than academic excellence alone. 

How could management education-train, coach, teach, impart and develop such managers. Well, the world is beset with problems of poverty and deprivation. Academia could work with industry to take up projects that help to improve peoples lives. Entering difficult and less developed markets is challenge. Business schools could lead the way in exploring new markets well before others and become pathfinders, and guides, and expose young students to do research in unfamiliar areas. How about Myanmar, Laos, Bangladesh. Nepal,  or Bhutan for that matter....

Case writing and codifying knowledge is often post dated, and focused on large enterprises. Shift of focus to smaller, nimble and entrepreneurial ventures and writing cases about them, will bring a richness of insights and knowledge while data gathering could be challenging. 

Often businesses lead, and business schools follow, to codify practices into theory. It could well be the other way round. We need a change in mindsets, on both sides, and pursue what might be the future of integrative learning. 

“Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.” – Jesus of Nazareth

This post is curtesy of my favourite Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC, who shared my last posting “http://beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com/2019/11/system-failure.html,”with his friends. He told me that I was “biased” in favour of the Indian expat community in Singapore because I had received money from them.

I was tickled, both by the remark and by the implications. I openly disclosed my relationship with the community and I don’t think my favourable experiences with the community should have detracted too much from what I expressed.

I also work on the principle that it’s only natural for me to have a favourable view on the community that has provided me with the good things that I have enjoyed. I ask myself whether anyone would have thought differently had I defended the British or American communities instead?

Perhaps it’s just me but I am unable to see how “foreigners,” particularly dark-skinned Asians have damaged my chances in life and I am from a demographic that should feel “displaced,” the “open-door” policy that Singapore had in 2004.

Statistically, I should be burning with resentment against the people who have moved to my country and displaced me. I am a graduate (from the apparently highly respected Goldsmith’s College, University of London) and I belong to the ethnic majority. I never got a plush job in a big company that one assumes my qualifications would have gotten me. I don’t understand how my personal situation is anyone else’s issue other than mine.

It was this simple, when I couldn’t find a job in my chosen field after I left my first job after 5-months in the 2001 recession, I decided to employ myself. A friend from the UK advised me that rather than spend money on searching for an agency to work for, I might as well go and get the money from the client directly.  So, with only four months of work experience, I went to get my own job.

Self-employment is tough. Employees tend to forget that that the business process is larger than their particular scope. An employee merely does his or her job and gets a cheque. However, a self-employed person needs to get the job, do the job and get paid. While there are “windfalls,” there are more moments of poverty.

I had ten-years of struggle and I’ve managed to stabalise my income and financial situation by balancing part-time jobs with side hustles. However, I remember the years of struggle with a certain amount of pride. There were jobs where I was compared favourably with multinationals in the USA (classic line being  “You did more for us than …….in the USA).

When I look back to those moments, I remember the people who gave me work. It started with a great Tamil chap called Raymond, who was the regional operations director for Polaris. Raymond and I would have lunch on a monthly basis. He’d ask how I was doing, then think of something and a few days later, Raymond would call with a job. It wasn’t a princely sum but it was a job that money in my pocket.

When Raymond left Polaris, I worked with Supriyo, who recommended me to his alumni associations, which got me the jobs with the Indian Institutes of Technology and Management respectively (IIT and IIM). When I met the IIM group, I was told, “You don’t need to sell yourself, Supriyo has already done that.”

So, it was the Indians who gave me work. They were there for me when I needed it. By contrast, “my people” were nowhere when I needed work and money. I didn’t have the “respectability” of a big agency behind me.

With a few notable exceptions, “my people” wouldn’t give me a chance. This was brought home to me in 2013, when I was invited to pitch for a government related job. I didn’t get the job, but the fact that I was even invited to pitch was an achievement. I later learnt that my chance came from a man who was born in India, who promoted my name passionately. The Singapore born chairman of that organization had thought of me as “That Blogger.” The man born in India had to stress “He Delivers.”

So, while I understand that everyone wants to have a job in order to feed their families, I find it very hard to internalize and understand the resentments that “My People,” have against the “darkies” for stealing “their” jobs. Where were “My People,” when I was struggling in a way that wasn’t a threat to anyone fighting for a spot in the corner office.

I’m not the only person with this experience. I checked with one of my juniors who had started his own agency. His first big break came from someone from somewhere else. This wasn’t limited to the PR industry. I checked with a liquidator (who for the sake of full disclosure, hired me for five-years) and his first big break came from someone from somewhere else.

“My People,” complain that the “foreigners” are “helping their own kind.” They complain that they’re being shut out from the plush jobs in multinational firms and so on. Yet, when they’re in a position to give a shot to someone struggling against multinationals, they preferred to support the multinationals (For the record, I am not against multinationals, including the ones I took jobs from and lost jobs to). There’s always going to be a limited supply of opportunities from the “big players,” of any industry. However, the opportunities increase when you have people willing to do something for themselves – some of those people may grow into people that can hire others.  

The Working Man Syndrome

By Mr. Mark Goh 
Founder and Managing Director of Vanilla Law LLC 

I have a question, and it involves what people refer to as the Gig economy. I have always wondered, what is the difference between being in Gigs and being self employed?

Being in Manchester, gave me an insight about this concept of being a "working man". It seems that Mancunians pride themselves to being working men/women. After all, their emblem here is the Bee; as in "busy as a bee". I have nothing but profound respect and admiration for the working man/women/mum/father. But, I am equally concerned that many a working man are not aware of the "working man" syndrome.

The symptoms of the syndrome are when you are working on your daily job so intently, that you forget to take time to reflect, learn and strategise for a day when muscles and sinew fail you. What then? Physical failure is inevitable; no one escapes the grim reaper.

I suffered this syndrome as a dispute resolution lawyer for more than 20 years. As a working man with a young child at the time, I worked more than 12 hours daily. My clients' problems became my personal problem. At the peak, I had in my head more than 30 sets of problems at any point in time; to solve for other people. I slept poorly and I ate equally poorly. Ironically, I was just accelerating the working man syndrome. Around the age of 45 years old, I had a wake up call from my doctor who told me if I did not take time to de-stress; I would die in less than 5 years! Is this familiar?

Ever since, I have taken on less cases and only the ones from close and good clients. I have become more reflective and selective. I decided also to invest in Intellectual Property. This is something which separates the Gig workers from the self employed. Being your own boss and owning your own business, gives you the incentive to accumulate, invest in and protect the wealth of experience stored in one's brains. I did this my capturing my know-how in contract drafting and contract pit-falls into a software called VanillaLaw Docs. Gig workers are like nomads, they do not stay long enough in any job to be able to accumulate any experience. Even if they did, many do not see it worthwhile to invest their time and resources to build, own and eventually market their Intellectual Property.

Intellectual Property; I think is the real key and asset for all mature men in this community. It's  the one thing that we can use to secure our legacy.

System Failure

I thank Mr. Ramesh Erramalli for giving me a topic to blog about. A month ago, Mr. Erramalli became the most famous Indian Expatriate when he was caught on video berating his condominium security guard for having the audacity to charge a guest of his, $10 for the right to park in the condominium compound (which was part of the rules of living in the said compound.) 

Mr. Erramalli made some unfortunate comments about how much he paid for his property and then made the mistake of alluding to the fact that his property was not a “Housing Development Board” (HDB) flat (most Singaporeans, myself included, live in an HDB flat). As predicted, the incident went viral and overnight, Mr. Ramesh Erramalli became the most famous person in Singapore.

This isn’t the first incident involving a foreigner being caught in an unfortunate incident with a local. It isn’t the first time that Singapore’s cyberspace has exploded. But what is interesting is that for the first time, the “netizens” went to find Mr. Erramalli’s linkedin profile and after some research alleged that his qualifications were fake and we then had a protest on how the government needed to review the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement or CECA. The more extreme part of cyberspace went as far as to say that the government needed to scrap CECA for the benefit of all Singaporeans.

The nicest thing you can say about Mr. Ramesh Erramalli is that he’s a self-entitled arsehole and his attitude towards an elderly and poorly paid person was horrible. I’m told that many Singaporeans (particularly the Singaporeans of Indian Decent) find the expatriate Indians to be an arrogant bunch.

I don’t doubt that Mr. Erramalli is an arsehole and I don’t doubt that there are many such arseholes in the Indian Expat community (which is incidentally the same thing that can be said for any other community -expat or local, in Singapore). I don’t see how we’ve made the leap from one arsehole to an entire policy. While Mr. Erramalli is an arsehole, let’s not forget that being an arsehole is not a crime.

Unlike Stuart Boyd Mills, a British citizen, Mr. Erramalli never physically assaulted anyone (Mr. Mills received a slap on the wrist of 6-months and didn’t even come close to getting the cane) and nobody made the leap from one impotent prick to wanting to ban British Expats (who have a far higher record of committing physical crimes against the local population than their Indian Counterparts).
So, how is it such that we’re angrier with the entire Indian expat community because of one particular arsehole than we are with other expats, who have produced people who have physically assaulted our locals?

OK, before I continue, I will need to declare my interest. I’ve always been saved by the Indian expat community. My first major client, the guys who paid me more for me than for being someone else’s subcontractor were Indian and two out of three of the major milestones of my working life (as in national level projects) are curtesy of the Indian Expat community. My fastest paymasters were inevitably Indian expats (defined as collecting the cheque a few hours after invoicing). As such, I do have a soft spot for the community.

I believe that the real issues at stake are not so much the Indians or the Indian expats as a group. The key issue should be the fact that Singapore is increasingly unequal. We had the classic case of someone who was very well to do berating someone who is less fortunate for merely doing his job.

Let’s start with the expat system or the system that involves taking someone and plonking them somewhere else in a very plush job. You throw money at him (they’re usually guys), or at least more than he’s seen back home, and you give him a load of freebies like the house and car he’d normally not be able to afford. You drill it into his head that he’s there because the locals would die without him and you also drill it into the heads of the locals that their livelihoods depend on this person from elsewhere. The guy discovers other juicy things like women throwing themselves at him for the mere fact that he’s him.

Now, I’m not disputing the fact that businesses will need people with skills from elsewhere and I’m not disputing that you will need to pay a bit extra for special skills. However, its very clear that in the system as I’ve described, you’re bound to turn otherwise nice people into arseholes. As a nephew by marriage (who happens to be Indian Expat) said, “We expats think we’re gods.” While the majority of expats (of all colours) I’ve met are nice enough, it takes a strong character to remain a decent person at heart when so much comes to you so easily.

So, the first thing that we need to look at is moving our psychological focus away from multinationals being the source of everything and our education system has to move away from training people who merely follow orders to people who can think and lead in the global system. Our local people need to get used to doing things for themselves rather than waiting for someone from elsewhere to do it for them.

Secondly, we need to move to building up our entrepreneurs. I stress that not everybody is meant to be an entrepreneur and being an entrepreneur is often tougher than being an employee. However, entrepreneurs think differently. Instead of seeing new arrivals as competition for scarce jobs, you see new customers. The mindset of the people must change.

I was asked, if I felt threatened and displaced in my own land. The answer is that I don’t. Each new arrival is a potential new customer to me in one of my various gigs. I didn’t get the corporate job that people assume that I should get. It didn’t occur to me that it was someone else’s fault and it never occurred to me that I should blame other people – I merely tried another path.

I’ve never felt bothered by “fake” qualifications, which is a topic that many of my fellow citizens get irked when it comes to the Indian Nationals. I don’t doubt that India faces such issues but its not unique to the Indians and I work on the principle that if I can gets into a multinational and survives more than three-years, its clear he can do the job, so gives a shit if he went to a real university or not. University was a lot of fun but who really cares what happens beyond that. 

The other issue we need to face is the fact that in Singapore, jobs like security guards are often for the lowly educated and worst of all – the old and feeble. Now, I don’t have anything against old people working (I am probably going to be one), but why is it such that our society consistently makes it such that the old and feeble always do the most physically demanding and poorly paid jobs. And in the case of the security guard, he’s doing something potentially dangerous – he’s looking after the security of the residents like Mr. Erramalli.

Unfortunately, the security guard is in Singapore speak, “Uncle,” thus probably not likely to get a job elsewhere and dependent on the pittance paid. As such, he’s the perfect target for bullies like Mr. Erramalli. 

Isn’t it time we look into “upgrading” jobs like that of the security guard? Surely something can be done to give the industry more professionalism and to give people a greater sense of pride and let’s not forget, better pay.

People like security guards shouldn’t be regarded as just the old man in the corner who needs a job. They should be regarded as professionals offering a valuable service and people like Mr. Erramalli should be made to pay fairly for someone to look after their valued possessions. 

What they don’t tell you about the Gig Economy

It has been nearly two months since I returned to the gig economy and I’m happy enough to announce that I’m alive and haven’t starved or gotten myself thrown into debtors’ prison. I have been, as they say, lucky.

I had the good sense to keep the restaurant job, which allowed me to get paid as I network and my stroke of luck included the former boss from the corporate job asking me to help out on “part-time” basis, which has given me a weekly income and enough ours to work on getting “side-gigs,” and to use whatever I’ve earned to stop being poor. In terms of the side gigs, I’ve managed to pack records for a big accounting firm and sell sunglasses.

 My most recent piece of good luck came in the form of a small PR gig for a large multinational Indian company, which bought me breathing space with creditors.

So, while I have yet to “strike-it-rich,” in the gig-economy, I’ve managed to survive in an economy that is slowing. I suppose you could say that I am officially in the position to impart wisdom of sorts. What would that be? 

I guess the first thing to point out is that one needs to accept that the gig economy is becoming a larger reality for an increasing number of people. In the old days (less than a decade ago), companies discovered outsourcing, where they could get the Chinese to make things and the Indians to do the boring back office stuff better and cheaper than anywhere else in the world. Then, just as outsourcing started to become politically dicey, we found “AI” made machines able to do an increasing number of tasks. Machines don’t form unions or expect lunch breaks, thus becoming a cheaper option for corporations.

So, nobody in the workforce should expect a job to be permanent. One must expect that the corporation to be on the constant look out for a cheaper human or a machine to replace you in a matter of time. As such, every employee needs to understand that this is not personal. Corporations work for their shareholders and if replacing you with someone cheaper will give their shareholders a better return, they’ll do it.

If the corporation is looking out for someone or something to replace you, it’s always best to be on the look out for something else and to develop a side hustle or an alternate source of income. Depending on a single employer till the day you die is a sure-fire way to commit financial suicide.

The second expectation is the fact that industries are constantly changing thanks to the ever-changing pace of technology. I take my core skill of “public relations” as an example. In the old days (defined as half a decade ago) it was enough to be able to put the client on TV or the newspapers. These days, that will no longer suffice. People aren’t browsing newspapers on the daily basis. They’re either reading it off their iPads or dare I say, getting it off their social media feeds. PR practitioners need to look at the new medium and reinvent the way they communicate of their clients.

So, the trick here is to learn to stay relevant in your industry and look at how your skills can be adapted to other industries. In 2014, things started to go silent in the PR market for one man shows and the big agencies found ways to extract more from their employees. I got lucky in the sense that I was able to hold onto a single client and I started a job in the liquidations industry. I had to relearn things and learn a new language (I didn’t know things like balance sheets existed before then).

I changed industry but found that I could use my core skill (PR being Public Relations with an emphasis on relations – liquidations being an industry with many stakeholder relationships that need to be managed) and learnt a few side tricks, especially when it involved insolvency and bankruptcy laws. At the time when I was ready to return to the gig economy, I’ve returned with knowledge that I never had before.

The final piece of wisdom would be to encourage people to network and keep in touch. I’ve always tried to be a somewhat likeable person and a person that people vaguely enjoyed working with. I make it a point to remember people on birthdays (which is made easier with social media reminders) and on festivals that mean something to the people I’ve worked with (which in my case is Muslim and Indian festivals).

You never know when you’re going to need a person and its always important to ensure that even in situations where you come into conflict, you do so in a civil manner.

My first gig was packing records for a big accounting firm. The person who gave me that job was a former colleague. My second gig came from my former logistics guy who was selling sunglasses. The PR gig came from staying in touch with the firm’s boss, whom I had known since the IIT Alumni event in 2012. I saw people when I didn’t need them, and they remembered me enough to want to give me a bone when I needed it.

Being in the modern “gig-economy” is exciting but its challenging. While the structure of jobs and the nature of work is being disrupted, one needs to remember the basics in life and to understand that you need to be open to experiences and to remember to be a decent enough person because you never know when you may need them. 

What Languages do you speak?

The topic of bilingualism is back. The Prime Minister has urged Singaporeans (particularly the Chinese ones) not to lose their bilingual edge. As always when the Prime Minister says something, everyone has an opinion. There are those who think that Singapore’s “bilingual” policies are a failure and think we should stick to doing things in English and English only (probably parents with kids who can’t pass Chinese – I used to be one of those kids) and a few letters that pointed out the obvious – namely the importance of being multilingual in a world where growing economies are not necessarily English speaking.

I shrug whenever I see both arguments. I flunked the Singapore system because I couldn’t make it in Chinese. My parents spoke English at home and the only real Chinese I spoke was Cantonese with my paternal grandmother and the nanny (Which isn’t a bonus because Singapore is ferociously anti-Chinese dialect). My early childhood was a failure because of my poor command of spoken Chinese and nonexistent command of written Chinese. I only blossomed academically when the family moved to Spain and I no longer had to learn Chinese.

So, I sympathise with kids who struggle with Chinese. It is not an easy language to learn, especially if you are tone deaf. A single word changes meaning the moment you get the tone wrong and the Chinese script is challenging especially if you do not have a visual memory (I don’t). Struggling with the language is especially challenging when you have to deal with everything else in Singapore’s ultra-stressful education system.

Learning Mandarin is challenge for many of us who, while ethnically Chinese, grew up in a non-Chinese speaking environment. The Mandarin that has evolved in Singapore’s daily vernacular is similar to Singlish (a particular form of English spoken in Singapore – though the English are kinder about our version of English than the Chinese). Our bilingual policy is blamed for creating a situation where our local population does not speak good English or good Mandarin. There is, as they say, no such thing as a pure language. In Singapore, it is possible to speak several languages in a single sentence. When I take a taxi, I tell the taxi driver where to go in Mandarin and yet I end up telling him to turn left or right at certain junctions in English.

Having said all of that, I believe it’s wrong to not teach kids the “mother-tongue.” Ironically, I look back at my youth in Europe to understand how people view bilingualism. My Nordic and Dutch friends work on the principle that you are not truly educated if you can’t communicate in more than one language. All my Nordic and Dutch friends speak, read and write in English as well as their mother tongues. How is it such the Nordic countries and the Netherlands have succeeded in producing multilingual people, while we struggle with it.

OK, to be fair to Singapore’s Chinese and Tamil populations, there is a larger difference between Chinese/ Tamil and English as opposed to understanding both Swedish and English. The Asian languages have a different written script and in the example of Chinese, each character represents an actual thing as opposed to the Western alphabet system, where each alphabet represents a sound. Handling an Asian language and a Western one requires you to have a cultural mindset as opposed to two European languages. Then, there’s the issue of spoken tones in Chinese, which doesn’t really happen in European languages.

Yet, that shouldn’t be a reason to give up on bilingualism. The Dutch and Nordic nations realized that they were small and few people outside their borders would speak their language. So, they learnt other languages and have prospered. The Dutch ran an empire that competed with the British Empire, even though the Netherlands is smaller than the UK.

This has become even more crucial in the modern age, where the growing markets are in places like China and Indonesia, which may not necessarily be English speaking. I think my 70-year-old Dad who learnt Thai when he moved to Thailand. His argument is simple, “I want to live in Thailand, I got to learn Thai and not expect them to learn English to accommodate me if I want to live here.”

I take a similar view with Mandarin. It’s not a language I’m comfortable with but when my big spender is from PRC, I speak find the ability to speak Mandarin. Incidentally, that’s the language I communicate with my wife in.

Bilingualism cannot be forced and I do think the Singapore government needs to lose its hostility to Chinese dialects. Yet, Singaporean Chinese should accept that knowing Mandarin is a good thing and should embrace it.  Look, if a Sino-Phobic US President can get his granddaughter learning Mandarin, why can’t the rest of us?

It's Not the Hours You Work but the Work in the Hours

One of the most interesting news stories of the last few days was the fact that Ms. Sharon Au, a former celebrity in Singapore, had been reported to her bosses for sending her colleagues after hours work emails. This story illustrates one of most interesting areas of cross-cultural misunderstandings.

Ms. Au is Singaporean and grew up in a work culture where one is attuned to one’s communications device (mobile, laptop and tablet) because its almost normal to have bosses and customers calling you at any time of the day. The general idea is that you try and be at the customer’s beck and call no matter how inconvenient because if the customer can’t get you, they’ll move their business elsewhere.

The situation has become such that people functioning in the Asian and American (as anyone who has worked in an American bank can testify to), understand that working long hours is part and parcel of being in the work force. The ability to work the hours is a badge of pride. The ability to put in the hours is such that I remember telling a potential employer that “I can work long hours,” because I wanted him to know that I was worth hiring.

However, Ms. Au works in France, where there are laws against sending work communications after office hours. These laws are based on the premise that employees need their “private time,” particularly when they have families.

From the Asian and American perspective, the European focus on having laws that protect “private-time” can seem like self-indulgence. When you come from a culture where the ability to work long hours is seen as a badge of pride, the eagerness to protect “private time” can seem lazy.

However, there is another side to this issue. Americans and Asians may have the ability to work long hours but if you look at global productivity statistics, you’ll find that of the top most productive nations in the world, only four are not European (USA at number 6, Australia at number 7, Canada at 13 and Japan at number 15). A list of the most productive countries can be found at:

https://collectivehub.com/2018/02/15-of-the-worlds-most-productive-countries/

How is it such that the world’s most productive countries happen to be those in places where there are restrictions on your working hours?

The answer is precisely because there is because there is a scarcity of working hours in these countries. The human mind is a wonderfully adaptable thing and there is a case to show that scarcity produces efficiency. Many of the world’s most prosperous countries have become that way because they lacked resources and had to find ways of developing their economies through better education and clever trade policies. By contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa struggles with what development economist call a “natural resources curse.” Sub-Saharan Africa has an abundance of natural resources, which have only made despots and crooks (the despots being the crooks in many cases) fabulously wealthy. Why develop the people when all you need to do is to dig things from under the earth?

The same is true of labour productivity. China and India may be the fast-growing big economies but they don’t rank anywhere on the list of productive places. Both of these places have an abundance of labour. In the outsourcing business it is said that a company will pay for a tart from the East End of London more than a roomful of MBA graduates in India. When you have a thousand well educated people willing to pick up trash, there is utterly no need to invest in a robot to do the job.

I remember complaining about how shops shut early and on Sundays in Europe when compared to America and Asia. Mum’s defense of the European way was this – she shops very efficiently because she has to. She plans how much we’re going to need over the weekend when she goes to the shops on Friday because there’s no place for her to go to should she miss anything on a Sunday.

The common saying is that necessity is the mother of innovation. The European companies can’t work their employees more than a certain number of hours (overtime becomes prohibitively expensive) so they have to maximise what they can work from the workers within the set hours. Likewise, the European worker does not have the luxury of taking his or her time beyond office hours hence there is an incentive to finish task within the set hours.

Scarcity is good for the human mind and countries that are seeking to be more productive should look at limiting incentives to be inefficient.

Perseverance is the difference between going bust and creating a Billion Dollars in value

By Mr. Patrick Grove

CEO of Catcha Group Ltd

I had a blast speaking at Tony Robbins’ world-famous Business Mastery event a year ago in Sydney. Sharing my story with like-minded and aspiring entrepreneurs, knowing that perhaps my story might positively impact even a small part of someone’s journey, always gets me going.

The story I shared with the eager audience is the response to a question I get a lot these days - how was I able to take five companies from inception to IPO within seven quick years? In short, what’s been key to my success as an entrepreneur?

The simple answer - perseverance.

Let’s look at iProperty, the first company we took public. Today iProperty is widely recognized as one of the largest and most successful online businesses in the region. However 11 years ago, this was a different story. 

In 2007, newspapers classifieds were the defacto method of searching for property to purchase and rent. The few online real estate portals which did exist were relatively unknown and mostly unutilized. Our business model in Southeast Asia was yet to be proven.

Shortly after the company’s inception, we went out to raise funds to enable us to grow the business across the region. We did ALL the investor rounds, roadshows, pre-roadshows, mini-roadshows, etc. We saw every bank, banker, broker, VC, PE, family office, fund and investor who would meet with us.

The first five people we met said no. The next ten people we met said no. The subsequent 20 people we met said no, and so on, and so on.

It was our 75th investor pitch when someone finally agreed to invest in the business.

The sole reason iProperty exists today is because we persevered.

Imagine if we had given up after the 20th, 30th or even the 74th meeting. It took 75 meetings for someone to finally say “yes, I will give you $2 million for 10% of the business.”

Today that 10% stake is worth $50 million. Today, iProperty is Asia’s leading network of property websites.

Similarly, iflix - which has a 15-million subscriber base across 28 countries, and is emerging markets’ leading on-demand video streaming platform - had 115 rejections before our first investor said yes!

As Ben Horowitz describes in ‘The Struggle’ – sh#t happens. That is the nature of doing business. The grander your ambitions, the greater the challenges you face. The most important thing you can do is persevere.

We’ve had many of those sh#t happens moments where sheer perseverance, and not luck nor skill nor money, kept us going. Some of those moments include:

• Our entire Board of Directors resigning because we were trading whilst insolvent and they didn’t want to be personally liable for our debts.
• Our CFO telling us that our balance sheet was negative (by USD 2 Million!).
• Losing money, EVERY YEAR for 8 years in a row. 
• Not having enough money to pay the monthly salary of my partner and I, for about 23 months in the last 15 years.

I have experienced all of these setbacks and many more. Perseverance allowed us, in the instances above:

• To pay all of our creditors back within 3 years
• Stay alive till the business turned profitable and we had profits to re-invest

Perseverance is the single differentiating factor of successful entrepreneurs and people.

Learning to persevere is one of the most valuable lessons you can learn in both business and life. It is more than just a simple state of mind or being tenacious in the face of failure. Perseverance allows you to accept that you will encounter challenges and occasionally defeat, but in persevering you learn from your mistakes, evolve and move on. 

The road for entrepreneurs is a long and exacting one, both from the initial outset frequently characterized by tough conditions and limited resources as well as ongoing challenges as businesses mature.

Steve Jobs once famously said, “it is pure perseverance, which separates successful entrepreneurs from non-successful ones.” And I have lived and breathed that.

In one last humbling fact, in 2000, after we had almost run out of money and were on the verge of bankrupty, a magazine ran a story on Catcha headlined “Please Stop Dreaming” in reference to our crazy idea to attempt an IPO of our company. Well, guess what, that magazine went bust several years later, and we KEPT DREAMING and we are now 5 IPOs down – with more to come. So here’s to DREAMING and having the perseverance to keep at it.

The Dyson Debacle. Policy intent WAS good. Move on please!

By Mark Goh Aik Leng

Managing Director of Vanilla Law 

I read with interest the response of “BeautifullyIncoherent” in his blog called “TheDyson Debacle- The Difference Between Foreign Investors and Local SMEs. . The thrust of his blog was to highlight the disparity in treatment for foreign direct investments (“FDIs”); as against our local boys/girls who are already invested here.

On the whole I agree with his observations. I do understand also the underlying reasons why we would want to roll out the red carpet to these FDIs. However, I am now wondering whether such a practice has outlived its intended policy reasons? When Singapore was just a developing country, it was a matter of survival that we attract FDIs for money and jobs. I do not think anyone can argue against such a policy and the success which it brought to us.

The world has changed in many ways and is still changing. The most significant of these changes is the ease of doing business overseas. The advent of the digital age, has brought down the cost and barriers to doing business. This does not only bring benefits for the large companies, but also smaller companies.

The irony it seems, is that the larger companies have been quicker to appreciate the change and have been quicker to adapt and exploit this change. To give an an example; in order to shelter itself from tough tax regimes and uncertain political climate like Brexit, they can now easily set up foreign HQ companies in countries where the taxes are lower and the politics are perceptively stable. Command, control and communications are no longer barriers, as there are a  plethora of digital tools which are available to overcome this.

When Dyson announced in May that it was going to invest in a factory in Singapore and give jobs here, did anyone not consider such a statement with a healthy dose of skepticism? I would be very surprised if they were not questioned as to how their plans could be better than attempts made by our local boys/girls back sometime in 2010 to test electric vehicles use on Singapore roads and also grids to support such use. What happened to those tests? What were the results of those test by our local community? If indeed our local tests showed that it was not feasible, why did people believe that a foreign company could do better than our local findings?

Having worked with local SMEs for more than 25 years, I hear from the ground that people who are tasked to execute government policies do not have faith in them. It appears that the top management has got their heart and intent right; however and in reality when it is executed, the stumbling blocks are usually the middle management.

If I had a wish list, I would propose to these middle management people to have faith in our local businesses. While there is some truth that they are slow to adapt; there needs to be patience when working with them. They may appear rough on the outside, but most are good people on the inside. It may seem easier and faster to close deals with large FDIs, but this is a “short cut”, because we are not naive to believe that these FDIs are here for reasons other than our tax regime and our safe haven status.

It may not be that our SMEs are uncooperative; but lack of skills on how to relate with another person in a business setting.

It may not be lack of innovative ideas; but lack the facility of language to articulate their ideas. It may not be myopia; but lack of organisational awareness and skills to manage and work in groups.

The Dyson Debacle – The Difference Between Foreign Investors and Local SMEs

This morning, I got the news that Dyson, the technology company best known for the electronic vacuum cleaner had scrapped its electric car project. This is particularly significant because it was only in May of this year that there was a big fanfare in our local news of how Dyson was making Singapore the centre of its electric car project and there was an even larger song and dance of how Dyson’s boss, Sir James Dyson had decided to shell out pots of money to buy an exceedingly expensive piece of real estate. Now, after all the fanfare, it seems that this “dream project” will not happen and details can be found at:

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/dyson-kills-singapore-electric-car-project-with-closure-of-auto-division

This juicy bit of news has helped to stir a sore spot with SME owners, who have long complained that the government has gone all out to win foreign investment while neglecting the SME community. While the government would undoubtedly dispute this claim and point out to the pots of money that it lavishes out on grants and schemes to help the SME community, there are plenty who would argue that this is more of a PR exercise than actual help.

Having spent most of my working life as a one-man shop and having worked with both the Economic Development Board (“EDB”) and Enterprise Singapore and Spring Singapore, I’m inclined to sympathise with the view that its “foreign companies” that get the lion’s share of glory. A comparison of the government agencies says it all.

EDB, which is all about bringing foreign investors into the country (read – money into the country), works like Aladdin’s Genie. All you must do is to ask, and things will get done. You want a minister to grace your opening, it shall be done. If you need press coverage, they’ll make sure the press attend.

Things are a wee bit slower and Enterprise Singapore, which is all about helping the local SME expand and grow in foreign markets (read – money out of the country) struggles to get a working microphone into its events.

To anyone who has seen the difference in how these organisations work, it becomes clear how the powers that be view things. Singapore, we often reminded, needs foreign investors to give the local people jobs and to generate wealth. Home grown SMEs by contrast, don’t seem to be regarded as doing very much.

This is a shame really. In most parts of the world, the SME’s form the backbone of the economy. While multinational corporations bestride the world and cause us to marvel at their resources, it’s the SMEs who have to stay in the country and make things work for the community they operate in.

In most countries, it’s the SME business that are viewed as heroes of the business world. I take the UK as an example. Napoleon dismissed them as a “Nation of Shopkeepers,” but if you watched the Iron Lady, it was people like Mr. Roberts (father of Margaret Thatcher) who argued that this was the strength of the nation.

In the day and age of disruption, small companies will play an even more vital role in the economy. They’re the ones who do the “innovation” which is so crucial to the modern system. I remember my one of my favourite data analytics entrepreneurs who said, “You put a lot of money into the EDB and bringing foreign investors into the country – but you’d get a lot better returns if you pumped of that money into the SME sector.”

I am by no means denigrating the role of the EDB and the importance of foreign investors in our local economy (I sell to them), this entrepreneurs’ words are worth remembering. An investment in local sme’s would give us better returns in terms of job and productivity growth, which in return would be best for the government’s coffers.

The Problem with Our Youth

It’s been something of a month for people who believe in free expression. It started in Hong Kong, when people took to the streets to protest an extradition bill that would have allowed the Hong Kong Government to extradite Hong Kong citizens to China and then moved onto the world’s most vocal teenager, Ms. Greta Thunberg, dressing down the world’s powers for doing nothing about climate change.

While the pictures coming out of Hong Kong have not been pretty and the usual Tramps have been complaining that Ms. Thunberg is being abused by evil people trying to impose a horrible regime of environmental friendliness and democracy, these have been heartening. It’s good to see Chinese (I stress the Chinese part because I’m living in a Chinese society that claims protest are un-Chinese) people standing up for themselves and its also heartening to see 16-year old kids doing something greater than themselves.

However, I live in a society that does not see youthful activism as anything beneficial. Our media makes it a point to let us see how chaotic Hong Kong has become and I remember one of our talking heads writing a letter to tell our youth that they need to be more “practical.”

To me, this sounds like poppycock or as they say, my people don’t get the point about being young. In most parts of the world, young people are exceedingly idealistic and only become less so when the reality of having to make a living sets in. I think of my history teacher who once said that the most depressing thing about “young conservative” is the fact that young people are not supposed to be conservative.

Many people might say that its all part of the Singapore government’s obsession with control. However, could there be a more sinister fact at play, namely the fact that while young people elsewhere are out trying to save the world, our young people are getting caught doing all sorts of kinky things.

While the Hong Protestors and Ms. Thunberg were out there trying to save the world, the National University of Singapore (NUS) was forced to deal with a spate of “sex” related crimes, where various male students were caught taking upskirt videos or planting cameras in the girl’s showers. The problem was further compounded when one of the guys got let off with a slap on the wrist because the judge didn’t want to ruin the young man’s future (Singapore has a Brock Tylor of its own).

Plenty is being said about all of this so, I’ll leave the legalistic comments to other people. What I will question is the fact that all these guys doing this are all intelligent and from reasonably well to do families. As one a Grab Driver that I was ridding with said, “They’re not ugly – why can’t they just a girl and do what they need to do rather than resorting to these things.”

Let’s put it this way – sexual deviants are always portrayed as being from the lower educated portions of society. Some of them are considered “slow” by “normal” society. Much of the unspoken focus on sexual safety in Singapore remains on the poorer parts of town. Our Red-Light districts are portrayed as being places for foreign workers (read – dark people from Shitholes) to let out sperm rather than planning to rape our pure and chaste women (read – the lighter skinned ones).

Yet, despite all of this, every instance of sexual misbehavior that you read about usually involves someone with a decent job (teacher, engineer etc) or someone with decent world-class education (read – university graduate).

Sure, I can appreciate young men being “silly” when it comes to trying to get laid. I was young and I think I would have been better off in life if I had controlled my small head a bit more.

I also appreciate the fact that everyone has different sexual kicks. I find certain features of women very attractive and I can appreciate that the next guy may not share my appreciation for those said features or the next guy may not appreciate women’s bodies at all. I take the position that one shouldn’t judge a sexual act as long as it is done between two consenting adults and in the privacy of the bedroom.

Apparently, that makes me a little strange in Singapore. We have a brilliant law professor who spends her days trying to keep homosexual sex between two consenting adults in the privacy of the bedroom to be illegal and yet, when you have a couple of boys filming women in intimate moments without consent of the said women, our brilliant law professor is strangely silent.

Something is clearly wrong here and I blame it on the frustrated “moral” conservatives who have taken over our middle class. These are the people who have trained their kids not to masturbate because its immoral or to head down to the red-light district because it is exploitative of women. These are the people who forget that it is not a sign of moral superiority to not act on them.

Building an Exceptional Retail Customer Experience is Not an Option, It’s a Must

By Terry O'Connor
Executive Advisor at Courts Asia

It’s the end of the 2010s, customers are changing and competition is intensifying. Customers who walk into your store have already done their research on the products they want to buy, even before stepping into the store itself. If your tactic to win is through discounted pricing, your best bet would be low margins and eventually insolvency in the long-run.

So what is the best approach for customers who already know what they want?

Make the actual product a “souvenir” , and the exceptional customer experience the ‘product’ of their shopping trip. The winning strategy is to create the feeling  that the shopper is the most important person in the store. If you are solely counting on your low price and good quality product as your unique selling propositions, you are directly competing with every other retailer online or down the street. But when the customers have an exceptional shopping experience in your store, they will return for that experience again and again.

How do you create such exceptional retail customer experience?

It  is neither impossible nor difficult, but it requires training, determination and planning. Retail companies should invest in retail sales training for their employees because employees who are informed, educated and well-trained, will have greater confidence and job satisfaction. When employees know what they are doing and feel confident, it will translate through their expressions and actions, and customers notice this. Your employees are your frontline. If they are confident and happy, so are your customers, and this should be everyone’s goal.

Through the right sales training, your employees will know that first impression matters. Saying basic greetings and having a genuine interest to help customers is the first step towards engaging them and building rapport during their shopping experience.

At Courts, our sales staff are trained to abide by the ‘Customer Service High Fives’, which are five basic steps for a fulfilling shopping experience. This includes  enquiring what the customers’ search criteria are, the purpose of the product and how it will fit into the customers’ lifestyles based on their needs. One factor to bear in mind is as the company gets bigger, uniformity of performance is an issue as well, but this regresses with time, commitment and employees imbuing our customer-centric training.

This method is also practised by Hong Kong retailer, Mabelle, who uses its growing scale to develop consumer insight capabilities. Their store managers understand their shoppers’ profiles (local vs mainland Chinese) and customise assortments and sales pitches to match customer needs. The result: smaller stores with higher sales success rates.

Despite the rising trend of online and mobile shopping, customers still crave the personal touch, evident by the growing preference to ‘ROPO’ (Research Online, Purchase Offline). Hence, our stores are where we create meaningful engagement with our customers in the form of exceptional in-store experience. Retailers need to step up the game in improving the retail customer experience and not solely focus on discounted prices and online offerings. Brick-and-mortar stores are still significant in the retail world, and it is an avenue for retailers to show what they have that sets them apart from their competitors. 

Retailers need to remember that a negative retail interaction has a longer shelf life than a terrific and rewarding experience. Customer experience has become a must – so either evolve or face being obsolete.