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Singapore "Wanna Create an Entrepreneurial Culture?" Back to homepage |
| Last revised: 27 June, 2001 |
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| Wanna Create An Entrepreneurial Culture? Article posted on a Singapore government website that was asking for feedback on how to remake Singapore (www.remakingsingapore.gov.sg). This article written in response to the question posed below. Beyond Careers: New Roads to Success We now have an escalator approach to success. Young Singaporeans strive to get on the right track in education, graduate, get on to one of the established career tracks by working for a large company, and expect to be set for life. What needs to be changed in order for us to be a more entrepreneurial society? How will education, attitudes and values need to be changed? The Economic Review Committee will be looking mainly at the economic and financial incentives. This committee will look at the soft side. How will we stimulate creativity, greater risk taking, higher tolerance of failure, and provide alternative role models of success? 1. Abolish the Singapore scholarship system in its present form. This has served us well for the last 2 decades. But the appropriateness of long term scholarship bonds in rapidly changing market conditions should be examined. Many scholars are just "serving out their time", present in body but elsewhere in spirit. And this spirit might include entrepreneurial ambitions. Instead of 5+ year bond in return for a fully funded scholarship, give the scholar an option. You can either get full scholarship in return for a 3 year bond, or you can decide at the end of your degree to convert your scholarship to a loan. You decide, based on your career options and interests at the end of your degree. This is what happens in leading US consulting firms like McKinsey and The Boston Consulting Group with regard to funding an MBA programme for their entry-level consultants. MBA-wannabes will get full funding, but if they choose not to join the firm after graduation, they have to pay back the funds. Usually their new employers will foot the bill or at least arrange for a loan scheme with a bank. In practice if one were to do this for Singapore, we need to get real abut the length of the bond period. Anything above 3 years is too long in my opinion, but we still see 7 year bonds around. A side benefit of implementing something like this is that a lot more scholarships will have to be offered to get the same number of recruits that government agencies want - which will mean a bigger pool of people who will benefit from scholarship/loan opportunities. 2. Break up the GLCs into smaller business units, and encourage management buy-outs (MBOs) It pains me to see some GLCs speak of 4 core businesses when core really means one. Break them up! Unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of the business unit heads. Spin off business units, encourage management buy-outs of stakes in these business units and see what these ex-business units can do as a focused independent company. Sever the relationship at the board level between the parent company and the spin-off entity so that the latter can truly become independent and even deal with the former parent's competitors. The days of leaving management of companies to a few trusted hands shows the government's own risk averseness. Time to walk the talk. You might discover some hidden talent within the 2nd level management ranks. No doubt you will win some and lose some. A secondary benefit of a proliferation of MBOs in Singapore is that the bond market will come to life (as management teams seek financing to buy-out business units). Investment bankers will be kept busy, and maybe all those retrenched folks in the financial services sector will be rehired again.(I have dealt with some representatives of a GLC and they are a royal pain - all looking to look good internally but not really caring about whether customer/partners needs are met. Maybe, as an independent entity, where their survival depends on their customers, their customers' voices might be heard) 3. Encourage franchising. A two tiered approach in this area. First, assist some good local products and services to develop a franchise system that can be expanded internationally. Second, encourage Singaporeans, particularly those recently retrenched, to consider franchising as a first step into the world of entrepreneurship. With regard to the first, it is refreshing to see the worldwide Coffee Bean head franchise bought out by a Singaporean, and now being expanded internationally. There is Ya-Kun Kaya toast, who are beginning their journey in franchising. Some possibilities: a fish head curry franchise (like Muthu's Curry), a roti prata and teh tarik franchise, a kueh franchise (like Bengawan Solo), a nyonya food franchise (sorry the franchise opportunities examples used so far revolve around food, but hey, this is a core competency of Singaporeans). Subsidise the costs of setting up a franchise system, and get some professionals on the government's payroll to identify, encourage and advise local successful businesses to build a franchise system. Continued... |