Postcard From Singapore
I have been in Singapore this past week at the INSEAD business school’s Asia campus. Today, I spoke at their Global Entrepreneurship Forum, which gave me an interesting window into entrepreneurship in East Asia. The interest in entrepreneurship and the energy is great. The ecosystem, of course, is significantly less mature. What VCs want to invest in is also somewhat customized to the nature of the ecosystem around them: get to revenue quickly, as opposed to long gestation projects.
Singapore itself, as Frank Levinson aptly describes, is perhaps the most modern city in the world. Everything runs like clockwork, with abundant use of technology and process automation. Smartcards are ubiquitous, something Dominique promises to give me a lecture on. Dominique used to run Gemplus Corp. and happens to know the field really well. He has sold many systems like this to the Singapore government.
On a lighter note, The Raffles Hotel still has British-era rules. We wanted to have tea at the Tiffin Room at the Raffles, but we were in very informal outfits and sandals. It turns out that the Tiffin Room doesn’t allow guests in unless they’re properly dressed. This reminds me of Calcutta Club during my childhood … dress code and all, and people being refused entry. In America, by and large, we don’t see much of this kind of formality anymore. Anyway, we enjoyed high tea at the Raffles bakery instead, which was quite lovely.
This weekend, we will be in Cambodia. I will send you a postcard when I get a chance!
Didn’t realize how “connected” you are to INSEAD. Perhaps a future topic might be application of Blue Ocean Strategy to entrepreneurship, start ups… more current apps than are in the book. Most cases in the book relate more to existing large companies.
Hi Bob,
Here’s an idea for you. If you like, come up with a proposal on this topic for a Guest Column series. As you know, I offer Guest columns to a diverse set of people. I like the Blue Ocean Strategy model, but right now, I have no bandwidth to take this on. But if you are interested in taking this topic on as a guest series, I will certainly be willing to guide you, and set you up as a guest author.
And thanks for your enthusiasm for my writings.
Regards,
Sramana
Hi,
I am very glad to know you have shown great interest in Blue Ocean Strategy.
I want to inform you that UCSI Blue Ocean Strategy Regional Centre Singapore Office is now setup. Please visit our website http://www.ucsi-bosrc.com for further information.
Thank you.
Best Regards
Sam Wong