Commentary

With consumers demanding access to more content than ever before, anywhere and anytime, the mobile broadband market has potential for huge growth.

Alignment of business and IT or rather non-alignment is an aspect mauled to shreds. Some bluntly put it that alignment is non-existent and its two parallel organization. While some credibly believes its matter of right attitude and few frameworks, I haven't come across a proven way to resolve the issue completely.

Half of Singapore workers (49%) are now free from the shackles of their desks reveals the latest survey commissioned by Regus, which canvassed over 16,000 professionals in more than 80 countries. These professionals are free to work from locations other than their company’s main offices for half a week or more helping them reduce the overall time spent commuting and giving them the freedom to choose work locations closer to home. Businesses have increasingly been offering flexible working practices to workers as morale and health benefits become common knowledge, but this research confirms that 69% of employees would also work harder, benefiting the company, if they could reduce their commute. The Regus research asked Singapore professionals how they would use the time gained through cutting their commute. Top activities selected were:

The new realities

To understand the Singapore story, one need only look to the city-state to see why consumers make their brand choices. Singapore is a densely populated, urban nation with a highly educated and affluent workforce. With Singaporeans being notoriously tech-savvy and career driven, this has created an innate desire to be constantly connected. This also translates to a willingness to spend on the latest gadgetry.

What do topless six-packed hunks, videos of scantily-clad women teaching Mandarin and millions of social media mentions mean about changing attitudes to ‘sexual selling’ in Singapore?

If you have taken that first step to start your business, congratulations! You’re in for a treat that will take you to the highs of highs and to the lows of lows.

Over dinner the other night some chaps at the other end of the table were discussing how clever they had been with their Singapore property investments, my end of the table was discussing the latest mall opening so I carried on nodding but turned my attention back to these savvy-investors...

Jonathan Wong, a trader based in Singapore, strides across the trading floor with a microphone tucked neatly into  his ear as the lights on his trading turret beep urgently, indicating three additional incoming calls.

Singapore, our little red dot, is an island of service enterprises. As a customer, if all you need is “Yes, Sir!”; “Thank  you, Sir.” I would say then that you have been served.

Recently reading “Singaporean qualifications don’t mean a thing without experience” I was provoked to write in defence of all those who are qualified and are applying for jobs throughout the island.

Today's empowered consumer means traditional forms of marketing and acquisition won't work.

Singapore is a paper-chase country. Every Singaporean is chasing after paper qualifications to excel in school and career. Is collecting paper qualifications important? You bet!

Employees are the building blocks of a company, yet they are often neglected, as seen by the rising cases of employees collapsing from exhaustion, and even reports of employee abuse.

Firstly, I must confess that the content of this article will not go down too well with many Singaporeans and maybe some Indonesians. I grew up in Singapore, born and bred here – except for a short stint overseas for my university education. This is based on my observations and after thoughts after one of my recent business trips to Jakarta.

Singapore has always emphasized high value added economic activities when soliciting overseas investments and devising development programmes. In fact I myself was recruited to NUS because of one such push started in 1980 with the establishment of National Computer Board, to promote the widespread use of IT in business and in society generally.