Weekend Snippet: 15 April 2006

Singapore’s SMEs lag Chinese rivals on innovation, entrepreneurship: survey dated 12 April 2006, ChannelNewsAsia.

I have actually glimpsed through this article quickly three days back and wanted to put it on News Stop.

However, it slipped my mind and I just remembered this morning to put it up. Here are some quoted parts of the article to illustrate some thoughts of mine before I make my comments:

“Singapore’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are rated top among their peers in Southeast Asia on competitiveness….

But they are still a shade behind SMEs in China, Japan and South Korea…..

The survey, conducted by logistics giant UPS, also found that the long-term sustainability of Singapore’s SMEs is threatened by a lack of entrepreneurship and innovation.

China’s SMEs are no pushovers when it comes to competitiveness.

According to the UPS Asia Business Monitor survey, China’s SMEs were the most competitive in Asia for the second year running.

“It is tied to the economic growth that you see in China, that explosive growth over the past few years. That explosive growth fuels the innovation, fuels the entrepreneurial spirit. I think those are the two critical factors that drive their competitiveness,” said Joseph Guerrisi, Vice President for Marketing, UPS Asia Pacific region.

For Singapore’s SMEs, the survey suggests that it is the lack of entrepreneurship and innovation that puts them behind their peers in China, Japan and Korea.

UPS says it is important for Singapore’s SMEs to build up on these two areas instead of just trying to bring down their labour costs.

Actually, I am not surprised by the results. Of course, like all articles, the article started to self-congraulate ourselves to be the best in southeast Asia, but that is not enough. The survey supposted two prevailing hypotheses of mine that I have always asserted: (i) Singaporeans like to use to cut corners like not hiring enough people to generate revenue, instead of find entrepreneurial means to bootstrap and (ii) we are still lagging behind China because of speed and competitiveness. It is the pace which people use to match their counterparts out there. At the end of the day, if you don’t have the fire in the belly and just stick to the corner, it’s hard to compete with the big guns out there.

Hope that all of you have a good Easter weekend.

Technorati Tags: Small Medium Enterprises, Singapore