Singaporean Entrepreneurs

Singaporean entrepreneurs tend to think that innovation is something that happens in a dark, hidden room where no secrets can be leaked. The guard their ideas with such ferocity that even during a brainstorming session, few will speak up and many will save their best thoughts for themselves. The worst case of this kiasusism that we have witnessed is when students as young as those still in high school refuse to collaborate with their teammates on projects or hand in their proposals without a contract!

We had one student from a notoriously “elite” Singapore school tell us during a workshop on Marketing, “what if you use my ideas? will you pay me?” Not only was it the height of hubris (and the fall was visibly imminent), it was just plain sad. If ideas were a dime a dozen fifty years ago, today, with the internet, they’re a penny a hundred. His teammates, to their credit, shut him up and pulled him away.

Let’s face it, there are very few industries that can claim any sort of technological advancement/secrets today. With so many smart, skilled, motivated workers with the ability to reverse engineer all sorts of products & services, hardly any business, if any, can expect to cling onto profits for years due to heavily guarded innovative breakthroughs.

Witness for example, the much ballyhooed iPhone which has delayed its “official presence” in Asia again. America, as with the rest of the world, were wowed by the amazing features of the phone. There was one country though, that shrugged and asked, “erhm, yah?”

Yes, the Japanese already had phones that sported all the stuff that Jobs demonstrated, and more! Their most basic phones came with multi-mega pixel cameras, mp3 players, PDAs, had web access readers, had touch screen versions, GPS, recorders, and could be programmed to activate the home oven (seriously). And yes, the Singaporeans knew about it. They had been drooling over Japanese phones (via the internet) for the longest time but had no access to them due to the different phone networks and the fact that the Japanese had no intention of bringing the phones overseas.

To prove that the iPhone was nothing new, within months of the press release, and even before the launch of the iPhone itself, Korean & Taiwanese phones (LG, Samsung, Dopod) already hit the shelves with the same technology that Jobs demonstrated. It wasn’t as sleekly designed, but the point is, there was no real technological/innovative advantage for the iPhone. It was just great product design. Apple probably knew that and thus the scheduled press release so many months before launch.

What was surprising was Apple’s inability to see the flaw in their business strategy (on tie ups with telcos). What were they thinking when they thought they could “lock” the iPhone so that it could only be used by the telco carrier you bought it from? This practice has been widely used in Asia since the birth of the moblie phone (well, after it became less than 5 kg), and locking doesn’t work except for people who have no intention of switching carriers or going overseas.

What an incredible oversight! What an insulated view of the world!

Every other corner, in practically any bustling metropolis in Asia, you can find someone who can “unlock” your phone for you. Within days of the launch of iPhone, Singaporeans already had their hands on them, shipped over via Fedex by friends in the US. And the phones were all promptly “unlocked”. It wasn’t long before iPhones across America regained their ability to be used regardless of the phone company you signed up with. (Let Freedom Ring! Pun Intended) Estimates today have “illegally unlocked” iPhones at 46%. Close to half! Businessweek reports, “On Jan. 22, Apple reported that it sold 3.7 million units of its smartphones worldwide through the end of 2007. But AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone reseller and by far the largest buyer of the devices, reported that its subscribers activated fewer than 2 million units last year.”

There goes the Apple business strategy to milk the user for funds (via use) well beyond the worth of the hardware.

The phenomena described is the main reason for Apple’s delay in coming into Asia. They are rethinking their business & product strategy. But as they continue to hold off customers, the appetite for the phone is also waning. There is absolutely nothing novel about the iPhone anymore. Dopod’s HTC which is less than a third of the price of the iPhone (with a 2 year contract), can do everything the iPhone does, at a much lighter weight, and is just as sleek. Should the iPhone ever launch here (we’re tired of waiting frankly), it better have a lot more new features.

So what’s the lesson here? It’s a Disney song. “It’s a small world after all.” And only getting smaller. Innovation today, needs to be collaborative, not just for companies who are international in nature, but even for small businesses. Ideas are everywhere, not just in America, Japan, Western Europe. As much as people think China, for example, simply copies, the fact is, they don’t. Right now, they’re copying because they are so far behind, but give them 3-5 more years and you’ll be surprised. This is a country that invented paper, silk, gun powder, political & banking systems, while others were still wondering how to organize large groups of people. For anyone to think that their country and their countrymen are somehow superior to the rest of the world, is foolhardy. And yes, we can already see the fall.