Went for a “In search of Blue Ocean” seminar last night, as recommended by a friend. I’ve attended a few of this type of seminar and people would just say all these so-called “introductory” seminars are tools to lure people to sign up for the “actual” seminar behind, provided by the same company, which can cost up to a few thousand bucks.
Many may just think, What can I really learn in just a 2 hours short seminar anyway? But to me, these are platforms that keep us updated with things that happen around us, that can affect our lifestyle, and which we never realize…
…until they hit us…
For example, the establishment of East Asia Community (东亚共同体) by ASEAN Plus Three (东盟 10 + 3), a cooperation between ASEAN countries and 3 East Asia giants; China, Korea and Japan. The community aims to broadened and deepened many areas of cooperation among its membership countries, including politic, economy, tourism, agriculture… etc. This idea was proposed by our ex-prime minister during the 90’s, but only then was taken into serious consideration a few years back. The objective is to unify the economy among the membership countries, providing free tax zone, as well as to cultivate cooperation among the countries during financial and economy crisis.
Malaysia has been a target of many foreign countries as our “culture blend” was considered best managed among the ASEAN countries. We have attracted heaps of foreign investors to invest in many projects, such as the Iskandar Project in Johor and the proposed project to build a bridge connecting Malacca and Sumatera.
Sounds great huh…?
But how many of us living in Malaysia will actually consider what are the long term consequences behind the establishment? I mean, is there any free lunch in reality?
Our country has great potential and resources, but we do not have the talent and ability to expand them. All of these projects, which were suppose to be utilized by the locals to increase the country’s income, have all been “sub-contracted” by foreign countries. Our government has directly “outsourced” all these projects, and yet still proudly claiming “Malaysia Boleh!”
We have many projects with great future, but most of them failed after a few years of development. This is mainly because we failed to establish the right system for everything we do. As mentioned by the late W. E. Deming, most of the problems that occurred in an organization, are due to the inefficiency of the system.
If employee under-perform, it’s the fault of the employer who failed to establish a good system.
If underlings misbehave, it’s the fault of the leader who failed to establish a good system.
If co-workers couldn’t meet expectation, it’s the fault of the boss who failed to establish a good system…
… and in our country, we failed to do the same as well.
Imagine, when Asia’s giant such as China’s market begins to take a big step into Malaysia, how would it affect us? Let take Starbuck Coffee for instance, a cup of coffee would normally cost RM10 or so. But China’s investor and entrepreneur can provide the same coffee bean, with same taste and coffee quality, but at less than 40% of Starbuck’s cost. For us consumers, that sounds marvelous. But how would this affect our country’s economy?
In China, franchising is not a matter of how many hundreds of franchises, but they count by how many THOUSANDS across the country! Numbers are just small matters…
How will our local products survive when people can provide the same, but higher quality products at lower cost in Malaysia?
How will most of our local entrepreneurs react when the foreign investors bring in this competition?
Are we going to put ourselves into the price slashing war, and end up drowning in the Red Ocean?
Some may procrastinate, saying that we would look for QUALITY than QUANTITY, but let’s be frank… how many of us have always preferred Malaysian Made Product than China Made Product?
As you can see, other countries are advancing in fast pace due to this “economy war”. Everyone are implementing innovation, thinking hard of how to further improve their business as well as the country’s future economy. Unfortunately in our country, the most popular topic we can listen everyday would be “political war”. All parties fighting among each other over who should be in “business“… but when there’s a problem, it’ll turn into “It’s none of my business“.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are at war… economically of course, and yet most of us are still unaware of it. In two months time (beginning of year 2010), we are going to battle with these people (foreign investors and entrepreneurs).
So how well are we prepared for it?
