Complusory for Foreigners to take English course for service staff. How about Lecturers?

Today I read about attempts to improve the service level of the staff by making it compulsory for foreigners to take the English course. But I think they have forgotten about 1 more area. How about lecturers?

In some schools, it's compulsory for students to take an English basic course if your English is not that good. However, someone forgot to make this compulsory for the lecturers too! For some reason, since many years ago, it is not compulsory for lecturers to speak proper English. To me, I find this extremely weird. Sometimes, you cannot even understand a word that the lecturer is saying. And guess what? Sometimes the lecturers also do not understand the questions pose to them.

So how do students pass their exams? It's called Internet and textbooks.

Luckily, this does not apply to all foreign lecturers but based on my "spies", it seems that the number of lecturers not being able to speak proper English is not decreasing. In fact, I do not even require them to speak proper English. Conversational English is enough.

The number one requirement for lecturers should be the ability for them to communicate to the students. Isn't that the point in learning?? I find this extremely ironic.

Google Streetview has finally arrived in Singapore!

Google Streetview has finally arrived in Singapore a little over a year after I posted about it. How do you activate Google Streetview? There are a few ways of doing it. Easiest would be to search for the address (e.g. Orchard Road). On the left hand side, you will see a More link. Click on it and select the Street View option.

The other method is quite interesting. Just zoom in to any part of Singapore. You'll see a orange man on top of the zoom slider bar. Drag the orange man out of the zoom slider bar and "deposit" it anywhere on the map. You'll automatically be in the Street View mode.

Pretty cool right? Hop on to Google Maps for Singapore and try it out. :)

For your information, ERP and bus information is also available now in Google Maps Singapore. Pretty neat.

Iron-clad guarantees? No such thing in the real world

I'm surprised that even at this age, there's still people who thinks that there's such thing as iron-clad guarantees. I remembered reading somewhere about someone requesting the annuity payouts from CPF to be guaranteed (iron-clad).

Well first of all, there is a reason why it's called an annuity payout, and not a pension payout. The annuity provided by CPF is basically a longevity insurance product where a series of payouts will be given until you have passed on. The amount of regular payouts given depends on the initial lump sum that's put into the annuity and the investment returns of that sum of money.

Why couldn't CPF guarantee the payment amount? As much as I would love that, this will not happen because money doesn't fall down from the sky. If these payouts are guaranteed, the money will come from somewhere and it will either translate to higher income taxation, or GST. Either case, I'm not in favour of it. I'm also totally against borrowing money to fund this kind of expenditure. Look at the Dubai World fiasco now and you'll understand the reason why. Even a GLC company in Dubai can default on its loan.

Comparisons can be made to the private sector annuities and some of them are more attractive. However, there's one thing that everyone seemed to forget. CPF will never be bankrupt (I hope so), but private companies will. That's one of the main reasons why CPF took over the management of the annuity instead of leaving it to the private sector as it was originally planned. Many people complained about it, myself included. Just imagine... Even a hundred + year old company like Lehman Brothers can collapse, so which company won't?

Seriously, I would think that a basic finance cost for all secondary or JC students is in order. With this kind of education, it would be easier for the public to understand why are certain decisions made in the future.

There is no such thing as iron-clad guarantees in the real world. Anyone who does any form of investments will know that.

How do you accurately measure productivity?

Recently there have been news saying that there is a reduction of productivity and that this results in a loss of competitiveness.

Basically, I think this is rubbish because I find that the measurement of productivity is quite gray. Using an example... Is the person that makes 20 sales a month productive, or the person who assists in the administrative work of the salesman that makes 20 sales a month productive? The problem with productivity is that the calculation is quite gray (at least to me) and that very often, the excuse of increasing productivity is just to increase the workload of the common worker.

Using the above example, What happens if the administrative staff is removed because they are deem unproductive? Do you think that the salesman can still make 20 sales a month or will the salesman just make 10 sales because he/she will drown in the administrative work of those 10 sales? I will say the latter is more probable.

In this case, trying to make your business more productive will result in a vicious cycle because the end-result will that it will look like a cost-cutting initiative. Productivity will go down while costs is being cut because of the simple fact that they don't find any reason to stay. Trying to squeeze more sales from a person need not mean that you should just pile this person with work and see if he/she swims or drown.

That's why I think measurement of effectiveness of the work force is best measured using the companies' results report. If the staff is productive, it will translate to the company's overall bottom line. It's just that simple. The people supporting the backend work should not be forgotten and treated as un-productive because they do fill an important role within the organisation. Without them greasing the wheels so as to speak, your top people will just drown in the mountains of paperwork needed.

So take those productivity figures with a pinch of salt. The boss will be quite familiar with the company's best interests and change accordingly.

Borders bookshops in UK goes under administration!

For those that think that the economy is going to recover, think again. A year ago, Woolsworth (supermarket chain) went into administration and was subsequently closed down. Now, it seems that Borders bookshops in UK, numbering about 45 stores, are also going into administration. They are now looking for a buyer for those stores and will remain open in the time being.

It seems though that Borders Singapore and Borders UK are under different management. Borders UK is under a private equity firm called Valco while Borders Singapore is under REDgroup Retail, which manages the bookstores for Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Therefore, I do not think Borders Singapore will be affected by this piece of news.

But still, this does not bode well for traditional brick and mortar businesses. That means the dominoes may still be falling but somehow they are out of view and out of sight. This global recession stems from the financial sector and I don't think it will bounce back up so fast. Today's news even talk about the Dubai government that may default on their borrowings!

Keep your eyes open and be thankful for whatever that you have now, especially your rice bowl.

Fear that you do not have value

I quote from Jennifer James:

Jealousy is simply and clearly the fear that you do not have value. Jealousy scans for evidence to prove the point - that others will be preferred and rewarded more than you. There is only one alternative - self-value. If you cannot love yourself, you will not believe that you are loved. You will always think it's a mistake or luck. Take your eyes off others and turn the scanner within. Find the seeds of your jealousy, clear the old voices and experiences. Put all the energy into building your personal and emotional security. Then you will be the one others envy, and you can remember the pain and reach out to them.

Mandating using only local software? You will just bring about the downfall of the country's IT industry

Recently a certain country has mandated their government agencies to give preference to local software. To me, that's the biggest mistake you can ever make in policy-making.

Why? Reason is very simple. If your local developers do produce quality software, they will not worry about not finding deals. People will want to look for you because they know that you can be "trusted" to provide a solution.

The problem comes when you do not have the expertise in providing that solution. This is where the big players come in. Most of them will partner with locals as it will be easier for them to allocate their resources. In return, they sometimes share with them their expertise and knowledge. This is the way local developers can grow.

By giving preference to local developers, you're sending the message to these big guys that you do not welcome them. So why would they help your local developers to improve? There's nothing in it for them. Your local developers will also not be able to grow as fast in terms of their professional expertise because there is no "mentor" to guide them.

It'll be interesting to see that country's IT expertise 5 years down the road. Only the very best will be able to survive. Those people that want to join the industry will drop out one by one as there is no mentor to guide them. IT literacy may drop as a result and there will be shortage of skilled IT developers.

Worth it? Looks like another short-term view of looking at things.

Cloud Computing does not cut down duplication of resources. Virutalisation does!

Someone wrote an article saying that cloud computing cuts down total cost of ownership because of savings in duplication of resources needed for each application (e.g. servers). That to me is not the true advantage of cloud computing.

Reason is very simple. You can achieve the same savings just by going for the virtualisation route. Once you have virtualised your servers, it's quite simple to manage your resources on demand. Virtualisation may be quite painful to implement at the start but once implemented, you will be able to make better use of your server resources, especially for those instances where you buy 1 server just to run that special batch job from midnight to 4am in the morning. Allocation of resources can also be dynamic, moving resources from one application to another when the application needs it most.

So you want to cut down your TCO? Virtualisation is your answer.

Inflation is down 0.8%

These are the Singapore inflation rates for 2009:
January: 2.9%
February: 1.9%
March: 1.6%
April: -0.7%
May: -0.3%
June: -0.5%
July: -0.5%
August: -0.3%
September: -0.4%
October: -0.8%

Clothing and Footwear and Health Care has resumed leading the charge, rising by 2.7% and 2.2% respectively year on year. Housing costs once again decreased the most for the month of August (-4.7%) but will most probably increase soon due to the increase in property tax. As indicated previously, transport and communication inflation has also turned positive to 0.6%.

Sales seem to have slightly increase, based on what I could see in Orchard Road. However, I do not think this spike will push the inflation back to positive. I will still stick to my earlier post.

No Good Service? That's because of a short term view

The last time I had a good experience with service staff in Singapore was in a Turkish restaurant in Shaw Plaza. Even though there were 7 of us, each ordering different dishes, he remembered every dish that was called including the person who ordered it. There was no need for any prompting from any of us on who called what dish. The food was of course great.

End result? I will recommend this restaurant to more of my friends if they have a sudden craving for Turkish food or some food out of the ordinary. That's the dividends that good service will give if practiced sincerely and I do not mean those half-hearted greetings when you enter the shop, or the memorised script that some service staff read out as if they were sitting for an exam. Whether the staff means what they say, you can read it all just by the tone of the voice.

When you're looking at good service level in general, you have to think longer term. You might not get the results you want immediately and people may also take advantage of you. Bear in mind though that there are always a few rotten eggs in the basket. You should not think of the few bad eggs and instead think of the other good ones, one of which may be a hidden golden egg. If just because of those few bad eggs and you decided not make an effort to provide good service, you'll not be able to differentiate your business from the rest and you can get ready to shuttle down your doors soon as you will lack customer loyalty.

Good service also need not necessary mean that you have to lose money. A small gesture on the business owners' part can sometimes go a long way. After coming back from Japan, I miss the service that I've encountered there. Bear in mind that they do not even have service charge!

One very simple example. Going into a restaurant or even a small shop, water will be served to you the moment you sit down. Menu will be given and the highlights will be briefly mentioned. All these was done even though there's no service charge. Over here, some businesses even charge for plain water. Good grief.

This is the kind of good service that people will remember and this in a way encourages customer loyalty. People will want to go back to that shop because they enjoy being serviced by the staff. What consumers want to know is that the business is really concerned on what they want and not just to earn a quick buck.

Do not under-estimate word-of-mouth advertisement. It can make or break a business.