Inflation is down 0.4%

These are the Singapore inflation rates for 2015:
January: -0.4%

Both Education & Food inflation again rose by 3% and 2.2% respectively year on year. Education & Food inflation trend continued upwards from last month. Both Transport and Housing & Utilities inflation has trended lower, continuing the trend from last month.

Other than Education, Food inflation has also continued the trend upwards as mentioned last month. However, the basket of inflation items and baseline has been changed so it's difficult to see how the trend will go.

I do not think Singapore will go into deflation, not after the upcoming transport hike and petrol hike.

Looking at single bid from a business perspective

P1: There are 2 companies that will be able to help us better run this operation as this is their area of expertise.

P2: Lets invite both of the companies to submit a quotation.


1 month later...


P1: Did both of the companies get back to us?

P2: One did and one did not. Company A that got back to us has a track record of running our smaller operations. Their system is not tuned though to run such a large operation but they will fine tune it to fit into our operations at a cost.

P1: Will we be able to afford to accept Company A's proposal?

P2: We have the resources. If we do not accept Company A's proposal, we would have no other choice but to run the operations ourselves. This is not our area of expertise and we also do not have sufficient manpower to undertake such a task. This may result in a lowering of satisfaction for our core business as resources have to be diverted to learn this new area of expertise. We will also need time to understand the present operations which we do not have.

P1: Given that our current vendor will be leaving soon, it's important that someone comes in quickly so that the knowledge can be transferred and the new vendor can hit the ground running. Although this is not our core business, this is still an important aspect of the business as it helps to keep the day to day operations going. Our competitors also do not have knowledge of this area of expertise and I don't see them getting into it as this is not their core business and will divert unnecessary resources to this area.

Let's go with Company A then as the other options will not lead to a better outcome for our customers.

Questions have become very political

I was quite disappointed with some of the questions thrown by the MPs in parliament because any one can see that some of the questions are GE questions and are just repetition of the answers already given in the written form. Some thoughts:

1. Certification of payment is different from approval of payment. Certifying a payment just means that the OIC is certifying that goods / services have been delivered so payment can be made. AGO audit did not uncover any instances of mis-certification of payment
   
2. Comparing the cost of the PAP town council system against their system is comparing apples vs oranges. The PAP town council system is established, used by many town councils and have economies of scale. If you need to build a system from ground-up and its only used by a couple of town councils, obviously it's going to be more expensive. Moreover, with all that talk, that company that manages that town council system did not even make a bid. The comparison is useless.
   
3. There was only one instance of overpayment which was acknowledged by the chairman of WP. Just because a system is more expensive than the other doesn't mean that they are being overcharged.

It's precisely due to these kind of thinking that have driven down the cost of technology products. Everyone think that systems are easy to build and should be cheap. Well... My challenge to them is to ask them to build a cheap system and get a good third-party quality and security team to scrutinise the system.

Quality doesn't come cheap. Missing functionality is different from quality of the system.

Why the focus on AHPETC when there are other issues?

I have been busy recently but even then I am quite tired of listening to the continuous reporting of Aljunied Hougang Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) conflict of interest (COI) issue. No matter how much reporting is done, it does not deviate from the understanding is that there was COI but there wasn't any wrong doing. However, the AGO report is also out and in it, there is even an instance of misuse of funds. I never heard any reporting of those issues.

Below are some excerpts from the AGO report which you could also view here:

1. MINDEF: Lapses in the Licensing of Land
2. MOE: Lapses in Tender Evaluation and Contract Management
3. MOE: Lapses in Appointment and Monitoring of Former Staff Engaged for Projects
4. MFA: Contracts Made Outside Singapore Not Signed by Authorised Signatories
5. SCDF: Lapses in Controls over Financial Commitments and Payments
6. SCDF: Misuse of Funds Stored in Cash Cards
7. MDA: Lapses in Evaluation of Projects for Funding
8. NHB: Irregularities in Management of Variation Works
9.  HSA: Contracts Awarded to Incumbent Contractors that Did Not Meet Tender Requirements
10. NPARKS: Creating and Backdating of Documents Furnished for Audit
11. NCSS: Irregularities at Various Stages of Procurement
12. SPRING: Lapses in Procurement of Services to Administer an Award

Seriously, those examples that I've extracted out would have more learning points than AHPETC.

Idea to help the small retailers

Recently I was in discussion over the very expensive retail space in Singapore when it hit me on how to help the small retailers to get a leg up here.

The problem with retail space in Singapore is that its only meant for the rich. There is no place for the small and startup retailers that want to start out. To think the government is complaining that there is not enough innovation. How can you get innovative if all your money is spent on that rent?

So what is my idea? Basically its a very simple concept. We often see empty space in malls which they let out to those insurance firms, travel firms, or big stores such as metro and challenger. Why are we letting these big players take up all the space?

These places should be reserved for small players to have pop-up stores for a few days, eg Thurs to Sun. Grants could be given by the government so that the rent is kept affordable for these small retailers for that short period. How to keep the rent affordable? The easiest way is to only charge a percentage of the revenue and that's it. Base rental is covered by the grant.

That would help the smaller retailers to gain exposure and experience, and bring variety to the shopping mall too. This can also be extended to other areas that have such open spaces.

I believe we as consumers are also tired of seeing the same big names everywhere we go and sometimes, a leg-up is all the small retailers need.