India’s missed opportunity at ASEAN? EPGP reports from Singapore

The One year MBA (EPGP) Class of 2014 at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM B) recently visited National University of Singapore (NUS) for the international immersion. The immersion is a common feature of all One year MBA programmes at Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) as part of which the entire class shifts lock, stock and barrel to a foreign university to gain an international perspective of business. Alok Jain shares his experiences in Singapore.

By Alok Jain

As soon as we got a breather from the second term exams on 16th August, the focus shifted to the two weeks international immersion program in Singapore, one of the top ten financial centers of the world.

A trip to Singapore was a first for me, like for many of us, and possibly the first trip outside the country for some of us. As soon as we reached Singapore, we rushed to duty free shops to take care of the essentials for the next two weeks. As I stepped out of the airport, the hot weather reminded me of New Delhi – a far cry from the cool climate I had been experiencing in Bangalore for the last five months.

The next morning we started our first day at the sprawling National University of Singapore campus with a welcome note by a NUS professor who focused on aspects of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies. In India we keep on hearing about China and its fast paced growth. The thrust of the session at NUS was no different. The Professor shared how China is a major player in the ASEAN economy. After this we had an invigorating discussion on how India fits into the larger scheme of things. We discussed the drivers for growth in both regions and discussed the differences in the economies within the zone: while India is a supply driven economy, ASEAN is demand driven economy.

It also came out during the discussion that India seem to be getting left out from the ASEAN scheme of things because its foreign policy is not focused on East Asia. For instance, we are not utilizing our historical ties with Myanmar for increasing trade with the mineral rich nation while China is making significant inroads into the country.

Arriving in Singapore

This was followed by Mr. Sameer Arora, Founder and Fund Manager, Helios Capital Fund who shared some incredible business insights with the class.

Post Lunch we had meeting with Prof. Sekhar for the project on Smart Cities. This is part of our international group project being driven by ITU for United Nations.

Next day we focused our discussion on Singapore and how it achieved growth and became a major transport hub despite having minimal resources at its disposal. Probably the single party system played a big role in this but we can’t ignore the hardwork put in by the authorities – in the words of the first PM of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, “there was no secret; we had no choice but to take a chance and sail into rough waters”.

There are many lessons to be learnt from Singapore’s development for other countries. In a short span, Singapore has managed political stability, ensured a high quality of governance, established an open and modern culture, minimized a chance of rebellion etc. While we may not agree with each specific aim, for Singapore the model seems to be working effectively.

Post lunch, we had a lecture on the aviation industry by Prof Anthony Chin, Academic Director for EPGP immersion. He shared how the aviation industry is fueling economic growth and the innovative business models that are emerging. For instance, one interesting model is the adopted by Tiger Airlines where every single service is charged separately.

Shipping containers lined up at Singapore dock (Image copyright – worldofstock.com)

Next day started with peep into Chinese culture and post that we did some experiment of using chopsticks to eat Chinese food!

Slowly the sessions at NUS were getting more intense with regular talks by Industry experts, business houses and government agencies in Singapore. Over the next few days we got a deep understanding of how Singapore is controlling its exchange rate against a basket of currencies despite being a surplus economy. We also learnt of the efficient cargo clearing capability of Singapore where 80% of the cargo is cleared in eight minutes and 100% clearance is done in 15 minutes!

Soon later we attended a talk by Zafar Momin who is on board of Maple Tree Trust. The talk was quite interactive and he shared an interesting quote: “If the going is too easy, may be you are scratching the surface”. Later we got opportunity to visit Jurong Port and the IKEA factory.

Connecting with IIM B alumni

An IIM Bangalore alumni meet was organized on the weekend to help us explore opportunities and learn from their experiences. The alums shared important takeaways from their careers which was followed by a Q&A session. An interesting part of the meet was when we were divided into small groups of four to five people in order to have an informal chat. I was particularly impressed with the humility and frankness of alums.

IIM B alumni meet at NUS

In the evening, we went to marina bay sands to try our luck at Casino and I was surprised to learn that the locals actually have to pay a fees of S$100 for entry, while entry was completely free for tourists!

We have heard a lot about Sentosa Island and it was one of the must see places in Singapore. It is an artificial man-made beach and fun-park and is frequented by everyone who comes to Singapore. No wonder a small country like Singapore has so many tourists. It has worked very well within the constraints it faced and developed its economy.

The second week at Singapore started with lengthy discussion on smart cities and which was also the theme of our international project. Key industry speakers from IBM, Cisco, Siemens presented their view on how the world of future would be. Prof. Sekhar discussed why there is a urgent need for smart cities. I felt this territory was a blue ocean that presented a whole new new wave of business opportunity as it is an elite market and cities and countries are making huge investments in such projects.

Any talk on marketing has to be interesting. So when David Shaw talked about the challenges in marketing communications and how things can go wrong, the class was glued to his every word. He took us through marketing campaigns which went wrong and what can be done to prevent such occurrences. For instance, an advertisement on a ‘Starbucks’ van inadvertently displayed as ‘SUCKS’ when the van door opened , a Turkish Airlines advertisement on escalator looked like a plane crashing down and how taking a customer for granted lead to a loss of millions of dollars for a company when an irate customer released a music album highlighting the incident on Youtube!

Starbucks’s unintentional self-effacing ad: a lesson in the importance of attention to detail in execution

Day 12 started with a pep talk by Anshuman Gupta, CEO, Strontium on his journey, the challenges he faced in setting up a company, and how he created a space for himself in a market dominated by big players. The key takeaway he shared was that for a start-up, often a good strategy is to find the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid.

Next we had an interaction with Prof. Nitin Pangarkar who talked about strategies of Asian companies and how Kodak failed to capitalize on its competency with the introduction of digital cameras and how FAVNE has captured more than 60% of market in robotics. In the evening we had a meeting with Prof Sekhar for the delivery of Smart City Project and he was very impressed with the work done by us. He suggested that we continue working on the project after the immersion program and we gladly accepted the proposal.

EPGP 5 Cohort

The last day of our exciting international immersion trip began with a photo shoot of the whole batch at the NUS campus (required for the brochure 🙂 ). We had speakers from Ocean Health, Deutche bank talk to us. The journey at NUS culminated with the presentation of certificates and a small gift by NUS.

Afterwards, we went to the Siemens building to see the advancement and research they have made in smart cities. We also had some fun playing with a working model of a smart sustainable city.

With this our journey to this interesting land of opportunities came to an end. Singapore really is a wonderful country with many opportunities and which has grown to become a financial center despite challenges. The country anticipated these challenges and dealt with them in time.

During the night we went for shopping for some toys at the Mustafa center, which is the only place in Singapore which runs 24×7. The history behind Mustafa center becoming the favourite shopping hub for locals is one of the many success stories hidden in the streets of Singapore.

IIM Bangalore’s One year MBA (EPGP) Batch at NUS

Contributing blogger Alok Jain is a One year MBA (EPGP) candidate at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Alok has close to 12 years experience working in IT services and products with organisations such as Amdocs, Sapient, Infosys and Jindal Steel & Power Ltd at numerous global locations. Besides an accomplished leader he is also an adventure sports enthusiast.