I had an orientation a couple of weeks ago with our Regional Group Head, a Trinidad and Tobago expatriate, who casually asked us why our very global organization wanted to put up operational headquarters in Manila. An honest fellow mentioned “BECAUSE WE’RE CHEAP!” I involuntarily cringed with sound effects. I totally get him, but it was probably because of the way the words were strung together and the image that popped in my mind. Me, cheap?
Yeah. Sure I am over exaggerating (as usual), but I cannot stop myself from stifling a sigh. Our charismatic and popular leader somehow heard some of our snickers and simply smiled. He knew better that to offend the guy who answered "WE WERE CHEAP." He graciously thanked the fellow for his answers and faced all of us. “I must agree that costs matter especially expanding in business, but do not ever think that you are here, hired and joined in one of the greatest global organizations just because you’re CHEAP.” Thank heavens he elevated us back!
He pointed that, yes, this country has relatively cheaper labor costs, but the organization has opted to strengthen a regional operations headquarters here because aside from the cost, the people are very efficient and the attitude exemplary. They could've decided to focus on better developed Asian Countries like Malaysia or Singapore, but they knew that we have the skills and our remarkable work ethics that differ in ten folds compared to our Asian counterparts. He also mentioned that they considered our ENGLISH proficiency, efficiency in fostering global interactions and ties, and positive attitude in things. They could have also established their presence in much cheaper places like in Cambodia or Vietnam, yet they felt that their goals will be not properly met in doing so. So at the end, he told us not to think of ourselves cheap, on the contrary we are highly valued, excellent and competitive.
After his speech I think I said to myself: “I KNEW THAT ALL ALONG.” At that time, I wanted to whack myself in the head for almost losing my self-esteem. But seriously, I figured we are really that competitive. We have a developed universal language. We have institutions and business infrastructures here. We have renowned strong work ethic; and we are naturally good handling foreigners. No matter how traditional we are, we are the most westernized and liberal nation compared to our Asian counterparts. I thought that was all it took.
Little did I know that on the most recent Global Competitive Survey, Vietnam has already surpassed us by one notch as we clinch the 71st spot, just better than our competitors Cambodia (109th) and East Timor (129th). We are 71st out of 134 countries. That is such a sad number. How come Vietnam became more competitive than us? Was the speech I heard a bluff? Did they see this report already and realize they made a mistake? I wonder. I thought it would roughly take Vietnam 5 more years to build half of what we did, but apparently in some ways, they already did.
Before I try to scrutinize these results, I have to remind myself that the ranking is taken from a survey. Surveys illicit opinions, no matter how calculated. The ranking is also based in so many different areas which make up the GLOBAL COMPETITIVE INDEX:
1. Business Sophistication
2. Financial Market Sophistication
3. Goods market efficiency
4. health and primary education
5. higher education and training
6. institutions
7. infrastructure
8. innovation
9. labor market efficiency
10. macroeconomic stability
11. market size
12. technological readiness
As simple citizens and consumers, we only get to judge ourselves against what we readily see in our infrastructure, market size, goods market efficiency. Business sophistication may be also considered as one of our good attributes, but we GREATLY lag behind public health, education, efficient public institutions, and transparency in dealings of government with the private sector. Just like any normal report card, it drags down our average and outweighs our good sides.
TOP 5: US, SWITZERLAND, DENMARK, SWEDEN and SINGAPORE (in that order)
HERE is the post:
http://manilatimes.net/national/2008/oct/09/yehey/top_stories/20081009top4.html
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