Singapore

Ascott Holdings N.V's S$1.53m capital is part of its ongoing business development.

Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea contributed most to July's NODX growth.

It rose just 5.8% from 6.6% in June as non-electronic NODX mellowed.

He will be at the helm of the Group’s Engineering Business.

His resignation was due to the requirement of his new appointment.

Having up to six months of potential bonuses accrued is not stopping candidates from searching for a new job that can deliver more than financial gain, such as career development and progression. That’s one finding from the recently released Hays Quarterly Report, for the July to September 2012 quarter, which points to an active candidate market in Singapore.

The Mentos “National Night” campaign was no doubt creative, and viral, but did it drive any real outcomes? How will we “ahem” measure this? 9 Months later? Brand visibility is up but is anything else? Did you feel compelled to buy a roll of Mentos? (because you were happy to see me). Love the creativity, but the mechanism to translate this into sustained engagement was the anti-climax. If the campaign had added the mechanics so that social media could extend into lasting engagement and loyalty it could and would have been a truly legendary campaign. So what’s holding marketers, brand owners and businesses from doing this? The ability to take creative content and build in long-term engagement has never been more opportune, and measurable. For example, the vast majority of our consumer audience now carries a mobile phone which is more powerful than the PC was on our desk ten years ago, and which can be used in a variety of ways to engage, reward, and build sustainable relationships. Look at what Pacific Beverages and the Stella Artois brand they manage is doing with their “How Does Yours Measure Up?” campaign (and yes, pun intended). As they execute this creative and fun campaign, in search of the best draught beer and bar in Singapore, it also engages the consumer with a mobile platform to reward them for their purchases, and in turn gain their feedback. This builds on the creative concept but also incents consumers to purchase Stella Artois in comparison to other brands as well as drive other key business and ROI outcomes. It’s a two-way engagement that has lasting, and real impact. And honestly - isn't that better than a one-night stand? 

No matter which business industry you are in, one of your main concerns is having a competitor that undercharge your rates - worse when the same competitor churns out much inferior quality work which goes unnoticed.

Current biggest business challenges include intense competition and low margins (due to an open economy and liberal trading environment), inflationary costs (due to rental expenses and tightening labour market caused by reduced foreign workers) as well as increasing uncertain external demand for Singapore exports from Europe and USA.

Let me ask you 3 questions. Please be truthful with your answers because I won’t be there to hear them.

If you, and virtually everyone you know, is on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest or other social media sites I bet at some point or other you may have toyed with the idea of getting rid of your ‘old-fashioned’, non-social media website right and focusing all your time and energy on one or more of these sites. You might try and convince yourself by saying ‘I spend 90% of my time on Facebook these days and almost none updating my own website. So closing it down makes sense, right? Wrong! “Although it may seem counter-intuitive, if you’re in business the more time you spend using social media sites to connect and engage with clients and others the more important it is to have an up-to-date, easy to navigate dot-sg or dot-com type website of your own to support your social media activities” says reputation expert and author Hannah Samuel.

This is a question that most leaders ponder over, and in the search for the perfect answer to what that ultimate leadership approach and style might look like, many probably realise that this is not as easy as they had imagined.

Find out why Wilmar's 2Q12 profit fell 55%.

DBS and UOB hit new 52-week highs this week.

Good thing plantation, refining and sugar divisions are expected to do better in 2H12.

A very experienced editor of a weekly news magazine once told me over dinner, "You can't make writers. They either have a knack for it or they don't but you can improve the good ones."