Participants and facilitators of the inaugural YLT in Singapore
As Facebook’s IPO continue to garner interest (both good and bad), the question on many people’s lips is this: Can Singapore produce business leaders who started young such as Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates?
Well, perhaps the Young Leaders of Tomorrow (YLT) programme can help to usher the way.
Fantasy Parade at Everland Theme Park
“안녕하세요 (Annyeong Haseyo)!” greeted our tour guide Colin every morning, rowsing the weary coach-load of travellers during our recent holiday in Korea. With an action-packed itinerary packed into 7 days, one could hardly consider Korea as the “Land of the Morning Calm”.
Squeezing a population of 50 million packed into 100,000 square kilometres of mostly mountainous space, South Korea is both an economic and cultural miracle. With a GDP of US$1.164 trillion (2011), the “Miracle on the Han River” is fast overtaking Japan in global prominence. Korea’s tremendous influence on popular culture in terms of K-Pop and soap dramas is also unprecedented.
Courtesy of Royal Caribbean International
Launching its maiden voyage from the new Marina Bay Cruise Centre Singapore, Royal Caribbean International’s Voyager of the Seas weighs 137,276 tons and can carry a staggering 3,840 guests at full capacity. At 1,020 feet long with 14 passenger decks, the colossal vessel is Asia’s largest luxury cruise ship, serviced by an international crew of some 1,176 staff.
What is the secret of enduring business success? The answer, according to Bain & Company’s Chris Zook and James Allen, is to develop repeatable business models. This is described in Bain’s website on Repeatability and highlighted in a recently published book by the authors.
Source of image
In this podcast on HBR Ideacast, Chris shares that businesses which keep changing courses and introduce unnecessary complexity in their systems are actually killing themselves. To cope with a fast changing, highly complex and unpredictable world, businesses shouldn’t introduce increasingly convoluted systems that add layers of bureaucratic layers that slow down work processes unnecessarily.
Leading investor and serial entrepreneur J. Christopher Burch has more than 30 years of experience in various technology and luxury brands, including Aliph (Jawbone), NextJump, and Tory Burch. At a talk given at the Asia Fashion Summit recently, he shared about his experience with C. Wonder – a fast growing apparel, accessories and home décor retailer, and how he built a strong retail brand focused heavily on delighting customers and meeting their lifestyle needs.
Predicated on the concept of the customer being “our girl”, the customer experience in C. Wonder stores are predicated on “service credos” such as the following:
The platforms are free but the time and effort producing them isn’t (courtesy of zenfolio)
Let’s face it. We are swamped by content.
What used to be physical has now invaded our virtual and mobile spaces. With a gazillion blogs, videos, photos, podcasts, slide presentations, and so on, consumers are literally “consumed” by data.
What are some of the big issues facing the consumer of tomorrow? How should retailers, lifestyle businesses and fashion brands equip themselves to reach these customers?
Speaking at the recent Asia Fashion Summit, Ruth Marshall-Johnson, Senior Editor of Think Tank at WGSN, highlighted that consumer businesses need to consider five key trends and suggested how these should be addressed as follows:
Too bad marketers don’t have growing noses like Pinnochio! (source of image)
In the world of marketing, there are three schools of thought.
The first is the school of facts. Proponents of this idea hinge much of their marketing on bread and butter issues, focusing on very tangible aspects of their products or services such as cost, value, features, utility, convenience and savings.
Disneyland provides lots of photo opportunities for kids!
Thanks to Bob Rogers, I recently learnt about the 10 rules of theme park design which were created by Disney legend Marty Sklar, Vice Chairman and Principal Creative Executive of Walt Disney Imagineering. These rules are designed to help anybody developing or designing a theme park to create memorable experiences for their guests.
So what are these precepts modelled after the “happiest place on Earth”?
The Melbourne Museum provides a great immersive experience
In the world of information-rich visitor attractions like heritage buildings, museums and corporate attractions, spinning a great tale is imperative to success.
Having an exciting story which connects and resonates with your visitors makes all the difference. What should one do to create those magical moments?
