3M is one of the world’s most innovative companies with blockbuster products like the masking tape and the ubiquitous Post-It notes. At 108 years, it is also one of the oldest.

Despite its age, 3M continues to stay inventive. And the secret behind this is in one word: People.

3M employees, particularly its R&D scientists, are committed to innovation as evidenced from the fact that the Minnesota-based MNC spends five to seven per cent of its revenue on R&D, or about US$1.4 billion annually. In a 2010 innovation report by Booz & Company, a leading global management consulting firm, 3M was named third most innovative company in the world. The report stated that 3M has been seen as a highly innovative company for many years, and its five-year total shareholder return of almost 50 percent shows that it continues to spend its R&D money in the right places. Apple and Google were the two companies that came out tops.

The report also said that companies that are perceived to be highly innovative are clearly successful in creating new products and bringing them to market. Some spend more than others to accomplish this goal, but the real winners, financially speaking, are those companies, like Apple, Google, and 3M, that can innovate successfully without breaking the bank.

Dr Andrew Ouderkirk is one of the company’s 25 corporate scientists and the only one based in Asia, the market promising the most growth potential for MNCs like 3M. His role is to identify new areas of technology and develop products based on the new technology. He is excited with the R&D activities going on in the company’s R&D centre in Singapore.

Not surprising given the performance so far. Dr Ouderkirk explains: “When we first started our R&D activities in Singapore, it was to support the electronics, optics and circuitry activities of our first plant here in Singapore.

“Today, our vision for the Singapore R&D Centre is to be a major growth driver and leader in new products and technology platforms for 3M globally. Our research focus now is multi-disciplinary, cutting across electronics, optics, circuitry, adhesives, coatings and more recently, pharmaceuticals.”

The Singapore R&D team has quickly proven their credentials. It was behind the re-invention of 3M’s top-selling, miniature handheld projector.

“The Singapore team not only successfully re-invented crucial components in this pico projector product, but also came up with some new innovations of their own,” Dr Ouderkirk explains: “We have very highly qualified talent in Singapore. What characterizes them is their willingness to try new things and stretch technology limits to solve complex customer problems.”

3M Singapore’s pharmaceutical scientists and engineers have also been making waves; the pharmaceutical laboratory focuses on Drug Delivery Systems for medication and is one of three globally and the only one in Asia. Asthma patients can thank the team in Singapore for the improvements to 3M’s inhalation technology which deliver their drug dosage with efficiency and ease.

Products developed here are sent across 3M’s worldwide network of manufacturing sites. Dr. Ouderkirk shared that 3M has plans to grow its staff strength and R&D scope for this laboratory.

In Singapore, 3M has also made inroads into the R&D of technologies like retro-reflection and micro-replication, which are applied in reflective car licence plates. Its solar films and electronic products are manufactured and produced exclusively by 3M Singapore.

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Notwithstanding, its Singapore talents are not just skewed towards an exclusive pool of specialists and experts. Thanks to continual upgrading programmes supported by the Singapore government, the general workforce is well-equipped with cutting-edge skills.

Being in Singapore also allows 3M’s R&D centre to readily tap the scientific brains in the local universities and A*STAR, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research set up in 2002 by the Singapore government to help spur growth in key economic clusters by providing human, intellectual and industrial capital to partners in industry.

Dr. Ouderkirk says: “When we needed help in developing new technologies, we had easy access to the R&D divisions in the universities for know-how and equipment. We’ve worked on joint research projects with both the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University, bringing in their professors to participate with 3M on multinational projects.

“We’ve also been able to plug into A*STAR’s collaborative model, and have also recruited from their pool of highly specialised talents. In fact, some of our 170 researchers were hired from these collaborative efforts.”

3M has 20 distinct laboratories in Singapore, each with comprehensive product development and modification capabilities, as well as an environmental simulation testing site.

First set up in 1966, 3M Singapore started its operations in a small rented office with just eight employees. Today, this US-listed technology giant has two manufacturing plants in Singapore, two R&D Centres and a sales and marketing office that serves customers in Singapore as well as provide sales and support to its offices in Bangladesh, Brunei, Myanmar and Nepal.

One of these manufacturing plants, built in the 2009, was classified by 3M as a ‘superhub’, and was just one of only 10 worldwide. Prior to it being built in Singapore, 3M also had the choice of setting it up in Ireland or Malaysia. What clinched it for Singapore was a combination of factors – a skilled workforce, strong intellectual property protection regime and a business-friendly tax structure.

Besides manufacturing and R&D, 3M Singapore also acts as a regional supply chain hub, coordinating the purchasing and shipment for its Asia Pacific market.

As of Dec 2010, 3M’s Asia Pacific operations accounted for US$8.4 billion in sales revenue – more than a third of the company’s total sales. More importantly, Asia Pacific is 3M’s fastest growing region, with an organic growth volume of more than 18 per cent.

To cater to this expansion, 3M Singapore plans to double itscurrent headcount of 1,500 in the next five years. The company will be on the prowl to hire manufacturing process engineers, design engineers, chemists and marketing personnel – talents to keep 3M ahead in the innovation game.

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After more than one cold winter at his last posting with Swiss-based agribusiness giant Syngenta, the warmth of the tropical sun in Singapore was definitely more inviting for Dr Stuart Harrison. He said, “Syngenta transferred me to Singapore in 2009 to set up the seeds research and development (R&D) organisation in Asia Pacific (APAC). This is the fourth country in the third continent I have worked for Syngenta and moving to Singapore is by far the easiest move for both me as well as my family.

Stuart oversees the seeds laboratory whose research helps breeders develop better varieties of rice, pepper and other crops in less time by identifying DNA markers associated with desirable traits. The lab, together with another one for formulation development, forms Syngenta’s Kendall R&D facility. The formulation development lab determines the best formulations for products like fungicides and herbicides, so that farmers can easily and safely apply them with common spray equipment.

Syngenta, like others in the global agribusiness sector, are racing against time to develop technology that will allow farmers to grow more from less. The task has never been more urgent. The world’s population is expected to grow by another billion to eight billion by 2030.

Selecting Singapore as its R&D base for this important mission was no accident. Stuart said, “We considered Singapore and other countries and finally decided on Singapore because from a logistics point of view, it’s easy for us to reach all the countries in the region from here.

“In addition, Singapore has a very strong environment for intellectual property rights and as Syngenta is an innovation based company, it really needs this to protect its intellectual assets. And finally, the government has created an ideal environment for Syngenta to operate its R&D business.”

The Singapore government has been investing to develop and grow the R&D sector to drive the Republic’s economic growth. The Republic aims to increase R&D expenditure to 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2015, making it on par with the world’s leaders in R&D spending, including Japan, Israel, Finland, Switzerland and the United States.

“Singapore has a very strong base of academic research in both the biological as well as chemical disciplines, which are the areas we work in,” said Harrison. “And it is a great source of talent for us.”

Singapore is home to world-class universities which not only churn out top local talents but attract many capable foreign students who eventually stay on to make a career in the Republic. Stuart also added, “The people here are well-educated and you can additionally tap a global talent pool as there are many foreign talent willing to live and work in Singapore.

“We are spoilt for choice when it comes to employing both technicians as well as PhD-grade scientists for our research laboratories.”

Syngenta employs 22 scientists and technicians to man its two R&D laboratories in Singapore.

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Stuart added, “We’ve found that Singapore is an excellent location for us to find talent, we have found some incredibly innovative scientists who have made significant contributions – not only for our Asia Pacific region but a number of these innovations are actually being utilised globally by Syngenta.”

Another area that works well for Syngenta is the ease with which private companies can collaborate with local R&D institutions. Many of these have their roots sprouting from government support. Harrison added that his team works very closely with the likes of Temasek Life Sciences Institute as well as the Institute for Chemical and Engineering Sciences (ICES).

Another area where the Singapore government has played a critical role in developing the R&D hub concept is its creation of Biopolis. This is a dedicated R&D campus that has a large number of private and public research institutes housed in close proximity to one another, engendering an innovative and intellectual culture.

In recent years, the Biopolis has drawn world leading researchers to Singapore, forming the base for the next generation of talent. This next generation of talent is proving extremely beneficial from Syngenta’s point of view. Harrison explained: “These talents are not only a source for innovation with regard to new product development, but also a source for our own manpower needs.”

Syngenta, which also has its regional headquarters in Singapore, currently has 26,000 employees and operates in 90 countries worldwide.

It spends approximately S$1 billion on research and development across all of its activities globally.

The Asia Pacific region is its fastest growing region and it is receiving the largest increase in research and developments spend.

The seeds laboratory, whichStuart heads, also supports breeding programmes in South Asia, Southeast Asia as well as China whereas the formulation development lab supports 14 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

Dr. Harrison and his team in Singapore are looking forward to the challenges ahead to bring plant potential to life.

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Asia’s young emerging middle class desires current fashion at an affordable price-tag. And with 150 years of history behind Levi’s® jeans, Levi Strauss & Co. came up with a new global brand Denizen™, to cater to this new group of consumers. Singapore, where the company’s Asia-Pacific headquarters is located, was chosen to spearhead this initiative. Here, an international talent team made up of more than 130 people from 16 countries, including America, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, India, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore, brought together their creative and innovative ideas – to develop and create the new brand.

“The diversity of talent in Singapore makes it unique among the world’s fashion epicentres.”

“We found that in addition to having a well-educated workforce, the Singapore government has done a tremendous job in anticipating the required skills and capabilities.”

Being able to hire high-performing talent is important to Levi Strauss. Stakes are high as it joins the swelling ranks of MNCs that are eyeing the potentially lucrative Asian market. Two decades of robust economic growth has transformed the region from its long-held position as the factory of the world into a massive consumer-driven market. According to the World Bank’s estimates, just over half of emerging Asia is considered middle class, and their rising disposal income is fuelling a consumer spending boom in Western branded merchandise.

To oversee its expansion in Asia, Levi Strauss & Co. has for some years been focusing on the development of Asian talents, people who not only can deliver high performance within their own markets, but also who can be deployed in different markets around Asia. These talents are brought into its Singapore HQ for short stints and training.

Boey explained, “The exposure to a cosmopolitan mix of people in Singapore allows the trainees to understand the nuances of doing business in these markets, and allows them to acquire the skills that are necessary to be effective and to be successful in the region.”

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Levi Strauss & Co. spent two years developing the brand and conducting consumer insights to gain a better understanding of this new group of consumers, who are young, wired and on-the-go. Boey shared that the strategising, planning, and test-bedding was done out of Singapore.

“It was done very effectively,” he recalled. “We had the right group of people based in Singapore and we were able to effectively direct the activities on the ground in Shanghai remotely from Singapore. The excellent infrastructure and resources in Singapore allowed us to do this.”

“We tested various things in Singapore,” Boey added. “The look of our stores, product merchandising, tone and feel were all factors we evaluated.”

Today, in addition to Singapore, the brand is also available in China, India, South Korea and Pakistan. Based on the positive consumer response, the brand has expanded into the United States and Mexico in July 2011.

“Singapore represents a diverse cross-section of Asia, in terms of ethnicity, tastes and fit. It offers compelling value and a strong base of talent for many international brands to want to be based here,” said Boey.

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In June 2008, Norway-based Renewable Energy Corporation (REC), a leading global company in solar power began exploring the building of a world-class, integrated solar facility to meet rising demand. After evaluating some 150 possible locations, REC selected the tropical sunny island of Singapore and decided to build on a greenfield there. In that same month, another decision was made to invest S$2.6 billion in the island state.

John Andersen, Jr., Executive President REC and Group Chief Operating Officer, said: “When we set out to find the new location for this manufacturing and research and development complex, we actually looked at more than 150 sites across the world. And I have to say that a number of regions and cities were quite anxious to attract a business like REC.

“Clean tech is obviously very high on the agenda for governments across the world. In the end, I think we found that Singapore had the right balance between a business friendly environment, a skilled workforce and a well-regulated economy.”

Research and development is an important aspect of REC’s business and protecting their latest solar innovations was a key factor for the scientists and engineers at REC. The robust legal system tipped the scale in the Republic’s favour, allowing REC to rely on Singapore’s strong intellectual property (IP) protection regime.

Having made the decision and with a plan to have the plant operational by 2010, REC’s next step was to hire the employees and have them trained in time. Andersen related: “When we decided to move to Singapore, we quickly realised that we would need to recruit and train about 1,700 employees so that the plant could be operational. This mammoth task was made so much easier through strong support from the Singapore government.”

Singapore, already established as a semiconductor and precision engineering hub, proved a boon for REC. The workforce capabilities and skill sets in these industries were also applicable to the solar industry. When hiring, REC found the people very well-educated and skilled in areas relevant to their operations.

This is by no accident as the Singapore government had set aside S$350 million to develop the Republic as a global clean energy solution hub. Part of this funding had been apportioned for training and manpower development in this sector.

Andersen said that REC was pleasantly surprised when they received 35,000 applications for their initial 1,700 job vacancies. “But we also found that behind this very high number of 35,000, was a ready pool of high quality workforce,” he added.

Diversity of talent is also another aspect that REC values, at the executive and R&D levels, the talent at REC includes Europeans, Americans, Taiwanese and Chinese who have relocated to Singapore or were already based in the country. The fact that Singapore had been voted the best Asian city to live, work and play has certainly made recruiting staff much easier for companies such as REC.

In addition, to boost its pipeline of talent for the clean energy industry, the island state expects to train more than 2,000 specialists through its universities and polytechnics within the next five years.

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Another significant step taken by the Singapore government to develop the country into a global clean technology hub, was the establishment of the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERIS) to conduct industry research on solar energy. This bodes well for REC as the company has moved a significant portion of its R&D work to its new facilities in Singapore. According to Andersen, REC is looking to move more of its R&D functions to Singapore in the future. He added that the company was already working closely with SERIS and other private solar research establishments in Singapore.

“When it comes to the solar R&D activity in Singapore, we now see that other solar companies are also moving in and establishing more research programmes. And of course, we think that will benefit the whole cluster of solar companies,” he added.

REC held the official opening of its fully integrated facility in November 2010. It sits on a 321,000 sq m site and produces more than 190,000 solar modules per month which are exported to European and American markets. Demand from Asia – including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and more recently, China and India – is also increasing.

Asked if he was pleased with the set-up in Singapore, Andersen replied: “I couldn’t be more pleased.”

And to illustrate this, he added: “When we started operations here, the research team from Singapore innovated and produced a new product for the company. The new product was very well received by our customers.

“This is a testament to the capabilities of the team in Singapore. Not only did we start up a completely new plant, but at the same time, we launched a completely new product. Naturally we are all very pleased.”

Mounting concerns about climate change and depleting natural resources have driven global demand for solutions based on sustainable development. At the same time, the pace of urbanisation, particularly in Asia, continues unabated, and city planners around the world are investing in environmentally-friendly solutions to provide a better living environment for their residents and future generations. These trends point to robust long-term growth opportunities for the global clean energy industry.

And clearly, Singapore’s efforts to become the global clean energy hub demonstrates its long-term vision which puts it on the right track and won for itself, the thumbs-up from industry giants like REC.

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A.Patrick Imbardelli came to Singapore thinking he would spend only three years here. Eleven years on, the President and Chief Executive of Pan Pacific Hotels Group (Pan Pacific) is still here and has joined many other foreign talent who have since made Singapore home.

A permanent resident, the Australian now leads lead the strategic management and expansion of the Group’s hotels and businesses. He is not the only Pan Pacific senior executive who has settled in Singapore.

Imbardelli observes, “I have found that many foreign talent who arrive here for a two-to three year stay eventually decide to make Singapore their home.”

This trend helps to build up a pool of internationally and culturally diverse talent in Singapore. Pan Pacific itself is a microcosm of the United Nations in terms of the nationality spread of its staff – one-third of the 60 employees at its Singapore headquarters are foreigners from 13 different nationalities while the rest are Singaporeans. It is a mix that Imbardelli relishes as he believes that the diversity creates fertile ground for innovative ideas that keep his company ahead of its competitors.

This melting pot of talents has proven to be a great source of learning and richness.

Imbardelli explains, “There is no doubt that having a diverse team gives you richness. Imagine sitting in a country and the only opinions that you hear are from people who have only lived in the one place.”

It is what Imbardelli calls a tapestry of richness that he would not have experienced first-hand in other countries. It is a richness that helps Pan Pacific improve its game. Imbardelli adds, “If we look at marketing for example, you need people who have worked on an international stage, who understand both Chinese and North American customers and can brand and embed these nuances in our communication. In our business, it’s very important to have access to people with international experience.

“It is our people who achieve things, it is our people who innovate and it is our people who do things better and continue to improve.”

The local talent are just as international in terms of experience, says Imbardelli. “Singaporeans are known to venture far and wide for their education and many who return have chalked up overseas working experience.”

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Having a team with a diverse cultural background and international experience is important for Pan Pacific’s growing global business. It means it can quickly assemble the right team of people from different parts of the world when the situation calls for it.

The “double richness” of Singapore’s home grown talent allows Pan Pacific to mobilise its talent according to its needs without too much trouble.

“Singaporeans are very international and enjoy the challenge of living and working overseas,” Imbardelli says.

“So having our headquarters here i really does open the world to us; Singaporeans themselves are global citizens.”

Pan Pacific Hotels Group owns, manages and operates over 35 hotels, resorts and serviced suites (including those under development) with over 10,500 rooms in Asia, Oceania and North America. The group comprises two acclaimed brands: Pan Pacific® and PARKROYAL®. It also has offices in Hong Kong, London, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Imbardelli says that the growth for the Group will come mainly from the Asia Pacific region and this market is expected to be most dynamic for tourism with strong intra-regional travel from the growing affluent middle-class in the region.

Singapore and its talent are clearly shaping the future and growth for this hospitality group.

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Ultratech Inc. Chairman and CEO Arthur W. Zafiropoulo is passionate about the company and it shows the moment you enter its international headquarters in Singapore.

The facility is divided by a tinted glass wall that separates the cleanroom production team from the rest of the staff.

Zafiropoulo explained, “When I built the glass partition, which I believe is the only one of its kind in Singapore, people thought it was a waste of money. However, I believe this is money well spent as all of the employees can feel as if they belong to the same company. No one is hidden away and the administrative side of the operations can see what the other side of the business does.”

“I want all Ultratech employees to be as passionate about the products we make as I am.”

Founded in 1979, California-based Ultratech manufactures high technology lithography systems that print images on semiconductor wafers as well as laser anneal systems that are used to make transistors in microchips.

“It is a zero-defect business with millions of dollars at stake. There is no room for error—one strike and you are out,” noted Zafiropoulo. “There are 40 to 50 wafers being processed every hour in our machines and if we make one mistake, it may take two weeks before you find out there is a problem. That is hundreds of millions of dollars of damage. You lose your credibility and will lose future business opportunities. It’s all in the details.”

As a result, Ultratech chose Singapore. The island state has the talent and supporting infrastructure to meet the operation’s exacting need for meticulous attention to detail. Also, Singapore represents the company’s first manufacturing centre outside of the U.S.

Zafiropoulo said Singapore’s well-trained and well-educated workforce ensures that Ultratech can hire the right people to maintain its zero-defect policy for production.

“Although labour represents only about three to four per cent of the entire system cost, it remains a key factor. That three or four per cent has to be highly educated. In Singapore, education is supported by the Government, the whole society is focused on ensuring that the young have a good education — families and parents care about their children getting a good education,” he added.

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For the precision engineering industry, which Ultratech participates in, the Singapore Government supports education and training with scholarships and training grants for talents at all levels – from engineers, technologists to craftsmen. In 2007, the Government launched a $76-million National Precision Engineering Scholarship and Specialist Programme, which aims to produce 600 students by 2012. At a higher level, manpower programmes have been developed to train specialist engineers, including PhDs, and highly-skilled master craftsmen.

What does this mean for a company like Ultratech? Zafiropoulo replied, “For me, the quality of the workforce will drive the future operations here. For example, back in the U.S., the average worker in manufacturing would have gone to college for two years, here it is four years. The extended college education enables the workers in Singapore to be more productive and operate at a much higher level.”

He added, “I expect to increase performance over our U.S. facility. This Singapore operation is going to significantly raise the bar on performance for Ultratech.”

Zafiropoulo expects to ramp up its Singapore operations sooner than originally expected. Ultratech currently employs 40 people in Singapore but is now stepping up its hiring to bring the number to 200 over the next few years.

The company is planning to set up a research and development (R&D) unit in Singapore by the end of 2011, which will collaborate with local universities to develop Ultratech’s next-generation technology.

Zafiropoulo, a man who does not mince words, has this advice for others thinking about setting up a base in Singapore, “I would encourage high technology companies with complex machinery to consider Singapore. This is not simply a good place to have a business, it’s a great place.”

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Four young graduates of the National University of Singapore (NUS) have shown that you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to invent breakthrough products or attract the attention of technology giants

Darius Cheung, a Singaporean, and three Indian nationals, Varun Chatterji, Indradeep Biswas and Rishi Israni, founded tenCube when they were fresh graduates from NUS in 2005. The company is behind the popular and critically-acclaimed WaveSecure software, which helps mobile phone owners track and locate their lost phones, back up their data, and remotely wipe out data to protect privacy.

Cheung, CEO of tenCube, said the company had considered Silicon Valley in the US and India when they were deciding where they would set up their company. “We ended up in Singapore primarily because we wanted to target the whole Asia market, which is where the mobile market was hot at the time. Singapore was also a great place where we could easily attract diverse talents from India, Vietnam, and other places in Asia,” he added.

Singapore’s cosmopolitan population where residents come from all parts of Asia as well as other parts of the world, proved a boon to the start-up. Cheung recounted, “My co-founders (from India) were not only great engineers but more importantly, they were instrumental in our Indian Development Centre, which was a big part of how we became successful in the first two years of our start-up.”

Another Singaporean, Lee Chee Wee joined them, bringing with him a wealth of experience in digital and social marketing, while Rico Wyder, a Swiss who had previously started his own company, helped spearhead business development. They were also able to hire Cal Dillysul, a Filipino with call centre credentials, and Pham Duc Dungan, an engineer from Vietnam.

“Singapore is an ideal hub for attracting diverse talent and that diversity gave us a competitive advantage that allowed our team to complement and leverage on each other’s strengths,” Cheung said.

The young and energetic team made its debut at the university’s Start-Up@Singapore, billed as Singapore’s biggest business plan competition, which became a launch pad for their fledgling enterprise. This helped pull in venture capital as well as funding from SPRING Singapore, a government agency.

Cheung said tenCube’s experience dispelled the common perception that Singapore is an expensive city to start and run a business. “If you consider the productivity gains that you can get with the talents over here … the efficiency of the infrastructure, the incentive schemes available – taking into consideration all these factors, Singapore is actually a very cost-effective place to run a business.”

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He reckoned that with the productivity gains from the talents readily available in Singapore, the effective cost of operating in Singapore is the same as in India where the lower salary was often offset by increased overheads and lower overall output.

tenCube’s innovative product propelled the company to the international stage where it gained wide recognition. Within a year since it started in 2005, tenCube was named one of the top 100 tech start-ups in Asia by Red Herring, a US-based technology magazine. The company also received a further boost of S$1 million in investment from India-based One97 Limited.

Other accolades included Top 10 Wireless Innovation by Frost & Sullivan, Overall Winner of the Mobile Monday Peer Awards, and a Top 3 Winner at Google’s Android Developer Challenge.

More excitement and recognition followed when McAfee acquired tenCube for an undisclosed sum in 2010, in a move to strengthen McAfee’s leadership position in mobile security. The software giant decided not only to make Singapore a hub for its mobile security business and R&D centre, but also added to the headcount post-acquisition.

Wahab Yusoff, VP and head of McAfee South East Asia said: “McAfee intends for Singapore to become one of the hubs for its mobile technology development. We will continue to tap on the pool of talent here and grow the team.”

Cheung added, “Singapore is a particularly interesting place for new product developments. It’s almost like an incubation centre that is representative of any modern economy.”

He cited the following reasons – close industry-academia collaboration which makes research and recruitment easy; the presence of government agencies and large corporations with the budget to experiment with new technology; customers like the Singapore Police Force and the military, who are willing to co-develop and test-drive products.

“Singapore is a very small place so the proximity really helps. The executives who are based here have an open mind about trying new products. So the entire chain smooths the path for any new product developments, be it for a start-up or a large company,” Cheung explained.

Now part of a larger company themselves, Cheung and his co-founders who created a multi-million dollar venture out of a simple idea of locating lost phones, will no doubt have a much bigger budget to fuel their creative drive and take their business to greater heights.

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It is a little known fact that Singapore produces half of all the perfume that goes into Procter & Gamble (P&G) products sold around the world.

The consumer titan picked the Republic from out of 18 possible sites in the region to set up its first Asian perfume plant, which manufactures perfume oil that goes into P&G’s leading brands like Pantene and Head & Shoulders shampoos, Olay skin moisturisers, Tide laundry detergents and Downy fabric softeners.

If P&G is smelling the sweet fragrance of success from the perfume plant, it will not be a surprise. Two years after the decision to set up the plant, the company announced it will invest another S$250 million to build a Singapore Innovation Centre which will be a key pillar in sustaining its rapid growth in the region.

The facility, to be staffed by 400 people, from technicians to PHD holders, will make “designed in Singapore” products a reality for Asian consumers. When it opens in 2013, it will carry out a whole spectrum of product development activities, including consumer research, new material research, product formulation and package design.

It will practise P&G’s open innovation concept – known as Connect and Develop, which will see the company tie up with local talents such as research departments from the various universities and private research institutions based in Singapore. In particular, a three-year research agreement with A*STAR, a Singapore government agency that fosters scientific research and talent, will give P&G access to 14 research institutes that are involved in R&D in consumer products.

Charles Lim, Head of Human Resources, P&G Asia, said the Singapore government’s strong support and pro-business outlook have influenced its decision to continue to invest in Singapore since it set up a small distribution base in the country in the 1960s.

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”The infrastructure development here in Singapore is second to none,” Mr Lim added. “In addition to this, the diverse talent pool located here allows us to hire staff for our businesses from within Singapore and elsewhere with ease.”

P&G’s employee profile in Singapore is one of the most diverse within the Cincinnati-based company’s global operations. It has 1,600 people from 40 different nationalities across three locations in the Lion City.

Singapore is strategic to P&G not only because it is the base for the company’s Asia-Pacific headquarters. The Republic also serves as the global headquarter for its high-end women’s cosmetic brand SK-II.

As such, it was only logical that P&G also trains its senior managers in Singapore. Its Asia Leadership Development Centre was opened in September 2010 and aims to train 500 managers from the region every year.

As the HR head for the region, the Asia Leadership Development Centre is close to Lim’s heart. He said: “We can use Singapore to create ‘truly Asian’ leaders because here, they can actually deal with multiple cultures within Asia.

At the same time, because we have a lot of MNCs present here, the candidates are exposed to wider perspectives on a range of global issues, especially from the West. What I call being able to manage East and connect West.”

Small wonder P&G is looking to Singapore’s melting pot of talents to stir up an exciting menu of products for the fast-growing Asian consumer market in the coming years.

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Singapore – International

The Brazil-born, Harvard-educated, co-founder of FaceBook has been based in Singapore for over a year and is frequently seen visiting the sights and meeting local entrepreneurs. Eduardo Saverin has been keeping quiet since the launch of ‘The Social Network’, where he was sympathetically portrayed by Andrew Garfield, though he recently invested in a Silicon Valley start-up called Qwiki. When he finally got round to seeing the film, he says, the message for him was that ‘entrepreneurship and creativity, however complicated, difficult or tortured to execute, are perhaps the most important drivers of business today’.

Nothing new there, except in his case, the torture was extreme when he realised he hadn’t fully appreciated what documents he had signed. But he also says, ‘Innovation is blind’, in the sense that ‘love is blind’. He means it doesn’t care who does it, or who has a go. Anyone can join in, even Harvard students having a late-night prank.

Someone who is probably more careful not to make the same mistake, and who also has made Singapore her home, is Deb Henretta who is a long-time American Procter & Gamble staffer and now heads P&G’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in the city. Last year, the company opened a leadership development centre that will train at least 500 regional leaders a year and it has also started to build a new $250 million Singapore Innovation Centre in the Biopolis campus in North Buona Vista.

Unilever, the Dutch company that is P&G’s great rival, goes even further. Its Singapore headquarters, as well as looking after the Asia-Pacific, also runs its Africa, Middle East, Turkey and even its Central and Eastern Europe operations out of Singapore, totalling over US$19 billions worth of business. It is building a new S$60 million facility in the One-North business park.

Like Hong Kong and Shanghai, Singapore owes its wealth and reputation to being an international hub. It started trading in commodities and then expanded to manufactured goods. Today, it trades in services, especially those awkwardly-named things called creativity, knowledge, information and professional services. When I was working with HBO, the US movie channel, we decided to establish our HBO Asia headquarters in Singapore in preference to other cities not because of Singapore’s TV industry or local audiences but because of its position as a cosmopolitan hub with Asia’s highest proportion of foreign talent and companies. We were betting on the infrastructure and on people having the right attitude.

George Lucas, the mastermind of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’, had the same idea when he opened his Lucasfilm Singapore studio in 2005. Located at Changi Business Park, it is the only Lucasfilm studio outside California. The America-Singapore link allows the company to maintain a 24-hour a day production schedule.

This international flavour starts at home. Over half of the resident population speak English at home and the number of Singaporeans proficient in two or more languages jumped from 56% ten years ago to 71% in 2010. The National University of Singapore (NUS) describes itself as a ‘global university based in Asia’. Over one-third of NUS students are from outside the country and in the Business School, the proportion rises to over 90%. This is an incentive for potential students, who may want to work in dozens of countries during their career, as they will meet a wide range of fellow students during their study.

Recently, a brash new pack of Infocomm Technology (ICT) companies have moved in. These are not giants like Unilever or IBM but start-ups from all over the world who see Singapore as a good base for business in a flat world.

Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies is almost a model of a modern company. It is high-tech in a green, innovative sort of way. Its business is the development and manufacturing of micro-fuel cells. It has made one of the world’s first commercially-available and cheapest hydrogen-powered power-plants. It is based in Singapore and has a manufacturing base in Shanghai, investors from Europe, America and Singapore, and senior management who held previous jobs in Germany, Hong Kong, China and America. One of its investors is a member of the Piech family and a major stakeholder in Porsche Holdings, Europe’s biggest car company.

The government is eager to attract such companies. In February, it announced plans to set aside S$2.5 billion over the next five years to strengthen tax incentives for new companies. Since 2008, dozens of companies have moved in from countries as diverse as the America, China, Finland and Israel, operating in the fashionable but risky areas of gaming, mobile apps, cloud computing, Web 2.0 and business analytics. They are projected to trigger an estimated $100 million in project spending and employ an estimated 500 development engineers over the next few years.

The presence of so many like-minded companies provides critical mass. Their employees, usually working in small companies, don’t feel so lonely. By their presence, these start-ups inject innovation into other areas. With social media so pervasive they can easily keep in touch with what is happening in America and Europe as well as the rest of China. As Eduardo Saverin no doubt could tell them.

John Howkins, Chairman of Howkins & Associates with offices in London and Shanghai, is a leader in the global growth of the creative industries covering arts, design, media and innovation. His book, ‘The Creative Economy’ (2001) designed the new economy and the follow-up ‘Creative Ecologies’ (2009) shows where creativity and innovation thrive.

Founder and Director of the Adelphi Charter on Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property (2006) and of two Anniversary Forums on Copyright 1720-2010, Howkins is also Chairman of BOP Consulting and a former Chairman of the London Film School and Executive Director of the International Institute of Communications (IIC).

Creativity is for Everyone

We’ve come a long way. In the 1960s, David Ogilvy, one of the grand old men of advertising who co-founded of Ogilvy & Mather and was surely a model for the fast-living honchos in the hit TV series, ‘Mad Men’, said his employees must never use the word ‘creative’ to describe what they did. He wanted them to use their imagination, of course, but he didn’t want them to boast about it. They weren’t artists, they were businessmen.

The next generation began to flaunt its creativity and encourage their employees to do the same. When Sim Wong Hoo and his school friend Ng Kai Wa launched a computer repair shop in Singapore, they named it Creative Labs which must have seemed a trifle ambitious even if it was soon challenging established players in digital entertainment products.

In 2010, IBM’s Global Chief Executive survey reported that 1,500 CEOs in over 60 countries believe creativity is the most significant talent in business today.
The IBM report concluded: ‘Creativity trumps other leadership characteristics. Creative leaders are comfortable with ambiguity and experimentation. To connect with and inspire a new generation, they lead and interact in entirely new ways.’ David Ogilvy would have hated the pompous wording but he might have recognised that times have changed. The message is clear: Creativity is today’s top asset.

From being rather dubious – necessary for artists but dangerous for normal people – creative thinking is now seen as highly desirable for everyone whose job is to use their brains and make decisions in today’s increasingly complex world.

This applies to all companies, large and small, in all industries, and there is a strong case for saying it applies to people in public service such as schools, hospitals, public transport and so on. It even applies to politicians.

The management consultancy McKinsey has mapped this by its research into ‘tacit knowledge’ which is the kind of knowledge that cannot be put into words or pinned down. It’s the kind we use when we make judgements without knowing all the facts. It’s personal and intuitive. It often happens very quickly. In his book, ‘Blink’, Malcolm Gladwell called it ‘thinking without thinking’.

It’s the opposite of those exams when we are given a list of questions with multiple choice answers and have to choose between someone else’s idea of right and wrong. When we use tacit knowledge, we set the test ourselves, both questions and answers. An Indian businessman in Mumbai told me last year that asking the right question is much more important than getting the right answer. If you ask the right question, he said, you contribute at least half the answer. Scenarios planners refer to it as ‘organising question’ which literally organises the way to find the answer.

McKinsey’s research, carried out over several years, showed that about 45% of employees in Europe and the USA say they use tacit knowledge regularly in their work. Even more remarkably, McKinsey found that 75% of new jobs in these countries require people to use tacit knowledge. That is, nearly four out of five companies nowadays expect their new employees to be clever and brave enough to make personal, subjective and unquantifiable judgements as part of their daily routine. It’s what these companies pay people to do. To ask their own questions, find their own answers and then do something about it. The ‘doing’ is part of the process. As Walt Disney said, “The future is not the result of choices among existing paths in the present. It is a place that is created – first, created in the mind; second, created in the activity.’

This has several implications. Companies have to review their recruitment methods, management styles, skills base and training programmes. The conventional person who likes to sit on top of a formal hierarchy and issue blueprints to the workers is not going to happy in an organisation where people prefer to play with their own informal ambiguity and experimentation. Such people may proudly insist their door is always open. But his colleagues may think, why does he need an office at all?

In a creative economy, close to 100% of people assume their job is to make judgements in situations of unknowable complexity, and do so on their own. They are strongly motivated to do so. The routine is not repetition but change and adaptation, which is not really routine at all. They value this freedom as highly as a conventional manager values his financial package. They are, in IBM’s phrase, comfortable with ambiguity and experimentation; both their own and other people’s. It’s not all good news, as constant change creates higher volatility.

Today, there are multiple overlaps between the creative industries and other industries, most obviously in the core sectors of design, fashion, entertainment and digital media but also in electronics, furniture, cars and food. Mainstream industries have adopted wholeheartedly the new business models. Phone manufacturers who might have changed their models every few years now introduce new ones every few months, just as fashion designers who used to have seasons lasting six months now introduce new lines every few weeks. Fashion and phone companies: they share the same work styles, business models and skills, and they both recruit as many creative people as they can.

John Howkins, Chairman of Howkins & Associates with offices in London and Shanghai, is a leader in the global growth of the creative industries covering arts, design, media and innovation. His book, ‘The Creative Economy’ (2001) designed the new economy and the follow-up ‘Creative Ecologies’ (2009) shows where creativity and innovation thrive.

Founder and Director of the Adelphi Charter on Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property (2006) and of two Anniversary Forums on Copyright 1720-2010, Howkins is also Chairman of BOP Consulting and a former Chairman of the London Film School and Executive Director of the International Institute of Communications (IIC).