WILD GEESE: EMIGRANT BUSINESS LEADERS ON OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD: SINGAPORE'S CONSISTENT ability to transform itself is a lesson for other small economies seeking to define themselves in the face of competition from big neighbours and fast-moving economies, says Dubliner Paul Hourihane, chief executive of Singapore-based direct marketing agency Go/React.
“Business keeps changing here in Singapore and we keep learning. When I arrived, in 1995, it had a reputation as a very controlling place – no chewing gum, no long hair. There were just three TV stations and there was no interest in the place,” he says.
We are sitting in an elegant rooftop cafe on a balmy evening in Singapore, which last year was the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
An ultra-modern city state with a population of five million, Singapore is home to major biotech industries, financial services companies and IT concerns. It is about the size of New York, and is strategically placed at the southern end of the Malay Peninsula.
Singapore has undergone a series of metamorphoses from a low-cost base to a financial centre to a biotech and high-tech hub.
“The Singaporeans changed themselves,” says Hourihane.
“They had the long-sightedness and the money to execute it, and they delivered it. They are really money savvy here and well educated. These guys are smart.”
Hourihane says part of Singapore’s smartness comes from an inherent conservatism, part of it is regulatory cleverness, but part of it is simply understanding what to do in a particular situation.
He cites the Central Provident Fund, a social security savings plan for citizens in old age, as an example of how the government forces people to save and tries to avoid the build-up of speculative forces.
Hourihane arrived in Singapore in 1995 after 30 years in Dublin. He had come a year previously on honeymoon, during which he did a little discreet reconnaissance, and says he knew from that early exposure to the southeast-Asian city that he could find opportunities there.
He left his job at Javelin in Dublin to join Young Rubicam in Singapore, where he worked for a year. In 1996 he joined direct marketing agency Wunderman Asia Pacific, where he was regional director for six years, before leaving to set up his own agency, Go Direct!, in 2001.
Go Direct! quickly grew into one of the top five agencies in the region and, in January this year, it merged with digital agency React to create Go/React. The company has 35 employees.
Go/React, which lists Nikon, Fujitsu, Microsoft, Sony, Qantas and Honda among its clients, was recently voted the best independent direct marketing agency in Singapore.
“It was all very slow in Ireland between 1983 and 1994 from a business point of view. Things didn’t change much in Ireland, including the weather. I felt it would take me a long time to get where I wanted to go,” he says.
“In contrast, this place has changed beyond all recognition. It was a bit like, ‘Join the army, see the world’, coming here.”
The big change in the 1990s and early 2000s came with the rapid rise of the internet. “The internet changed everything in our business and in Singapore. The market hadn’t really realised what the internet was going to do, and we were a bit ahead of our time,” says Hourihane.
“We’re still ahead of the market, but Singapore won’t be too far behind. Singapore is now the third-most wired place in the world.”
Hourihane is secretary of the Irish Chamber of Commerce in Singapore and a board member of the European Chamber. For the past five years he has been vice-chairman of the Direct Marketing Association of Singapore.
Hourihane believes the economic crisis in Ireland is recognised as not just being Ireland’s problem, and says there is no sense that Ireland is being singled out as a pariah.
“To anyone thinking about coming out here, they know that the world doesn’t revolve around Ireland, it’s a global economy,” he says.
“My job is vastly different from the time I arrived in Singapore in 1994 to 2011. You’ve got to be adaptable and you’ve got to be change-ready. Be a hound in going after stuff.”
Anyone considering coming to Singapore, either as a jobseeker or looking for business contacts, should consider contacting the Irish Chamber of Commerce, Hourihane says.
“The Irish chamber is really ingrained in Singapore. We have hundreds of members. We’re here to help, including jobseekers. We’re a resource. The Government says it’s keen to use the diaspora, so let’s do it.”
Paul Hourihane
Chief executive of direct marketing agency Go/React
WILDGEESE
EMIGRANT BUSINESS LEADERS
ON OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD
