The Changing Landscape

It might be a dream come true, but lately at nights, Singapore seems to take
on the cool air of a Brisbane autumn. And it is exactly in this lovely
weather that me and some pals were sitted around the coffeeshop table
talking about life again.

One of the Coffee Table Knights have just lost his job, the layoff being on
the wall for awhile, and the execution hastened when the company found an
excuse vis-a-vis the economic situation now.

He looked forlorn, with the chief question of how to bring food to the table
in the next few months hovering above heads like a dark, stormy cloud. The
job climate is not looking good, and speaking to certain financial world
friends of mine, it is just the beginning of troubles for Singapore. Next
year's going to be where all the ramifications set in.

After all that has happened in the short space of two months, I wonder if
the people's faith and trust in corporations have been shattered. Bum 2, as
we call him now (the original Bum happens to be yours truly), is wondering
if he should embark on the chore of a job hunt, or pack his backs and go for
studies. He is also wondering if he should start his own small business, and
forever throw off those manacles that come with a 9-to-5 job.

It could be wistful thinking, but deep in my mind, I was wondering if this
spells the end for huge, wasteful corporations? I considered the
pre-Industrial Revolution economies of the world, where the world is
predominantly made up of small businesses. The hardworking blacksmith, that
keen tailor, that lone journalist writing the town's paper. How wonderful it
would be, if everyone was master and owner of their own trade and business.

The Industrial Revolution changed everything - power was delivered to groups
of people working in concert to drive production and growth. Only
corporations were able to purchase the machinery that allowed them to
capitalize on economies-of-scale. Upon analysis, the reasons why
corporations arose during the Industrial Revolution was :

- Expensive machinery was able to be purchased only by groups or
organizations
- Knowledge transfer technologies and methods were sufficient to make an
organization greater than the sum of its parts
- The world became increasing consumers of material goods, and is not
content to just live in a small town. In short, ambitions grew, the world's
the oyster now.

However, looking at right now, time could be ripe for the comeback of small
businesses. Increasingly, people are more and more empowered individually.
Knowledge, even specialized knowledge, is widely available on that gold mine
we call the Internet. No doubt material goods still makes up a large part of
our consumerism habits, but more and more, information and intangible goods
and services are being sought after. In short :

- Knowledge, which used to be expensive, is now available, via modern
channels, for cheap or free.
- Purchase patterns is slowly but surely shifting away from material
goods, which required expensive equipment, to information and intangible
services, which require just a good brain on the head and a smile.
- Corporations are possibly facing consumer backlash, people might prefer
now to shop at the small grocer, compared to heading down to Carrefour. They
think these big guys have been greedy for too long, and now the little folks
need the break they deserve.

What transpired on that coffee table:

- *Bum 1 : *It's not gonna be easy, mate. You'll survive, it's hard to
die, but to grow big is another issue. A whole different challenge lies
ahead if you want to take that business idea of yours from conception, to
execution, to growing beyond that critical point where it starts becoming a
small firm.
- *Bum 2 : *Is it that hard?
- *Bum 1 : *You have no idea, I languished in the early days of the
business, working out the core business model, making failed sales
presentations, coming back and spending nights poring over what I have done
wrong. Then you constantly got to stay ahead of the game, keep on learning,
keep on innovating. It gets lonely too, without colleagues, and more
importantly, it gets frightening, when you have yet to clinch a sale and
it's towards the end of the month. Your bills are still gonna come, whether
a client's payment is in or not.
- *Bum 2 : *But you seem to be fine towards the latter half of the 2nd
year, in fact I remembered you could afford a quite a fair bit of new toys.
- *Bum 1 : *Yes, but it was a roller-coaster ride through and through. I
had a few mentors, who told me to persist and hang in there - it's all about
perserverance. However there were nights where you lay on your bed wondering
if it was the right move, whether you should send out your resume tomorrow.
- *Bum 1 : *However, after being in business, and being an employee for
close to two years now, I am resolute that running your own business gives
you the most satisfaction in your life, especially if you are doing the
things you love to do. A job will give you security, colleagues, lunchtime,
and a measure of progress - until it decides that you have outlived your
usefulness. A job also means that you have to sacrifice control over 10
hours of your life every working day, contending with bad management and
practises, and putting in more work than your paycheck actually is. What
irks me the most about working for someone - your efforts, however valiant,
are stymied by the fact that you have absolutely no control over its
rewards/execution.
- *Bum 1 : *If you run a small business, you know that every minute of
effort you put in, you'll get one minute worth of returns - whether it is
client satisfaction or monetary payments. However, the same goes for every
minute of rest you take - you don't get anything for that. In a corporation,
you could be working two weeks on a proposal that is eventually is going to
be thrown out of the window. If you run your own business, you know that
proposal is going to matter somehow, at the very least.
- *Bum 1 : *So what I'm saying is this - you have full control. You reap
the fruits of your labor, and it's yours. And as you bring the business up,
you also bring in like-minded individuals. You are able to set the culture
of the business to what you perceive to be best - whether arguments are
going to be resolved over a beer in the pub, or be stored deep down in guts
only to be lashed out at meetings.
- *Bum 2 : *Hmm... that's quite a bit to take in.
- *Bum 1 : *I'm saying, old chap, that if you are brave enough, setting
up your business is going to be the singularly most rewarding thing you have
ever done in your life.

And Bum 1 goes on to advise Bum 2, taking in consideration his character,
personality, dependents. Not dictating anything, just offering perspectives.

And while Bum 1 is now an employee, rest assured it's not going to be for
long - he's just taking a walk, peeking into other people's gardens, seeing
what should be done, and what not to do.

Bum 1, as sure as the weather changes from the tepid tropicals to the cool
hemispheres, is bidding his time, learning and growing. He will be master of
himself again, and time, oh time, that most precious commodity a man can
ever have, will be his to wield once again.