Best countries to do business in, and why.
Below is a glimpse of how I see cultures and how I rank them over the past few decades. In the late 1990’s I was on the ground working in most of these countries.
#1 India — Sridhar Vembu and his amazing team of coders are Zoho have taken Ray Dalio’s radical truth, radical transparency to a whole new level. ZohoOne allows everyone at ANEW to weight in on subject matter and executed decisions at amazing speed and clearity. With 50M++ users around the world they are the best at what they do. I spoke in Austin at Zohoholics when Mr Vembu asked if anyone had an IPO story. I won the best story.
#2 America — “The Best Story”. I empowered all of my employees at MicroTool back in the late 90’s with stock and decision making processes. We sold MicroTool just weeks before 911. Wall Street demanded that our new parent company cut 60% of their workforce. They came to me and said “Pat you need to cut 60% of your workforce”. I tooled then I could not do it and asked them to take me instead. They did. Years later, my employees armed with enough stock and confidence bought MicroTool back and have been dominating the market they control. ANEW is set up with the same tools to succeed.
#3 China — I spent more than a decade in factories after MicroTool teaching Chinese workers how to make products. They are the hardest working people on the planet. The come with a desire to learn and a desire to improve their quality of life and the products they build.
#4 Taiwan — Taiwan dominated the FAB chip biz starting in the late 90’s. I spent years on the ground in Hsinchu city and worked in back end fabs down in Tinana. They understand copy exact methodologies I arrived with from Intel and put those thought processes to work at the great chip FABS TSMC, UMC and others. Intel builds chips, the Taiwanese build chips then mount them to circuit boards, attach power supplies and package everything for our electronic consumption. They taught the Chinese what we Americans taught them.
#5 German — The German chip companies that i worked in took more vacation days, always drank way to much beer and schnapps each night, yet drove their team to madness about quality. Employees first, quality second, price third. I have driven used mercedes for years and have wrenched on them myself because those Germans know how to design a system that can be worked on later in the product life cycle.
#6 Japanese — The Japanese are very good friends of mine. We worked hard and played hard. They put the customer first and are respectful beyond belief. They invested in MicroTool and I always thank them for their belief in our American way of capitalism. They still apologize for Pearl Harbour. I love that in a culture. They would be at the top of my list, yet there hierarchy in the office is bizarre. It works in Japan, yet it has to be hurting their bottom line.
#7 Korea — The Korean way at Samsung, LG, Hyundai Electronics is a national way of doing business. As a vendor I was forced to lower the cost of my products and services 10% each year until the product was replaced. The American medical system could learn a lot from the Koreans.
#8 Singapore — I was back in Singapore recently working on a project for the people that design the Apple Stores. Singapore is clean, orderly, futuristic and on top of their financial services. Peter Chew at Hope Technika has to be one of the great IoT innovators. Hope feels like NASA for cool state of the art autonomous products. They have a cantina on the roof and a lobby that rivals Disneyland. This culture of innovators are respectful, happy and always ready to help.
#9 United Kingdom — We have 2 of our great managers in the UK. While the UK might not be known for their manufacturing, their business character is pure, honest and respectful. Wait, I recently read a report that the UK is so automated that they have believe this or not “the lowest manufacturing costs in Europe”. I hiked across England a few years back and love to stop in each village for a pint and sleepover. Back in the late 90’s I submitted a product to Richard Bransons “Good Idea Club” on Bleeker Street in NYC. I did not know, but Virgin networked me to a dear friend an business colleague Ray Rohrback one of their executives. We have been on the phone most weeks of the year for the past few decades. I am at home with Great Britain and hope to see them move up on the list
#10 Thailand — I did a hydrogen project in Thailand and live with them for months. While the sex trade is sad, they are building great products. Many of the large busses seen around SE Asia come from Thailand. One of the lowest cost PLC systems to wire up factories is made in Thailand. Love the Buddhist monks and in fact one saved my life one day.
Well this is a bit of how I see the world . If you want to change the world, you have to immerse yourself in the cultures learn from them and evolve into a better you.
Peace…. and onward…
Pat
