Tag Archives: business competitiveness

Low salary contributes to higher competitiveness?!

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I just read an article the other day saying low salary in Asia actually increases the competitiveness for these low salary countries which a lot of European countries and the US envy greatly. What kind of non-sense it is?!

I am not so sure if the writer of the article has ever heard a word called Brain-Drain? Does he think the people in those low salary countries are so stupid so they will stay at wherever they are for the rest of their lives?! When majority of the workers leave the country, it will fundamentally devastate the country’s competitiveness as a whole. The low salary countries eventually become education and training facilities for those countries with higher salary levels.

Two major reasons cause brain-drain: 1. Low salary. 2. Long working hours. Paying capable people good salary not only increases workers’ productivity which will eventually contribute to the company’s growth but also eliminate the competitions for the company. Many workers quit their jobs and start out on their own is because they are not satisfied with their pay and want to make more, so when those employees establish their own companies, they eventually become their former employers’ business competitors.

Making workers work overtime is also a commonly seen phenomenon in the low salary countries, I always heard the employers tried to defend it by saying if I do not take the jobs with unreasonable deadlines, someone else will in a heart beat and even ask for less. Well, who do you think those “someone else” are? a lot of them probably used to work for you, dumb dumb! If you keep taking those jobs that have unreasonable deadlines and making your employees work overtime all the time, then you will expect many more such competitions in the future, and those who stay and work will also become less productive or creative workers due to the long working hours, so while the workers in the countries with higher salary invent good stuff and make money out of the patents and enjoy their lives on sunny beaches, your less creative workers will still work like dogs and never be able to invent anything. Now, tell me where is the competitiveness brought by the low salary?!

Darwinism in Design Related Businesses

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I always thought the housing bubble burst started in 2008 would wipe out the companies that had bad reputation. However, what I saw was that many good companies were gone but bad ones still remain. I was very puzzled by this phenomenon, but now I understand why.

There was a millwork shop I used to work with, its owner was extremely artistic and skilled, but the reality is that the creative and artistic people usually are not very business savvy, their artist mindset just can’t compete with their competitors who are more business oriented but less creative or skilled. So, the skilled and creative craftsmen are all out of business but the un-skilled, non-creative businessmen with inferior craftsmanship and quality of work all survived. This kind of Darwinism doesn’t seem justified.

Will China’s Economy Reform Fail?

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When China’s GDP growth downed from double digits to 7 something percent last year, it signaled China’s economy is slowing down. Increasing labor cost and tightened regulations slowly expelled the labor intense industry out of China. Similar to what happened in Taiwan in the late 90’s and throughout 00′, China needs to transform its labor intense industry to high-tech industry. Unfortunately, Taiwan failed the transformation, and is suffering the consequences, low job growth and stalled salary. Will China follow Taiwan’s step and fail the challenge? Very likely.

As an interior designer, my job can not be classified as high-tech, but it is not hard to predict why China will fail the economy reform to transform its economy by observing how the interior designers operate in China. When interior designers start to work on a new project and prepare for client presentation, unlike what we do in the States,  we research the available materials and start to sketch out the ideas, Chinese interior designers look for project photos on the design magazines or websites, and then copy with minor tweaking the designs from the photos they found. Why do they do that?! Isn’t it violating the copy rights and professional ethics, or at least personal integrity? No, not to Chinese designers. In fact, they are encouraged to copy others’ design ideas, why? well, because the clients in China love to rush. If you think some clients in the US like to rush to get things done, the clients in China are 1000 times worse. If a project needs 1 year to complete in the States, it will be completed in China in 3 months. Super fast work flow forces Chinese designers to work overtime constantly, under the pressure, it becomes luxury for designers to have time to be creative and think about the ideas of their own. Long working hours also impairs the designers’ ability to innovate. Therefore, most of interior design ideas in China are copied.

Ok, no big deals, right? just copy an interior design idea! so?! people still make money! Well, Chinese high-tech workers work the same way! cell phone companies, automobile companies, computer companies, website companies, and defense insdustry….These high tech companies copied whatever from foreign companies without creating their own indigenous high technology, so they will always lead from behind.

When the US built the stealth fighter jets like F-22 and F-35, China followed and also built J-20 stealth fighter jets with lots of “borrowed” technology and designs. Many of you might think “see! China is strong and advanced! They can also build stealth fighter jets!” but for me , the real strong country is the one that came up with the idea – “stealth” at the first place. Now, the United States is the only country in the world has operational stealth fighter jets in service and maintains the air superiority. Innovation makes the United States lead.

So, if Chinese clients do not change the way that they want everything done by yesterday, excessive over-time working will keep impairing Chinese workers’ innovation and creativity, and China’s economy reform will be doomed to fail.