Doing CI in Singapore: a cultural perspective.
 
Dr. Jo N. Berg, Berg Business Research, Singapore. jo@berg.com.sg
 

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Summary: What is culture, and how does culture influence the way we do competitive intelligence? Singapore business is largely based on relationships, and this can make telephone interviews challenging. One way of meeting this challenge is to focus on preparation, disclosure, starting safe, and information sharing. Jo Berg reviews  Singapore's culture and the four factors that influence the success of your Singapore interviews.

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What is culture, and how does culture influence the way we do competitive intelligence? This article will look at these questions from the perspective of Singapore.
 
There are different ways of looking at culture. One way to define culture is a shared system of meanings that distinguishes the members of one category of people from another. It can be seen as a kind of mental map that guides our relationship to our surroundings and other people. Some cultural aspects are explicit, while others are implicit. Implicit aspects, like values and beliefs, tend to be harder for outsiders to detect and understand than explicit cultural aspects.
 
So what is Singapore culture like? Singapore has a culturally diverse population of about 4.1 million people. There are three main ethnic groups, Chinese, Malay, and Indian, with Chinese being the largest group. This range of ethnicity means different languages are used in Singapore. English is, however, the working language of the country, used for business, administration, and education. Most Singaporeans in the business community speak excellent English. 

 
Western or Asian?
 
Singapore’s long history of exposure to Western commerce means that its business activity is more akin to Western rather than Asian approaches. Some Western business people thus assume that the Western-dressed Singaporean who speaks excellent English must also have a Western outlook and mindset. But Singaporeans are, by and large, Asian in approach and attitude.

In general, Singaporean society is very polite, conservative, and reserved. For example, the Asian value of “giving face” or “preserving face” still has considerable significance in the various cultures of Singapore, and by extension, in the business world. There is also a preference for a relationship-oriented approach rather than a task-based approach.
 

Conducting telephone interviews  

Now that we know a little about the culture, it is time to get on with doing some CI in Singapore. Let us look at this from the point of view of conducting primary research, specifically, conducting telephone interviews. How do you go about interviewing someone on the phone successfully when there is no opportunity to build a relationship first?
 
There are four factors that are particularly important in my experience, and these are preparation, disclosure, starting safe, and information sharing.


1.  Preparation.

As with all telephone interviews, it is important to prepare for them so you are in the position to ask intelligent questions. I don’t want to ask an expert to spend too much of his or her time answering questions that can be easily answered by secondary research. That is also in my own interest, since it is less likely that the expert will be keen to talk to me a second time around.
 

2. Disclosure.
 
You may find you may have to forward material about who you are and the purpose of your interview to your interviewee to establish some “trust” or “credibility” that persuades the person to speak to you. It is also important to remember to address your interviewee by his or her title (Mr or Mrs) and not to use first names unless specifically invited to do so. It may also help to break the ice by speaking in “Singlish” (a hybrid of English used by Singaporeans usually in casual or intimate conversation).
 
Once you have actually got the person on the line (that is often a small achievement just in itself), you are in fact starting to build a relationship, for better or worse. I start by telling the person, in some detail, who I am, where I am from, and what I am working on. This helps persuade the person to take the risk of talking to me.
 
3. Starting safe.

I then try to start safe by asking about some basics first. The idea is to start with something the person is likely to feel comfortable talking about, and then to build on that. Again, what is happening here is relationship building. It must be stressed that it is not possible to do this without proper preparation.

 
4. Information sharing.
 
So far I have used the term “interviewing." To be precise, what I hope to do is to establish more of a conversation where there is an exchange of information, rather than a one-way flow from the expert to me.
 
Singapore has a history of trading, and it is my experience that you will get more out of the interview if you have something to trade with (some primary information gathered as part of the research project, or maybe a part of the final report itself). To facilitate this exchange process, it makes sense to carefully consider in what order you will approach the experts given there is more than one. It obviously makes sense to approach the top expert last, when, if all goes well, you have better material to trade with.
 
Finally, it should be remembered that Singaporeans may not ask questions or indicate when they are uncertain out of fear of losing face. Ask indirect questions to address any concerns that the expert may have about the process but which he may not have expressed.
 
 

Background:
 
Dr Jo N. Berg is the principal of Berg Business Research (BBR) in Singapore. BBR provides expertise in information gathering and analysis for market studies, industry studies, and competitor intelligence. Besides SCIP, he is also a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals. Jo has lived and worked in several countries including Norway, New Zealand and the United States. His PhD thesis was on the subject of international joint ventures. Jo can be reached at jo@berg.com.sg
 
Copyright 2002 Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals

SCIP.online, volume 1 number 12, July 24, 2002.

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