Singapore grip hard to resist amid roar of recovered Asian Tiger

WILD GEESE:Paraic McGrath, Asia-Pacific sales and marketing director, Intuition Publishing

ONE FACTOR that has transformed Singapore into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world is the Singaporeans’ ability to function outside their comfort zone, says Paraic McGrath, from Claremorris, who runs the Asian arm of Intuition Publishing, the e-learning firm owned and chaired by financier Dermot Desmond.

“Asian companies are very focused on markets from a global perspective, whereas the Irish look on traditional markets, and tend to be more sectoral.

“Irish companies need to get out of their comfort zone because traditional markets are going through a difficult time. Ireland needs to seek growth on a more global platform and in complementary markets – there are a multitude of complementary markets.”

McGrath left his own comfort zone fairly conclusively over two decades ago, when he left his teaching job in Dublin to move to Japan to join the Jet [Japan Exchange Teaching] exchange programme.

“I was working as a national school teacher and I could see my future being built around that and heading back west to Co Mayo where I came from.

“Then a friend on the Jet programme described what seemed to be something wonderful and I thought I would get out of my comfort zone and go there. I was one of 25 on the programme in 1990 and I’ve not been back,” says McGrath.

He ended up in the village of Azuchi, in Shiga prefecture, north of Kyoto. With a population of 12,000, the only English speakers were teachers.

“I was in Dublin on Friday, then ended up there on a Monday. I spent a year learning Japanese and while I was going up and down from Tokyo, I met a group of Irish people there.

“I joined a rugby club and after a year I got a job through an Irish guy in a brokerage, ended up in the world of finance, trading currencies. After three years, in late 1994, I moved to London.”

Three years after that, he moved with his Australian wife to Sydney, before the lure of Japan became too strong again, and he moved back in 2000, and later on to Singapore.

“About three years ago, I started working for Intuition. Having never worked for an Irish firm before, it was a nice departure,” he says.

Intuition’s Asian offices are in Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Tokyo and Shanghai, and the group is headquartered in the International Financial Services Centre. Last year the Intuition group made its first foray into the China market with a deal with Shanghai University to open up its library of financial market products to Chinese MBA students.

The company has also announced a tie-up with University College Cork’s Asian studies department to create online tutorials to help Irish companies do business in China.

“Asian business is very much relationship-based and Irish businesses should take care and note this.

“Asian businesspeople heavily invest in building trust and respect and Irish companies need to do their homework and show they are committed in the long term, batten down the hatches and say: ‘Look, we’re here’.”

McGrath reckons Ireland could learn from the current crisis, just as Singapore did from the 1997 economic crisis, based on the collapse of regional currencies. “Southeast Asia and Singapore learned a lot from the financial crisis and made this small country the size of Co Louth an absolute oasis in the region.

“It’s borderline embarrassing to mention Ireland in some conversations with clients out here. It appears there has been gross mismanagement over a sustained period by a small number of people.

“Ireland’s got people, culture, location, but it’s a tough job trying to sell it at the moment. It needs an image clean-up from deep down, and to get away from the shenanigans that have been going on. We try to emphasise our strong points, but don’t cover over the cracks, either.”

McGrath is a strong proponent of the recently established Farmleigh fellowships, which have seen 23 students recently arrive in Singapore, and believes there should be more similar initiatives.

He is also chairman of the Gaelic Athletic Association in the region, which covers the Gulf and all of Asia, and has more than 1,000 members in 27 clubs from Dubai to Beijing to Jakarta.

He is an enthusiastic exponent of the networking opportunities the clubs offer. And he believes that more Irish people should be prepared to try Asia as an option.

“There are live vibrant clubs. The GAA clubs out here are community centres and anyone coming out automatically has 27 points of contact.

“Network, network, network. It’s not who you know, what you know, but who knows you. Build your network.

“We’re here – Irish people who will help others get set up and improve themselves, and set up companies, whatever they want to do.

“For a kid to come here out of Ireland, it takes them out of their blinkered view. They retain their Irish identity, of course, but it gives them a world view.”