End of Day One

A bit of recap on the start of the day. Team choosing! 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5...

And this is the end of day one! As Ying Yuan wraps up the first day with her comments on the groups' performances and some pointers on their discussions so far, it is time for serious reflection by the teams on their industry of choice.

Every summary is an act of slaughter, but we have to try our best to summarise the conclusions given by Ying Yuan in case you're (if you're a participant) at home looking at this now looking for first aid help, or you're just curious about what the participants are going through.

This competition is not about creating a new product or business. Let's leave that to the entrepreneurs; We do industrial planning. Just as how ebay cut out the middleman, don't let Singapore be the irrelevant and unnecessary middleman in production lines. If you have to allow Singapore to be the middleman, give a very very good reason for that. 

It is about creating a win-win situation. Demand and supply has a reason to be included within Economics 101 as the foundation for microeconomics. Creating mutual gains through exchanges is essential to every single deal. But of course, creating an industry is not a single purchase deal. It is also about viability and sustainability. When we talk about viability and sustainability, we should also be clear of the role that Singapore should play along the production chain, and the space that we should occupy. And lastly, the Amoeba Challenge is a competition. What is your edge?

And finally, not to be nosy, but please do mind your time management. Time is a limited resource, and scarcity demands tradeoffs. Optimise. On another note, we are looking for industrial ideas, not academic chess games. Don't be caught up in theoretical economics nor mental chess games. Be smart, sharp and sexy.

And last piece of advice from your commentators. Your commentator (Linan specifically) loves Quentin Tarantino's films. The latest one of his masterpiece - Inglourious Basterds - contains perhaps one of the most important lessons for you. The German Colonel Hans Landa negotiated his own "conditional surrender" at the end of the movie when he realised that he alone holds the decision on whether the Allies' plan to kill Hitler succeeds. Hence he negotiated an extremely fat deal for himself in exchange for him purposefully allowing the Allies' plans to succeed. That included oily benefits and a nice house on Nantucket Island for himself after the war. Why did he do that? Not because he's patriotic to either the eagle or the queen. He did that because his interests aligns with that of the Allies. By allowing the Allies to kill Hitler, he fulfils the Allies' objective of ending the war, and also fulfils his own interest of getting a good retirement, instead of banking on the increasingly bleak prospects of Germany winning the war.

Point being, at the crux of every deal lies the need to align interests - to align Singapore's interests with that of investors, and to further satisfy the interests of Singapore employees and the rest of the industries in Singapore. Demand and supply is not a dead concept. It is perhaps the most important concept in economics behind comparative advantage - both of which many business school graduates have pathetically failed to learn. Instead they pick up things like competitive advantage (a dumbed down mix of absolute and comparative advantage) and branding (which is simply demand and supply). Align interests, and allow mutually beneficial deals to be made. After all, no one makes a deal to lose.

And for those of you who haven't watched the Basterds yet, it is worth skirting the M18 rating. Trust us.
Till tomorrow!