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Consultant thinking: A view from Taipei
The conference in Taipei “Foreseeing 2021” I attended earlier this month was as much of interest for the international perspectives on the present as it was about predictions of the future. I’ve picked out some items that I found to be of particular interest.
- The Taiwanese minister who spoke to us identified three main trends that are significant over the next ten years: an ageing society (with all the implications for welfare and health services); sustainable development (getting more from less); and the growth of regional as well as global groups. He saw the main contributions of management consultants as being to facilitate innovation and the quality of working life.
- The world view from outside the West is considerably different. There is a continuing economic boom in India, and Taiwan continues to thrive; for example, half the laptops in the world are made in Taiwan. However, they are not complacent; manufacturing has moved over the last century from Europe to the US to Japan and then Taiwan and China. Now the competition is seen to be in S. America. They noted that Foxconn is going to need to disperse more widely over China because of wage inflation where they are currently located.
- The speaker from the China Productivity Center (a key Taiwanese institution for supporting the growth of SMEs) thought that there would be yet a further round of recession. Not surprisingly he rated the development of human capital as crucial and noted that learning habits were changing and therefore so too would teaching, which would need to move from the classroom to being more interactive. He foresaw the increasing use of tablets to support this. He also mentioned the idea of “service capital” – a concept that was new to me.
- A speaker from Italy described the use of national branding a means of promoting the products of SMEs in export markets. His theme was “made in Italy”. This can be used as an umbrella brand for those goods that have qualities similar to those being promoted as characteristic of Italy. He illustrated this with contrasting examples of France and the US.
Throughout the meeting there was a much clearer recognition of the important economic role of the small and medium management consultancy than would have occurred in a similar meeting in the UK; perhaps there is a message here for the UK!