Euroasia: Language, Culture and Travel

OK This is going to be a long-ish post, to update you with all the goss over the past month. I have been very busy with various projects, travelling, attending all sorts of forums and events, and trying to keep up with everything else. It’s Christmas eve, and I finally get to do some blogging.  I dread to think what it must be like in the shopping malls right now, so this is a welcome reprieve.

We had the annual Euroasia Christmas party late this year (11 Dec 09). We had a decent turnout of around 80 clients and friends of Euroasia, which is OK seeing we clashed with many other corporate parties. File note: next year we definitely have to do this the first week of Dec, perhaps even late-Nov.  As you can see, those who managed to make it had a great time.

We didn’t do any Christmas carols in  Spanish, French, German, Chinese and Japanese like we did last year… but our team did organise some cool games. It was also a great opportunity for me to thank all our clients for their unwavering support to us over the past year. Dr John Reynolds spoke eloquently in 3 languages about his language learning experience at Euroasia.

Ken with Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and fellow businessmen from Australia..

A few months ago, I accepted an invitation to speak at the World Chinese Economic Forum in November and held in Kuala Lumpur (which happens to be my hometown).   I’m really glad I went, as I managed to meet a number of very interesting people.  At my session, I talked about how overseas Chinese can assist businesspeople from Western nations, including New Zealand, to access new markets in Asia generally and China specifically. I provided examples of enterprising Chinese businesspeople facilitating trade opportunities. In the past, New Zealand chicken producers had to spend money to dispose of chicken parts like chicken feet (that Westerners don’t eat, but Chinese love). Through the intervention of Chinese traders, NZ chicken producers have not only saved money from having to dispose of these chicken parts, but are now profiting from the sales of these parts. There are plenty of business opportunities in China that New Zealanders are missing out on because of the DIY mindset. A far superior approach is to collaborate with Asians who live in NZ and have an entrenched knowledge of the language and culture in the target market.   I’m hoping to devote more time and energy to work on these Asia Bridge initiatives in 2010.

At the Forum, I managed to have a chat with the Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng. When he found out that I lived in NZ,  he said “you Kiwis qualified for the world cup”, referring to news that New Zealand qualified for the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa and demonstrating his knowledge of New Zealand. I had to break it to him that NZ also qualified for the Hockey World Cup, beating Malaysia the day before the forum.

Ken with PM John Key

Earlier this month, I attended the annual APEC Advisory Business Council (ABAC) dinner, where the PM briefs members of the business community on what happened at APEC. This year, there’s lots to say about the economy and the PM has just arrived back from the East Asia Summit, Malaysia-NZ FTA, CHOGM, and about to go to Copenhagen.

I have previously blogged about this but one funny anecdote worth sharing is from the Q%A where a guy asked a serious question “If we want to catch Australia why not just merge with them?” The PM’s response: I just got back from CHOGM where Australian PM Kevin Rudd asked me the same question. My response was I’m too busy running New Zealand to run Australia as well. This guy can be very funny.  I do think John Key is more in touch with the masses than Helen Clark; and has a way with both CEOs  as well as joe public. Perhaps this explains his 80% favourability rating throughout a very difficult year.

Mock up of Euroasia's new website to be launched in 2010

In the new year, you will see the launch of Euroasia’s new website and enrolment system, which we have spent the last 2 months working on. Some people have asked us why we want to spend money on this, especially seeing this is a particularly difficult time. My response is that in order to maintain Euroasia’s position as a leading provider of foreign language courses and cross-cultural services, we have to keep investing in the business, and to keep improving our service offering, especially when times are bad. Recessions don’t last forever, and I’m optimistic that 2010 will be a spectacular year for Euroasia. As it stands, our forward bookings for 2010 are already way ahead of this time last year.

Over the next two weeks, I will spend some time hopefully relaxing and reflecting on the past year. If you’re like me, and need some help with the reflection process, I’ve found this guide pretty helpful. Ask yourself 20 questions that cover all facets of life, not just material prosperity.

Last Christmas, we produced a video compilation of Euroasia staff bringing Christmas and New Year greetings in their native languages. I hope you don’t mind me recycling (seeing it’s in vogue now) this message. Once again we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Earlier this month, I had the privelege of attending the annual APEC Advisory Business Council (ABAC) dinner hosted by the NZ International Business Forum, where the PM briefs members of the business community on what happened at APEC. This year, there’s lots to say about the economy and the PM has just arrived back from the East Asia Summit, Malaysia-NZ FTA, CHOGM, and about to go to Copenhagen.

Ken with PM John Key

The PM talked about 3 key issues:

1) Global interconnectedness. Synchronised recession is illustrative of this. Deep recessions will become more common as economies become more interdependent.

2) Global imbalances.  PM cited a savings imbalance, with the West being funded by the East. He thinks the yuan will have to appreciate (given his background as Head of FX for Merrill Lynch, I was thinking whether to start hoarding some yuan) . The major issue is US consumers won’t spend. The Americans are looking for 20m jobs (7m unemployed plus 13m coming into workforce).

3) Climate change. Unless the big boys (US, China etc) are involved, we can’t change things. It is more of a problem than people think, and will hit faster and with more severity.As the bulk of energy (70%) in NZ already come from renewable sources, and 50% of emissions is from agriculture, addressing this will be a big challenge.

The Q&A was pretty fascinating. One guy asked a serious question “If we want to catch Australia why not just merge with them?” The PM’s response: I just got back from CHOGM where Australian PM Kevin Rudd asked me the same question. My response was I’m too busy running New Zealand to run Australia as well. This guy can be very funny.  I do think John Key is more in touch with the masses than Helen Clark; and has a way with both CEOs  as well as joe public. Perhaps this explains his 80% favourability rating throughout a very difficult year.

Signing of Malaysia NZ FTA; (L-R) Tim Groser, John Key, Najib, Mustapa

Monday 26 October 2009 was a historic day for Malaysia – New Zealand relations. 10 years of trade negotiations culminated in the official signing of the Malaysia New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. A group of 45 businesspeople from New Zealand, coupled with another 15 or so New Zealanders residing in Malaysia accompanied Prime Minister John Key to Malaysia for this historic event. I had the privelege of joining the NZ delegation to Kuala Lumpur. The irony is I am Malaysian and KL is my hometown, and it felt a little weird being on the other side. Nevertheless it was an amazing experience being part of this momentous occasion.

Free Trade Agreements are highly beneficial for New Zealand. Relatively speaking, New Zealand is already a very free country, with few tariffs and trade barriers, making it very easy for foreign businesses to do business in NZ. However, the same is not true for most other nations.

Pg 2 of The Star on Malaysia NZ FTA

Many countries impose significant tariffs on imported goods, and have convoluted non-tariff barriers designed to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.  This is why it is easy for NZ to sign up to a free trade agreement because these agreements most definitely result in net gains for NZ businesses. The real difficulty is in convincing foreign nations to give up long standing tariffs.  The Kiwi trade negotiators have very few bargaining chips to play with, a key reason why I have a lot of respect for these guys.

This is why I’m unhappy with the negative people who complain that FTAs are useless and are merely tools for select few businesses to make more money. The reality for exporters is that because of this FTA, tariffs for kiwifruit exports to Malaysia will go from 15% to 0%. Fonterra will see liquid milk quotas increasing significantly to 2.1m litres p.a., and a reduction of the  20% inquota tariff for liquid milk to 0%. Considering Fonterra’s market share in Malaysia for the adult milk category is 77% and 80% in prenatal dairy products, this is a huge win.

PM's motorcade with police outriders, view from coach I was in

Education institutions can secure 70% shareholding (up from 49% currently) in Malaysian-domiciled joint ventures by 2015.  Fran O’Sullivan (who was in Malaysia with the trade delegation) discusses benefits for NZ education providers in her 28 October editorial “Malaysia the key to unlock other doors“.

Ultimately, the Malaysia NZ FTA is all about enhancing already strong and long enduring ties between the two nations. As politics and economics are so intertwined, the partnership of two nations via the FTA symbolises the mutual commitment of both parties.

As I have never been on a New Zealand trade delegation signing an FTA, this trip was a real eye-opener for me. NZTE and MFAT did a great job putting the programme together. We certainly enjoyed the ride in the PM’s motorcade. The 60-strong trade delegation were put in two coaches, behind the PM’s car and security detail (probably half the cars carried security personnel).  I sat behind the bus driver and could see the speedo hitting the top speed of 120 kmh, the driver struggling to keep up .

invite from Malaysian Prime Minister

Knowing KL traffic, it’s amazing to see the motorways cleared, with the entourage going from KL to Shah Alam in record time. They even sent an ambulance along to accompany the motorcade. My guess is this is because they don’t want any delay in despatching medical assistance should anything happen to visiting heads of state. We managed to visit the new Datacom office in Bandar Utama and the new Fonterra yoghurt factory in Shah Alam, had lunch and got back to KL Hilton within 4 or 5 hours. Under normal traffic conditions,  driving time alone would already take that long. The other bonus for me personally is to have received a dinner invitation from the Malaysian Prime Minister (extended to all visiting New Zealand delegates).  Had I stayed on in Malaysia and not moved to NZ, I don’t know when I would receive a dinner invite from the Malaysian PM’s office.  The other interesting irony is that I received a New Zealand Prime Ministerial invite before the Malaysian one (18 months ago, to celebrate the signing of the China NZ FTA).

NZ trade delegation to Malaysia, with members of Malaysia NZ Business Council

Malaysia and New Zealand have strong historic links dating back to the 1940s with New Zealand soldiers helping Malaya fight the communists, and students from Malaysia arriving in New Zealand in the 1950s and 60s under the Colombo Plan.

Several New Zealand Army officers served in Malaya while on secondment with British units from 1949. New Zealand became more directly involved in the Malayan Emergency operations in 1955, following its decision to contribute forces to the British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve.  In total, 1300 New Zealanders served as part of a Commonwealth force including army, air force and navy.

The Colombo Plan was a plan for Cooperative Economic Development of South and South East Asia and was conceived at a meeting of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers held in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in January 1950. All aid was given on a bi-lateral basis and the negotiations were conducted between the donor and the receiving government. No conditions or strings were attached to any aid provided and there was no expectation of a return by the donor country.

Petronas Twin Towers

More than 300,000 recipients benefited from this scholarship during the period 1951-1989. Scholars were trained in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and United Kingdom.  Many New Zealand graduates are now in senior and influential positions within the government and private sectors in Malaysia.

During the KL trip, I took  two of the New Zealand delegates to the Petronas Twin Towers. On the way there, we stopped at the mosque behind KLCC as they were fascinated with the architecture. It was almost midnight, and we bumped into 3 security guards at the mosque. They were very friendly and asked me in Bahasa (Malay language) where the guests are from. I said New Zealand. They immediately smiled and were very friendly, even asking if we wanted to take photos inside the mosque.  They knew the All Blacks (it would be difficult to find one Malaysian who doesn’t recognise this most famous of Kiwi brands), and one of them mentioned Jonah Lomu. My Kiwi friends were most impressed with the Malaysians they have met, and were very keen to explore what can be done in Malaysia. This is why I am optimistic that Malaysia New Zealand relations will go from strength to strength.

This will be short as I am blogging from my iphone. PM John Key will be signing the FTA with the Malaysian PM tonight. Approximately 60 businesspeople are accompanying John Key on this trip. It has been a full on day, from the embargoed briefing this morning to visits of the Fonterra plant in Shah Alam and Datacom office in Banda Utama. We are now back at KL Hilton for a briefing before the reception and official signing ceremony later tonight. Just sneaking in a few linea while the PwC guy is speaking. The Kiwis enjoyed being in the official motorcade. More on that later.

[Update 3/11/09: Full report on the signing of the Malaysia NZ FTA]

In recent months, visits to our blog has increased measurably, with lots of people looking for reviews of Xero and comparisons between Xero and MYOB.  My initial post on MYOB vs Xero – A comparison, explaining the reasons why Euroasia swapped from MYOB to Xero is now our most popular blog entry for 2009. My follow-up post in July 2009 on our experience with implementing Xero is number 10 on the list.

Regular readers will be somewhat surprised that a blog on culture and language would have a post on accounting as the most popular entry. I’m interested in this topic not just because I think Xero has a great product, but I’m also happy to see a New Zealand company doing so well. I’ve enjoyed playing around with Xero, looking at reports and checking out their website. Xero has given me some design ideas for the soon-to-be-launched new Euroasia website.

When I first wrote about Xero in March 2009, Xero had 6000 users, having doubled in the preceding 6 months. At last count, they had over 12000 users, doubling again in the last 6 months. How could this be? For starters Xero is very attentive to client needs.  For example, just look at their Twitter posts from today.

Xero is not insecure about their product. Check out the re-tweet here from a fan who is offering to help with both MYOB and Xero. I was quite surprised to see that Xero twittered this on to their fanbase.

In my last post, I complained about some of the drawbacks of Xero and some suggestions for improvement. I was surprised to see in their September update the specific feature requests I suggested.  This includes customisation of user roles and a name field for contacts.  The customisation of user roles is a step in the right direction, but administrators are still not allowed to customise access rights for individual users (MYOB does this). I hope this is addressed soon. The budgeting function can also be improved to make it a more useful tool for businesses that do more planning/forecasting.

I’m still waiting for my bank to link up my credit card accounts to the live feed. The daily live feed of bank entries is one of the top reasons why Xero is such a great proposition. But Xero is sometimes held back by banks who do not have the same sense of urgency in implementing changes that save customers’ time/money. So users still have to import credit card statements into Xero ala MYOB. So don’t think by implementing Xero you get away from 100% of the dirty work.

I have previously blogged on the drawbacks of MYOB. There are also drawbacks to Xero. For example, anyone that handles a lot of stock will find MYOB a better proposition. So in summary do your research before jumping in.

Xero went live today with their new pricing plans. Euroasia is on the “medium” plan at NZ$49/month, which works well for us. And because we’re an existing customer, we can always activate multi-currency when we need it without having to pay for the “large” plan at NZ$64/month.

For freelancers / property investors who process less than 5 AR and 5 AP invoices per month, the “small” plan would be ideal for you at NZ$29/month.

[UPDATE 13 July 09: I review Xero again 3 months post-implementation.]

[UPDATE 12 October 09: MYOB vs Xero 6 months post-implementation]

OK, I can see some of you asking what has accounting packages got to do with language and culture? Well, for starters accountants speak a different language. To understand them is no easy task. I spent some time in a Big 4 accounting firm, so I can now act as an interpreter for some of my poor business friends who have no idea what their accountants are going on about.

Anyway, I have decided to switch over from MYOB to Xero starting 1 April. Why? Especially given Xero costs $49 + GST per month, and MYOB is essentially free, after you pay the upfront cost of buying the software (much like buying MS Office and other software). Given the need to tighten spending, why spend money on paying a fixed fee forever, plus the cost of swapping over?

Accounting software by definition is pretty sticky. Business owners typically find it too cumbersome to swap. Because your staff would have to relearn a new system, and you can imagine the hassles involved with just switching say, photocopier suppliers, let alone a critical system integral to the running of the business.

Thinking of the hassles involved sends shivers down the spine of most business owners. So why did I decide to do this? For the following reasons (in no particular order):

1) Staff can access Xero from anywhere.

Right now, MYOB is hosted on a file server at the office. Major hassles because you can’t get to it from outside the office without setting up a remote connection, which is slow even with naked broadband at home. It’s a major hassle if something happens and the PC connection is lost, as I would then have to physically be at the office to fix this.

2) Instant and easy access, with no backups required

Getting into MYOB is quite a hassle. You have to look for the filename, and when you have an unfamiliar staff member, you have to explain where the file is etc. Xero is pretty intuitive. It’s idiot-proof. If you forget the site URL, you can just google it.  We don’t have to run backups and wait 15 seconds and specify a “save as” location. We also do not have to worry about backing up this information remotely anymore.

3) Interface looks pretty

This is not a key reason, but high usability and visual aesthetics are important in order to generate buy-in from staff with no accounting background. Most people panic from the moment they open MYOB because it’s not designed for non-accountants. My initial feeing is that using Xero is like playing a game. Using MYOB is like washing dishes; you don’t like it, but you have to do it.

4) Integrated with ipayroll

Makes it easier than having to make sure the accounts person import / export journals correctly.  If only ipayroll can learn some lessons from Xero and update their interface.  Ipayroll is just plain ugly, but at least it works, and it’s online. We already ditched MYOB Payroll.

5) Xero is an amazing business

They employed an “agile design and development” process to build their business. I like their story. Doubled their client base in the last 6 months. Cool!

6) I can access Xero from my Iphone.

This is a stupid reason I know, but basically with this last accounting portion now on my phone, I can pretty much access 90% of the information I need to operate the business using a phone. How cool is that?

7) Bank transactions automatically flow into Xero

It’s great because we don’t have to wait for bank statements or download them from the bank. Bank reconciliations can be performed with ease and it’s so much easier to stay on top of things.

At the cutting edge

Xero boss Rod Drury blogs about technology and implications for business eg check out his write up on provoking customers. They even have a twitter account! My bet is the senior guys at MYOB have no clue what twitter is, let alone what it does! Why is this important? You want your technology provider to know more about technology than you. Betting on the right horse increases your chances of success. You wouldn’t want your GP to not know the difference between a pharmacist and a pharmacologist.

When I find time, I will write about the transition experience from MYOB to Xero. [Jul 09 update: Xero implementation experience]

Dsclosure: I have no investment interest in Xero or MYOB. My company has been a loyal client of MYOB for years, but the time has come to switch.

[UPDATE 13 July 09: I review Xero again 3 months post-implementation.]

[UPDATE 12 October 09: MYOB vs Xero 6 months post-implementation]

Flat out at the moment putting this forum together. Counting down to next Monday. A few tickets left if you’re keen to come check this out.

The International Sustainable Cities Forum to be held on 30 March brings together government and business leaders from both China and New Zealand, in conjunction with the first anniversary of the signing of the China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement.

The organisers have managed to secure the attendance of approximately 50 senior business and government leaders from China to attend this Forum. Amongst those attending is Wang Shi, the Godfather of Chinese real estate, Chairman of Vanke, with market capitalisation over US$10b, the largest property developer in China. Wang Shi is also the he oldest person in the world to complete the 7+2 (scaling the highest peaks on seven continents and to trek to the two poles). Many of the delegates are members of the China Urban Realty Association (CURA), and are well-known entrepreneurs and investors. Government delegations from Chang Xing County in Zhejiang Province and Wu Jin District in Jiangsu Province will also attend.

The Chinese participants are keen to look at partnership possibilities in New Zealand. They also want to better understand New Zealand’s capabilities in the area of sustainable development, especially given the significant challenges faced in China.

Continued >

When: Sunday 5 April, 10.00am – 3.00pm
Where: Victoria Avenue School, 282 Victoria Ave, Remuera
Admission: Free

Enjoy a great family day out at the Victoria Avenue School Gala – we have live music from the Nairobi Trio, children’s’ performances, quality second hand clothes, toys, sports gear etc for sale, arts and crafts, delicious food, raffles, farm animals, pony rides, bouncy castle, paint ball and more.

Euroasia is sponsoring a free language course valued at $359 for this event, in order to support a local school.