SINGAPOREAN businessmen aren't adventurous enough to seek business opportunities beyond Singapore's shores? The Arts House would like to prove sceptics wrong, as it forges ahead to help Singapore - and Asian - businesses venture into emerging and transitory markets worldwide.

The organisation intends to do this through Spotlight Singapore, using arts or 'cultural diplomacy' to facilitate the entry of local businesses into new markets.

'Singaporeans aren't known to be leaders, but this could well change others' perception of us. What we're doing is very pioneering - on several fronts,' says Colin Goh, The Arts House's general manager.

Spotlight Singapore might have started off as an arts exchange programme when a group of artists went to Hong Kong in early 2006, but it quickly evolved to be business-friendly by the time the programme went to Tokyo. In its second edition there, upon invitation by the Japanese Mori group of companies, businessmen tagged along with artists.

This year, Spotlight Singapore is heading to Moscow this week, where it has signed up over 100 businessmen and women who are keen to explore Moscow and Russia as a market.

'The business community is slowly getting more enlightened . . . they're realising that there's a value in cultural diplomacy,' says Mr Goh, of the arts-cum- business programme lined up for them. He calls 'cultural diplomacy' a 'ground theory' thus far, because there's very little study on how effective it is. 'We're observing the effects, so it's up to us to prove that it works. The observation is that it does, but there's very little literature on it and very few models to follow.'

So The Arts House has come up with its own method. 'We've proved it in Tokyo - now, Moscow,' says Mr Goh optimistically.

What's in store for the businessmen are arts attendances as well as networking sessions and business meetings. In the works are an interdisciplinary music-theatre piece called Generation/s composed by Singapore musician Iskandar Ismail and directed by Ivan Heng of Wild Rice theatre company; a photography-video exhibition by four artists; a Singaporean DJ at a nightclub; and intercultural music workshops.

On the business side, there's a Skolkovo 'Doing Business in Russia' forum, business programmes, company visits and meetings facilitated by International Enterprise (IE) Singapore.

The partners of the business programmes include the Embassy of Singapore to the Russian Federation, Skolkovo School of Management (Moscow), Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, Opora Russia (All-Russian Organisation of Small and Medium Business), Singapore Business Federation, Singapore Manufacturers' Federation, and The Business Times (Singapore).

'We're positioning Singapore as a society which is very forward-looking. We want to continue working on emerging markets - because, based on what we've seen, Singapore businesses are becoming more adventurous,' says Mr Goh. 'No one is stopping us from going into the rest of the former USSR, Latin America, more Middle Eastern countries . . .'

Differentiating

While Spotlight Singapore has the business component to its arts outreach programme, need there be another outreach platform for the arts since the government has its Singapore Season?

Singapore Season first kicked off in London in 2005 to 'present the creative side of Singapore' to the world, before it held a Season in Beijing, and a smaller-scale Singapore Encore in Washington.

Carol Tan, director of National Marketing Division, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (Mica), explains that Singapore Season is a multi-agency effort to showcase Singapore's artistic and cultural achievements in global cities with a string of multi-faceted programmes.

'It profiles our artists and increases awareness of Singapore as a cultural and business global city, as well as creates networking opportunities for Singapore companies in the target city,' she says. Singapore Season usually includes a range of business, lifestyle, media- and design-centric programmes to highlight the opportunities Singapore offers to live, work and play.

Mica sees Spotlight Singapore as another important effort that showcases Singapore's artistic and cultural achievements while serving as a bridge between different cultures. Given the similarity of some of Spotlight's aspects to Season, Mica has also provided some assistance in the form of funding for parts of Spotlight which are complementary to the larger objective of using arts and culture to showcase Singapore.

But one way that Spotlight is choosing to differentiate itself is to target emerging and transitional markets for its artists and business delegations, clarifies The Arts House's Mr Goh.

All this enthusiasm might be fine and good, but one is wont to ask: are there enough Singapore businesses which want to expand overseas? Mr Goh thinks it's a chicken-and- egg problem: 'If there's more opportunity to grow, I'm sure there'll be more businesses which want to. If the market is small, business will be sluggish.'

But what will eventually happen, he reckons, is that Singapore will play the role of an aggregator for Asean countries. 'Because we're spearheading this, businessmen from neighbouring countries will come to us and ask them to take them along,' he says.

This is already happening for Moscow, as there are a few Japanese and Hong Kong businessmen participating. 'Singapore companies need partners, and the region is ready for this kind of partnership,' he reckons.

The Arts House's vision has caught on with partners such as UBS, which is one of the sponsors of Spotlight Singapore in Moscow. Yeong Phick Fui, managing director of UBS Wealth Management, says that UBS is delighted to support the programme 'because we believe in connecting people, developing knowledge and creating new frontiers. UBS is happy to play a role in the promotion of growing ties between Russia and Singapore, not just in business, but also in the arts and culture.'

The Swiss bank has also been a strong supporter of the arts, so supporting this showcase of Singapore's artistic talents to the wider global community has also resonated with it.

Arts still the focus

Modestly, Mr Goh says that The Arts House's role is to get people excited enough to continue to sponsor the arts. 'It costs over $400,000 to put together Generation/s and it's only for one night. Without the support of the business community, we couldn't do it. And this allows us to give Iskandar (Ismail) and Ivan (Heng) their debut in Moscow,' he says.

The Arts House is bringing the kind of derring-do it learnt from artists to business. 'We learnt to be this daring from artists who take the leap of faith and go on stage. They know they'll be criticised but they still do it. How can business not copy from the arts?' he asks.

'The arts has the kind of spirit that Singapore business is lacking - and that's the only way to remain competitive. What we want is to instil in people the importance of arts and culture, which is why we should continue to invest in it.'

Arts and culture will give Singapore a competitive edge over its neighbours, Mr Goh believes. 'Which one of the other countries has done what we're doing? This is going to be our differentiating factor - the kind of pioneering spirit we're demonstrating, in arts as well as in business.'

This article was first published in The Business Times on Jun 3, 2008

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