2011 – A successful Experience! high public debt levels. Debt does not go away and has to be repaid in one way or another. The only way out of this impasse is to bite the bullet and comply with debt repayment, The professor painted a vastly different picture of Asia in 2020 with a Japan which had turned from west to east and become a truly Asian nation; an Asia filled with Asian multinationals. He talked about an era of scarcity where food, raw materials, energy, oil, water and environmental impacts all were linked. He claimed that the talent would be in Asia and that Asia would be a trend setter. Traditionally, Asia had looked to the west for ideals, but since the western model was not working, the ideal had been readjusted to Asia with reinvested values. Asia’s challenge would be to create enough jobs at the same time as social stability.
Saturday was a day of practical experiences from doing business in Asia in a vast number of sectors from telecom (Telenor), renewable energy (Sarawak Energy Behrad, KF Gruppen AS and SN Power), coatings (Jotun) to certification (DNV) Finally and equally important, the Business Summit made it possible to network by renewing relationships with old friends and colleagues as well as forming new business relationships. The Norway-Asia Business Summit 2011 would not have been possible without the dedicated team from Norwegian Business Association Singapore who did an excellent job of putting it all together.
Per M. Ristvedt, Managing Partner at Wikborg & Rein in Singapore talked about why Norwegians are not the world’s most effective negotiators. He believes that Norwegians need to adjust their ambition level to become more effective negotiators. His clear cut advice was to read up, to select good negotiators, and to prepare well, set ambition levels, to apply a team approach and finally to dress better and look the part. His final advice was to go back and evaluate the negotiation against one’s own ambition level every time. On a lighter note, Fredrik Hären, Founder of interesting.org addressed creativity in both organisations and on a national level. He gave plenty of very visible examples. Talking about developing countries versus developed countries, he discussed if developed countries like Norway were “done” and as a consequence people no longer had ambition to develop the country and learn from others. He summed up by encouraging Norwegian companies to adopt global values rather than Norwegian values; to have a global mindset and simply to choose the best people. On Friday night, the participants were invited to a beautiful and spirited live performance by the Norwegian artists, Helene Bøksle and Sindre Hotvedt on piano sponsored by the Telenor Culture Programme.
Hilde Tonne, Deputy head of Telenor Asia and Gunn Ovesen, CEO, Innovation Norway
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