Will the business model for Real Estate developers change?

The business model of real estate developers is a “project-based” business model. They constantly need to find land for development and sell what they have built to yield revenue & profit. This revenue model can be “lumpy” and it is difficult to maintain a consistent yield. As such, many real estate developers have property rental, management & maintenance businesses to provide more consistent revenue & cash flows.
Will we ever see a “printer” business model for real estate developers – where printers are sold at low prices and ink usage provides a more consistent stream of revenue & profits? Perhaps some business model innovation may be helpful here to address the ever rising costs of property in every country.

Is a university degree a good investment?

A study of 26,000 bachelors degree programmes found that about two-thirds of them have graduates making enough to cover their costs in 10 years or less after graduation. But the intangible benefit is the friendships you build and the experience you get through your University days. These may help you throughout your career in a manner that cannot be measured.

Robots operated remotely by people with diabilities

This is a really good way to provide jobs for the disabled. They may not be able to move around easily, but their robots can. So this cafe in Tokyo has cleverly enabled around 50 physically disabled employees to work 800km away. They control robots who bring the drinks/food to patrons in the cafe and interact with them. In this way, it is not a “robot” that the patrons interact with, but a real person – how smart! Let’s hope more companies will embrace such concepts and provide such jobs for the physically handicapped.

More firms set to cut office space…

With work-from-home becoming the norm and companies getting used to having employees operate from home, more companies are set to reduce their office space footprint. This will probably trigger a downward trend for commercial rents and a rising demand for shared office operators like Regus & Wework.

On the other hand, there are worries that office vacancies in New York will hamper recovery.

Can Singapore survive a global minimum tax?

ManyGlobal companies site themselves in Singapore because of the tax advantages they have by operating here. But with the global minimum tax, there must now be better reasons why they would keep their headquarters here. Thankfully it is not difficult to find those reasons: safety, security, ease of doing business, efficiency of airport, sea port, family-friendly environment, clean & green, technologically advanced, etc . In fact it is more difficult to find reasons to leave this lovely country.