The Strategist

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The assumption was that by addingattractive lifestyle elements such asgreen space and fitness facilities tobusiness properties, Ascendas couldtransform dull industrial and officeparks into environments that wouldhelp companies in IT and other pro-gressive industries attract and stimu-late top talent. It turned out they wereright, and by 2005 they had hit all oftheir financial targets, reaching $5 bil-lion in assets by building a series ofinnovative business/technology parkspackaging work, leisure and othertypes of space into what they call a“work, live, play” concept. Ascendashad become the clear leader in thistransformed market, and growth con-tinued. Yet management decided it wasready for a time-out to completelyassess their strategy, using DPI’sStrategic Thinking Process.“There was no fire under our feet,”

says Chong Siak Ching, “but we didn’twant to wait for that to happen beforewe reviewed and re-examined our strat-egy. We had stayed ahead of our com-petitors, but we wanted to make surewe would continue to widen the gap.”Ms. Chong is President and CEO of

Ascendas Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-basedprovider of business space, real estatefunds and investment services with

properties in Singapore, India, China,seven other countries and more than 30cities across Asia. On the tenthanniversary of its founding, Ascendascurrently has 11 billion Singapore dol-lars of assets under management, serv-ing more than 2,000 corporate cus-tomers with about 50 million squarefeet of space. Among its flagship prop-erties are Singapore Science Park, andInternational Tech Park in Bangalore,India among many others.“When we first started, industrial

space was not a very attractive sector,

not very glamorous, not like hotels orresidential developments,” says Ms.Chong. “Manufacturing space—facto-ries, warehouses—were not the mostcolorful space. So, as such, back thenthere were not many players in ourindustry, our sandbox. But over time,due in part to the efforts we had putinto making industrial workspace moreattractive and enticing, manufacturingspace had become a lot more interest-ing. We focused on a ‘total environ-ment,’ not just the workspace—fourwalls and a roof.”

When it comes to reviewing corporate strate-gy, many companies subscribe to the “if itain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought.However, in this interview, Ascendas CEOMs. Chong Siak Ching explains why they feltit was imperative to take a “clean-slate” lookat their strategy even though the companywas the clear leader in their business sandbox.

Copyright © 2011 Decision Processes International.All rights reserved.

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Ms. Chong Siak ChingPresident & CEO | ASCENDAS PTE. LTD.

Ascendas Strategy Team. CEO Chong Siak Ching, front row, fourth from left.

Asia’s business space leader Ascendas was founded in 2001 with 1 billion Singapore dollars in assets, based on a perception by its founders of unrealized potential in what they considereda lackluster market segment—industrial buildings.

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The concept clicked with companiessuch as IT and software firms thatwanted to provide stimulating sur-roundings to their people, and rapidgrowth followed. But the success ofwhat Ascendas came to call its “work,play, live” concept had awakened thecompetition who were making signifi-cant gains by following the Ascendasformula. And so, while Ascendas hadbecome quite successful, the timecame to reassess and develop ways totake its concept further, putting evenmore room between the company andits competitors.“We had done very well,” says Ms.

Chong, “but at the same time the com-petitive landscape had changed. Therewere many more competitors cominginto our sandbox and they were emu-lating what we were doing. We neededto examine the fundamentals of thebusiness, review our strategy anddevelop a new strategy that would pro-pel us into the future. So we brought insomeone from the outside—AndrewSng’s team from DPI—for the firsttime. And we were prepared to startwith a clean slate.“We had done strategy reviews

internally with our own very goodstrategy people. But for this round, wewanted someone who could bring inviews from the outside, and also, moreimportantly, someone who offered astructured and comprehensiveapproach that would enable us to doour own strategic thinking. The DPIfacilitators, in addition to bringing arigorous process, also could make surewe did the process right, and to checkour thinking. And bringing an objectiveview, I think that is very important.One can get very comfortable in whatyou know, especially if you are success-ful, and the DPI people were able toalert us to our blind spots.”What most appealed to the Ascendas

team was the fact that the DPI approachdiffers from the “content consulting”method, in which consultants examine acompany and dictate the strategy. Incontrast, DPI’s process concept would

enable the Ascendas managers todevelop their own strategy through astructured critical thinking process.“The DPI process requires the orga-

nization and all of its key managers toquite extensively draw on their collectiveknowledge and expertise to formulateanswers to the challenging questionsframed by DPI,” Ms. Chong says.In 2006, in the first of two DPI

Strategic Thinking Process sessionsAscendas assembled a multi-functionalteam of managers from its headquar-ters as well as the various countryunits. Working their way through theprocess under the direction of the DPIfacilitator, the teams systematicallyexamined every aspect of the compa-ny’s products, markets, customers,capabilities and business landscape togain a common understanding of thecompany and the roots of its business.This grasp of its current strategic pro-file would form the basis of a futurebusiness concept based on the waythey believed their future businesslandscape would look.“This process ultimately helped us to

view Ascendas holistically, get clarityon our Driving Force and identify theAreas of Excellence we needed to nur-ture to support it,” says Ms. Chong.“We had to identify offensive anddefensive strategic objectives, anddevelop a book of Critical Issues wewould need to complete and implementto attain our objectives. And these arethings we had not done in our previousstrategic planning.”A crucial part of the Strategic

Thinking Process is the selection of the

Driving Force. The choice for Ascendasat first was not clear.“There was quite a lot of debate

around our Driving Force,” Ms. Chongrecalls. “Were we driven by the prod-uct, the customer or the market wewere in? We have always focused onthe product, but have also always beenvery focused on the customer. We, infact, pride ourselves on our high quali-ty customer service, and have beenvery highly rated by our customers,which range from many global Fortune500 firms and MNCs, to more local cor-porations. But ultimately we realizedthat the key to serving our customerswell, and the root of our competitiveadvantage, is through delivering asuperior product. So after a lot of dis-cussion, we settled on Product as ourDriving Force.”The DPI process helped the

Ascendas team to see clearly that theyhad always been Product-Driven,right from the company’s beginning.But how that focus had driven its deci-sions about products, customers, mar-kets, investments and resource alloca-tions had never been articulated orfully understood. What took place asa result of the DPI process was not aradical shift in direction, but the accel-eration and refocusing of the ground-breaking vector they were already on.“We realized that our mission, when

we started the company, was to createtotal business environments. We werealready clear that the driver was thatwe are not just a real estate developer.We are in the business of creating aunique differentiated product, an

“This process ultimately helped us toview Ascendas holistically, get clarityon our Driving Force and identifythe Areas of Excellence we needed

to nurture to support it.”—Ms. Chong

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The Strategist

environment for the employees of ourcustomers, not just the space. So webelieve that the uniqueness of theProduct we are creating is our differ-entiator and is key to helping our cus-tomers attract and retain the topworkers, and inspire them to excel,”says Ms. Chong.

This realization enabled Ascendasmanagement to begin to envision thenext levels of product innovation. Arenewed focus on product developmentand deeper understanding of thefuture business space needs of its cus-tomers would enable them to continueto change the rules in a segment thathad become crowded with competitorswho were emulating their approach.This would lead to more complex pro-jects that incorporated more diverseenvironments and a broader range ofamenities.

“I think that it is key, particularly intoday’s very highly competitive envi-ronment, to keep changing the game,”says Ms. Chong. “Companies who arenot clear about how they compete,companies who are not differentiatedenough in their products and services

will find it harder and harder to be sus-tainable and to be profitable. I thinkwe need to be able to redefine theindustry and the way the competitorsengage each other. And sometimesthat entails changing the path or direc-tion that has been working very wellfor the organization.

“It requires some risk-taking. Andit certainly requires courage tochange course, particularly from aconcept which is comfortable, andwhich many of the other players in theindustry are taking. But when the

management team has come together,and thoroughly examined what isneeded to create differentiation, andwhat we need to do to be way ahead ofthe competition, and to do somethingwhich the rest of the competitors orthe industry itself had not done, thatis how we enable the company toachieve supremacy. And we found itwas easier to do so based on the DPImethodology because the leadershipitself had crafted the new strategy, thenew business concept. It is not a caseof the CEO telling the team that thisis what we need to do but it is the teamitself that says this is what we mustdo. And they understand why becausethey were the ones who conceived itby working through this entireprocess, and providing the inputs andcoming to these conclusions.

“So we had decisions from the DPIprocess in place which led to a list ofCritical Issues that would need to bedeveloped to make these new direc-tions a reality, initiatives that wereidentified and owned by specific peo-ple within the organization who thenhad to come up with plans to addressthem with specific goals and mile-stones.”

These efforts pushed the companyforward in terms of new concepts,capabilities and financial performance.But the biggest change came a coupleof years later in a revisiting of theStrategic Thinking Process.

“By 2009 we had made a lot ofprogress since our first DPI session,but then in this next session came therealization that we could keep ourDriving Force—Product—but stilltake the concept even further. Wewanted to create integrated communi-ties anchored by business space. Andthis change was critical for us becauseit opened up a slew of new opportuni-ties for us to offer our customers a lotof differentiated solutions, not justworkspace but ultimately greenspaces, living space, other commercialspace, hotels, retail and cultural facili-ties, and many other amenities.

“I think that it iskey, particularly in today’s very

highly competitiveenvironment, tokeep changing

the game.” —Ms. Chong

Changi Business Park, Singapore

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The Ascendas teams hammered outa new Business Concept that would inmany ways revolutionize the businessspace world in Asia:

Ascendas’ strategy is to providetotal integrated solutions to ourcustomers that extend beyond business space.

1. Integrated communities: We will create and manage distinctive spaces that inspireinnovation and excellencein our customers and users within a secure and sustainableAscendas integrated communi-ty, comprising mixed-usedevelopments anchored by business space.

2. Integrated CustomerSolutions: We will create integrated solutions as abusiness partner to help ourcustomers grow their business and succeed in our space.

Says Ms. Chong, “We decided that inline with this new Business Concept,we would have to re-brand the compa-ny. So we rolled out a new brand strat-egy anchored by the theme ‘Space toBe…Free. Inspired. Energized.’“This new concept also energized

our people. It allowed them to createan even more differentiated environ-ment, a complete customer solution.On top of that, it required us to identi-fy the new Areas of Excellence we’dneed to develop to successfully roll outthis new Business Concept which wasnow crystal clear. So we would have tofocus on even deeper customer under-standing. Also, we would have todevelop our abilities to conceptualizethe work product, to conceptualizewhat our customers need. And we hadto build partnerships across differentareas. Because in building this inte-grated community we didn’t have all

of the competencies or capabilitiesnecessary for such a complex product.So, in some cases, we needed to part-ner with people who had these capa-bilities,” Ms. Chong states. “And weneeded to focus on recruiting, trainingand developing people, and being surethey had the skill sets to make thosedreams into reality.”

Of course, implementation of such a far-reaching strategic evolutionwould require rigorous managementof Critical Issues and an innate senseof mission among managers to assuresteady and unified implementation.And the company found that theStrategic Filter resulting from theprocess enabled managers to makedecisions on a daily basis that consis-tently support the company’s DrivingForce.“I think the involvement of the

whole senior management teamextending a couple of layers down intothe organization is essential,” saysMs. Chong. “We developed a futureunderstanding of the business and thecompetitive landscape. And alsobecause we run an international organization, it is critical that the HQand organizations in other countriesare better aligned with a consistentdefinition of the strategic direction.So they were all part of the develop-ment of the strategy, and they own it.And this makes it much easier to keepeveryone on track across the businesssectors and countries.“I believe that the discipline with

which we conducted the wholeStrategic Thinking Process resulted

in clarity of the business concept. And when the business strategy isclear, then everything else falls intoline. The DPI Strategic ThinkingProcess assures that the business con-cept, the people, capabilities, goals,and targets are all in alignment. It iscritical that we have that.”

The realization of the integratedcommunity concept is embodied in anumber of ambitious projects such asthe new Dalian Ascendas IT Park inChina, part of the Dalian SoftwareIndustry belt, which is currently underconstruction. When completed in fiveto eight years, the park will encompass600,000 square meters and accommo-date more than 30,000 IT profession-als. The business facilities will be integrated with dining, post offices,banks, retail outlets, fitness clubs, andextensive green space, all designed toattract and inspire top IT profession-als. Several similar projects are under-way or are planned for the future.Ascendas communities have won manyawards for architectural excellence and environmental responsibility, and suc-cessfully attract blue chip customers,partners and investors.“In the future we will continue to

differentiate ourselves from the rest ofthe competitors by developing theseintegrated communities that help ourcustomers excel,” says Ms. Chong. “I believe that we will be well-alignedand achieving our five- and ten-yeartargets. And I am quite sure we will be using the DPI process for ourStrategic Thinking.”

“The DPI Strategic Thinking Processassures that the business concept, the

people, capabilities, goals, and targets are all in alignment. It is critical that we have that.”

—Ms. Chong