Simply a Job or a Future Career??
In life, there are always two sides to a coin. Head or tail, it all depends on your preference. Why am I bragging about this nonsense? The reason will lies with this blog posting.
This article one is an excerpt from Channel NewsAsia dated 30th March 2006. To summarise it, it mainly outlines the new Rockwell Automation manufacturing plant in May in Singapore. So, what about it?, you may ask. My answer will be, most likely, I will be joining the projected 400 workforce coming July. In the article, it just merely mentions that the amount invested is substantial. Sure it is, newcomers will be sent to US for a year training. Wouldnt this be a very good deal?? Read on the other side of the coin in article two.
The other side of the coin would be the two-year bond period I would have to serve after enjoying all those 1 year of honeymoon period in US. Well, this shouldnt be that bad after all. Lets just hope for better tomorrow. The second minus point would be what is underlined in the second article. With the expansion in Singapore, there will be a cutoff in Cleaveland, US. Meanwhile, my training will be based in Cleaveland. I am just hoping that there will not be any discontentment towards the newcomers. Again, lets pray for the better tomorrow. Above all, I am just hoping that my negotiation of contract will work out well and work out soon. Rockwell Automation’s HR department, please….
Article One:
Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 30 March 2006 1640 hrsRockwell Automation sets up world HQ in Singapore
By Johnson Choo, Channel NewsAsiaRockwell Automation has made Singapore the world headquarters for part of its global operations that focus on certain product range and services.
The Rockwell Automation Asia Pacific Business Center will begin operations in May this year and will eventually employ more than 400 staff.
The company is hoping that the move will help boost earnings from its operations outside of North America.
Rockwell Automation, one of the world’s leading automation solutions providers, is an S$8.1 billion US-listed company.
While it does not reveal the amount it is investing in the Singapore centre, Rockwell says it is substantial.
Rockwell is targeting to boost earnings from its operations outside of North America from the current 40 percent to half by 2009.
Its Senior Vice President for Automation Control and Information Group, Steve Eisenbrown, said: "There’re significant differences in what our customers want from our products and our capabilities in different parts of the world. If we don’t have people developing products local to our customers, it doesn’t land in product functionality. You can’t just visit and capture it. We have to be living daily with our customers’ needs, and that starts with the engineering and research side to ensure that we’re building that into our product for the future."
But it’s not just a simple case of transferring staff from its North American operations to the new world headquarters in Singapore.
Rockwell Automation’s Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific Business Center, David Johnson, said: "Many of the people will come from Singapore in both the engineering profession as well as some of the non-technical, and part of the reason we’re doing that is that the region represents great talent prospects and we found excellent prospects in the university settings, the polytechnics as well as the other companies in the region. It’s a big part of our strategy and I think it’s going to pay off handsomely."
Rockwell has similar but smaller business centres set up in South Korea, Shanghai and India that cater to specific local industries.
The Economic Development Board says that with Rockwell Automation joining a host of other manufacturers like Honeywell and Omron, it will definitely add to Singapore’s standing as a controls and automation hub in Asia Pacific. - CNA/ir
Article Two:
Rockwell makes push in Asia
Company opens business center in Singapore
By JOHN SCHMID
jschmid@journalsentinel.comPosted: March 30, 2006
Rockwell Automation Inc., a globally active factory automation company, announced plans to double its sales across Asia within three years, as it opened the doors to an Asia-Pacific Business Center in Singapore on Thursday.
Asian sales in 2005 for the Milwaukee company were $483 million, or about 10% of the Rockwell group’s total. Rockwell wants Asia to account for 20% of worldwide revenue by 2009, spokesman Matthew Gonring said.
The move belongs to Rockwell’s ambitions to draw more than half its yearly sales from outside North America within the next three years, from 40% now, Gonring said.
The company’s long-standing corporate center in Hong Kong is to remain its official Asian executive headquarters. But the center in Singapore is to become the main Asian locus for research and development, engineering, support and marketing.
Rockwell selected Singapore in part because it has an established American-style legal system that protects copyrights and intellectual property, Gonring said. That gave Singapore an advantage over Hong Kong, which shifted from British control to the mainland Chinese Communist government in 1997.
China is known for its flagrant disregard of Western patents and trademarks.
Singapore also has an educated work force and a business-friendly government, the company said.
The center will employ about 400, the company said.
In an account from Singapore of the ceremonial opening of the center, Bloomberg News quoted a Rockwell official as saying that the Singapore office might lead to job cuts at Rockwell operations in Milwaukee and Cleveland.
Gonring, who spoke in a telephone interview from Milwaukee, called the quote misleading.
"That’s not fair," he said.
Gonring noted that the economies of Asia are among the fastest-growing in the world.
"It’s not about taking jobs from one place to another; it’s about growth in Asia," he said.
