James Sun & Sun Tzu: War on Business

Perhaps I am the only person in Singapore who watches that much TV and blogs about it.

Regardless... Let's begin...

Have you seen the trailer or any episode of Sun Tzu: War on Business, hosted by James Sun?


James Sun

I was first saw James Sun on Trump's The Apprentice, where Mr Sun worked his way through the reality TV show to the final 2. He lost out to the female winner, probably because Mr Trump thought James Sun had tried to plug his own business on the show. Something to that effect. It was never made clear to the audience. It could well be that the winner was a really attractive female.



Anyhow... I thought James Sun did very well in the show, and began to read up on him. He immigrated from South Korea to the US when he was 4 years old. His family wasn't exactly well-off. He studied hard and started his own company while still in school. The reason why I like James Sun is that while he is aggressive in achieving his goals, he was mostly in control of himself. (Except for this one time he got excited during a challenge and kept talking non-stop.)

And if you follow what he has done after the Apprentice, it's quite clear that he was quick to take advantage of the attention he got and started to explore many different opportunities. He's been invited back to South Korea for lectures and has also become spokesperson for a condominium development.

So anyway, when I saw him on the trailers of Sun Tzu: War on Business, I really wanted to see him in action.

Sun Tzu: War on Business

So... Sun Tzu: War on Business is a reality TV programme, produced by Singaporean-production house the Right Angle, where James Sun travels to different cities in Asia Pacific (Beijing, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne etc) and 'consults' for small businesses there. E.g. He was in Singapore to consult for StyleMart (an Indian ethnic fashion boutique), in Sydney to consult for Witchmount, (a winery), in Beijing to consult for a fitness gym venture etc. 'Good Fren' thought it's rather limited, i.e. the programme had only included consumer goods retailers. I thought it made perfect sense in the context of a TV show. If James Sun were to consult for a plastic pipe manufacturing SME, it would have been really boring to watch.

The 'Sun Tzu' part of the programme comes in when James Sun is ready to give his advice to the subject company and its business. I thought and still think that it is damn awkward to insert principles from Sun Tzu's Art of War halfway through the programme. Everytime James Sun would go,"Soon Tzu says..." Once, I caught one of the business owners raising his eyebrow. It's hilarious. But you have to give it to James Sun, i.e. despite how awkward it is, he still delivers his lines with a straight face.

Fundamentally, I can understand why the Sun Tzu thing anchors the programme. Coz if this was a programme which went,"James Sun says..." Nobody would give a shite... But "Sun Tzu says..." is different! Coz Sun Tzu's famous and dead! Brilliant.

So, I thought... Ok... So these owners of small businesses agree to go on this show where the host will invite a local business leader to help dissect, then give advice for the business. Obviously, the owners realise that type of attention they will get for their business by being on the show. They also realise the potential of getting a local business leader to help/invest in their business. But what they do not realise is that the programme also shows whether the business works out after the 'consultation'. And when it doesn't, it looks really bad.

The most obvious example so far is that of the fitness gym chain in Beijing. It's opened by a Mandarin-speaking angmoh with 'Rothschild' as his surname. O_o As if that's not impressive enough, he was wearing a Wharton Business School t-shirt halfway through the programme. Ooooh... During his business 'transformation', his staff highlighted repeatedly that the relaunch should not clash with the pre-Lunar New Year period as it would be a waste of marketing effort. But he went," 老板说了算," and carried on with it. By the end of the programme, the relaunch had failed. It's quite clear that despite having the education, the money and even the right staff, this business owner failed to deliver because of his perspective. A check online revealed that he had started another business before this one, and that lasted for 2 years.

It's a shame that there isn't an official website for this programme.

Well... In any case, I would recommend for you to catch the next episode of this programme, Tuesday 9.30pm, CNA. The episode will be on the Skoda car distributorship in Singapore.