He remembers telling a friend that it's too expensive.
In response, his friend said it's not and SPH has no choice. Otherwise, sgcarmart.com will cannibalize SPH classified ads business.
So is it too expensive or not? Do they have a choice or not?
With SPH financial strengths, why didn't they build a similar website to compete heads on in the early stage? Why wasn't SPH the first to build a website like this? Why didn't they buy it over much earlier and probably paid a lot less for it?
Was it skepticism? Was it resistance to change? Was it fear of failure?
As I think more about it, there is only one reason that I can think of and that is, to protect their existing business, the classified ads.
SPH fears that by building a website where people can go online to advertise, there will be fewer people advertising on its classified ads. Fewer ads means less income and profits.
In trying to protect its own business, SPH has in fact done the opposite.
Rather than wait for outsiders to kill your business, kill it yourself.
It's either you do it or you die.