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Local F&Bs didn't lose to PRC ones because of rental, but instead, they lost because PRC has a more mature and competitive strategy.
While most people think local F&Bs lost because of rising rents from landlords and PRC F&Bs overbidding the same locations, I believe that isn't the full picture.
The objective of every business is to earn revenue regardless if they are SG or foreign owned. So rising rents is the symptom, not the cause of the increasing competition in the F&B industry.
If anyone just dig a little deeper into PRC's F&B industry, they would find out that the industry is ultra competitive. Almost every surviving F&B business there have some sort of value proposition or competitive advantage, be it unique marketing campaigns, large capitals from VCs, extremely good service, extremely personalised service, etc.
Whereas for SG, over the years, many F&B business owners resort to using cheaper foreign talents and aim for maximum profits. How many times have you visited a restaurant before the PRC wave where the service staff is a full time Singaporean staff? Most are either retirees or students in part time while the full timers are foreign labour. Only the management is Singaporean. Over the years, these service staff also grew tired and nonchalant, and as the saying goes 一分钱,一分货; you get what you pay for. Whereas PRC F&B business also want cheap labour, but they think of new creative ways to attract customers and ensure the cost is well spent. (e.g. paying high salaries from customer facing staff to ensure high quality of service)
As PRC F&B market become too competitive, some of these businesses realise that South East Asia region is a "ripe" market to get into with their mature set of ultra competitive business and marketing strategies. SG prove to be the best test bed as we have a safe and business friendly environment.
If we use an biological analogy, SG F&B businesses are like Chicken pox, too predictable and comfortable such that most Singaporeans also sian of them. Whereas PRC F&B businesses are like H1N1, come in and sweep most of the Singaporeans into their restaurants.
So who to blame? I feel ultimately, it's the F&B business who brought it on themselves. They are too comfortable for many years and they lose out on strategy. Then they blame rent, which is just a symptom of their lack of competitive advantage.