Thursday 14 March 2013

Modern, Yet Behind The Times

There is no doubt that Israel is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. This is what the statistics say. Silicon Wadi, the concentration of hi-tech start-ups along the coastal strip from Tel-Aviv up to Haifa is second only to Silicon Valley (and actually beats Silicon Valley in some statistics). Take start-ups out of the equation, and you still have the dozens of huge international companies who have chosen to set up one of their few offices outside the USA, in Israel. Of course, the cynical amongst us (me included, at times), would argue that one of the main reasons for this is the relatively low cost of labour here compared to the high productivity - I wouldn't be surprised if Israel tops the world 'productivity / labour cost' list. However, when it comes to day to day interaction with this country, one could be forgiven for thinking that it is only just emerging from the middle ages - and I'm sure some would argue that this is because people have bigger fish to fry here than to worry about the small stuff, but I would argue that it's because technology companies are so focused on the big money, that it's much more lucrative simply to export to larger markets, than to try and work within the Israeli market. So what exactly am I talking about?