Speaking at the Institute of Service Excellence at SMU (ISES), which hosted the fourth ISES Global Conference on Service Excellence on Wednesday, Minister in Prime Minister's Office Lim Swee Say said that Singapore is making a transition towards a new growth formula: "one plus two equals to three" – meaning a one per cent rise in the workforce and a 2 per cent increase in productivity to power a 3 per cent growth in the country's annual gross domestic product (GDP). He also urged service-industry businesses to take a leaf from the manufacturing sector and practise competitive benchmarking, so that they would know where they stand in relation to their competitors. The service industry does not do enough of this, he said. To this end, ISES has set up the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore annually since 2007. The index enables comparison of service performance against competitors in the same sector, across sectors and even against international players where similar indices are used. The two-day event has attracted more than 300 Asian business leaders, policymakers and academics, who will examine the service industry's prospects along the theme "The Future of Service".