Technology development in the last two decades have help us come this far, and maybe even more further as human being, including ourselves, have the passion and bigger need for something more advanced than what we already achieved. The technology developing is now not only a scientist’s job to invent, but also it has become major businesses in the world economy. One of the major technology business is computer technology or usually known as IT or Information and Technology businesses.
The growth of computer technology, including Internet in the last decade has a huge effect on most of the people on the face of the earth, from the United States until the Africa. Asia, as one part of the world, also affected by the growth@of the industry Asian countries has developed from the production department, because of its cheap human resources. But the myth of Asian countries only can do what they told to do without any idea what their doing has proofed to be wrong. The myth of uncreative Asian workers has proofed wrong by the rapid development in Asia in computers and Information Technology businesses .
Acer Reputation Acer, means “spirited” or “energetic” in Latin , is one of worldwide known company based in Asia. Acer a computer company based in Taiwan, has became one of the top three computer company in the world with sales of $5. 9 billion , best-known brand in Asia for 3 years in the row , included in brand world’s 100 best managed companies , top in overall leadership , second in the 50 most competitive companies in Asia , and also has became Asia’s most admired companies .
With all those achievements, Acer has became one of the top Asian companies in Asia, and one of the leader companies in Taiwan. A big achievement for a young Asian companies, compare to other big Asian companies which most of it are Japanese company based in Japan. Acer History Acer has reached its success recently, after 26 years of hard work by the founder and the CEO of the company, Stan Shih. This Taiwan based company was founded in 1976 under the name of Multitech , as an Original Equipment Manufacturer or OEM for other computer makers such as U. S. based Unis Instrument .
Multitech started to design Taiwan’s first mass-produced computer product for export in 1979 . The name Multitech was used since the company was found until 1987 when the name of Multitech was changed into Acer by Stan Shih, its founder and CEO, because it’s short, easy to pronounce and best of all, it would appear near the top when companies are listed in the brochure . A silly reasons for choosing a company name, but as mentioned before the meaning of Acer is the same as its name.
The growth of Acer was really fast after it starts cloning the western technology for computers technology. As one of the first Asian computer makers, Acer has the courage to compete with those early starters in the business with better quality and cheaper products. The global market seems to like the product offer by Acer, as its product take them in to the third biggest computers maker in the world. Acer Cultures As a company, Acer has its own company culture for its employee to imply.
These company cultures are divided into four, which are: 1. Human Nature Is Basically Good Acer aimed to create an efficient work environments based on mutual understanding. Acers’ employees are encouraged to freely express their opinion, take risks and most importantly learning from their mistakes. In the early days, Acer was one of the companies in the world that offer the stock option program which encourage entrepreneurships as the company grew, driving employees ambition to corporate ladder and giving more incentive for a job well done.
Acer employees are still proud to continue the tradition of “integrity, open minded-ness, and corporate ownership. Acer has created and delivered many human centric benefits to its staff. In return, the employee will worked with greater empowerment and efficiency. 2. Customer Is Number One All Acer operation follow the successful “Acer 1-2-3” business philosophy which placed customer in first place, employee in second and shareholders in third. With this philosophy, the connection between all human aspects of the company will meet.
Consequently, to reach customer satisfaction, Acer has to continue maintaining its competitiveness in all aspects, speed, cost on production and delivery, and also performance and product quality. 3. Put The Knowledge to Work For The Company Through proper empowerment in the workplace, employees are highly encouraged and rewarded to develop skills and “know-how” that help sustain Acer’s long-term business growth. As a company motto goes, Acer employees will always “tackle difficulties, break through bottlenecks and create new opportunities that bring real value.
Acer’s intangible assets such intellectual property can be turned into tangible rewards and managed to foster the corporate strength. Acer employees have always been encourage and rewarded an entrepreneurial skills which made them can be trusted to make sensible business decisions with minimal supervision. This culture that they implied made their new employees to be able to quickly learn to think independently and act for the best interest of the company. 4. Be Pragmatic and Accountable Everyone is encouraged to calculate risks and avoid taking the risks that we cannot afford.
Flexibility is extremely important when running a business. Acer believes it is more important to keep the business alive than save face. Stan Shih, chairman and CEO of The Acer Group states, “In an perpetually changing IT industry, what principals can Acer count on? First, we take care of all stakeholders; second, we continuously improve and create value. We believe these will be achieved through our long-term pursuit and effort. ” With those four corporate cultures, the working environment built in Acer Company is trust between the corporation and its employee.
By implementing these cultures, Acer has always been able to make improvement and maintaining its performance. Acer Strategy From the cultures mentioned above, we might already have the conclusions for the reasons of Acer success. But the fact, a good company culture is hardly taking a company into a great success as Acer does. Acer also has their own corporate strategy in doing their business. Their strategy is a decentralized management as well as decentralized structure made by their CEO Stan Shih, designing the company to be a CEO factory .
The corporate strategy is a three in one system, “The Fast-food business model”, “Client-server structure”, “Global brand and local touch” . The Fast-Food Business Model Acer implicating a fast-food business model as Mc Donald’s it has systematic operations and unified brand name. Adopting Mc Donald’s operation model, Acer built their strength of motherboard manufacturing while preventing shortcomings . With the fast-food business model, Acer improved their inventory turnover rate by 100% . It shows that efficient and systematic operation of a company can improve company condition.
With branches all over the world, Acer has worked all barriers they used to have just by implementing a new company strategy. A Client – Server Structure The structure able the company to be a worldwide business that takes a local partnership approach. The center of decisions making is the shareholder meeting, which is the only opportunities for the headquarter to influence its branches business decisions . A partnership of a client and a server as works in a computer technology, also applied in the company strategies.
Partnership of Acer with other computer related companies has already established from the day that Acer started cloning computer technology. One of the major partnership between Acer and other computer related was made in 1996 when Acer signs a reciprocals patent licensing agreement with IBM, Intel, and Texas Instrument for using each other’s patented technology . The agreement gives advantages to all the companies included to freely improvise their technology to be included in their product without any patent barrier.
Global Brand Local Touch Global brand local touch means that Acer as a Global brand gives opportunities to local investor in their branches location to join partnership with the corporation. This strategy reduces the corporation risk overseas. Not only that, it gives more opportunities for the corporation to adopt and to understand the need of local customer of their product. Conclusion Acer as one of the major player in computer and IT business has a great corporation strategy. The founder, Stan Shih, is the genius behind the success of Acer.
The success of Acer has brought Stan Shih to be one of the top executives in the world. “Shih is considered to be a high-tech visionary in Taiwan” . From what he has done for the company in the last 24 years since the company was founded, the quote can be considered to be very reasonable. All decisions made by Stan Shih have brought Acer to be one of the most growth company in the world in the last two decades. “Acer is perhaps the only PC vendor to have made significant progress in the consumer arena in the last ten years” .
The consumer, their first priority has helped them in their growth. Their effort of meeting the customer satisfaction has succeeded. Implementing their “Three in One” strategy has improved their sales and growth. The independent of each branch, even each employee to make their decision with the sense of business for the good of the company has worked out well. Stan Shih as a very optimistic person who has a great sense of business has a very good and promising view for Acer based on the strategies that the corporation applied.
Three reasons that make Stan Shih believe that the strategies and the structure will create an even more promising future are: First, under the structure, each business unit will take over its current operating responsibility. Second, the vision that he developed will have to get everyone’s consent. With consensus established, they have greater chance of turning their vision into reality together. Third, share of common interest and any visionary strategy will make more strength and motivate the full cooperation of every colleague . The future of Acer is still far ahead, and new visionary of technology in advanced is still needed.
The Acer group is weathering out changes in the PC business with a strategy aimed at long term diversification” . Future vision can be build from experiences and knowledge. The strategies that they applied have a high probability to be implicated in the future. The problem is that the market has always changes, as happened in the Tech-Slump in the end of 1998. Will the flexibility of their corporate strategy cover or meet the flexibility of the world market? And will they have their strength to face such a challenge in the future to keep competing in the global market?
In my opinion, their corporation culture and their corporation strategy might have the high possibility to cover those challenges. Strategy applied so far to the corporation have proofed that it could be very flexible in facing barrier. They are ready to face the challenges, the structure they built as the foundation is very strong, and one more thing that I personally impressed from this company is the vision and the strategy made by Stan Shih to gives trust to Acer branches, their executives, and even employee to make their own business decision for the good of the company.
The decentralized strategy applied in the company has worked out very well and gave a great result. Stan Shih will resign as the CEO of the company in the near future . But the replacement is already built and prepared to take the company into maybe even a greater future for the company through their company cultures and strategy. From this point of view, I can say that Acer is really ready for everything’s and every possibility in the future.
It shows that the strategy that they applied is not only for the sales, operating efficiency, better quality of products, but also for a good human resources. One impression for me in doing this report is Stan Shih is a genius because of his vision in strategy, building every aspects of the company in one time. And Acer is a great company because of great pioneer and founder, for the time being and for the future.
