Companies should improve their internal management to prepare for unexpected internal or external crises, especially in a rapidly changing business environment characterized by global competition, Acer Group chairman Stan Shih (施振榮) said yesterday.
"Crisis is everywhere and uncontrollable, and therefore enhancing a company's ability to tackle constantly emerging crises is extremely important," Shih said at a gathering organized by the Chinese-language magazine Global Views Monthly (
Shih's remarks follow an announcement at the weekend by Lee and Li Attorneys-at-Law (理律法律事務所), the nation's biggest law firm, that it had reached a settlement with SanDisk Corp after one of the law firm's lawyers allegedly embezzled stocks from SanDisk's portfolio. The incident, in which one of Lee and Li's employees allegedly embezzled NT$3 billion worth of shares owned by SanDisk last month, presented a big crisis for the Taipei-based law firm.
Following thorough discussions and negotiations, Lee and Li finally agreed to pay SanDisk NT$678 million, along with an additional NT$1.52 billion over four years in 16 quarterly installments secured by letters of credit, and a credit of NT$620 million to be applied to future legal services.
Shih applauded the ways Lee and Li found to solve its own problems, and said this kind of crisis management is not news to Acer, which has engaged in internal management for over two decades.
In a case of theft in 1984, Acer lost NT$40 million worth of integrated circuits and failed to deliver orders to customers. Another incident occurred in 2001, when Acer's shares plunged after reports that its headquarters in the Eastern Science Park complex (東方科學園區) had been destroyed in a fire.
"After the incidents, we realized that we had to immediately face up to the damage and bring the correct information to our customers and the public first," Shih said. "We downsized the management team and further clarified duties of each team to improve efficiency."
Another two critical incidents pushed Acer to transform its business strategy, Shih said.
One was the problems experienced by Acer Semiconductor Manufacturing due to sluggish demand for dynamic random access memory (DRAM), resulting in a NT$6 billion loss. Acer later sold the company to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (
In the same year, Acer suffered the effects when the Internet bubble burst and about NT$10 billion of Internet business went down the drain, Shih said.
Acer has suffered dire losses from these crises, but they have offered valuable opportunities for the company to improve its management strategies and have made it stronger.
"We learned how to better deploy our resources and always keep an eye on the fluctuations of the volatile high-tech industry to adjust our business strategy accordingly," Shih said.
Surviving the losses suffered by companies in the Internet sector, Acer created BenQ (
In response to a question about how to prevent corporate fraud triggered by company staff, Shih said dealing with human nature is every manager's biggest challenge.
"I think they've handled the corporate fraud well, since they reached an agreement with their clients and ensured their interests in such a short time," Shih said.
"This also shows that reputation is an essential asset for prolonging a company's life," he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last