To help companies develop international-class brands and promote the domestic "Branding Taiwan" project, the iD SoftCapital Group (智融集團) and the government unveiled the nation's first venture-capital fund to invest in brands.
"As the margins generated by manufacturing have been declining, Taiwan's companies should allocate more resources to brand marketing to create more added value," Stan Shih (
"The knowledge-based economy is brand-based economy," he said.
The government will hold a 49 percent stake in the NT$2 billion (US$61.7 million) fund, with the quasi-official Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA,
iD SoftCapital, the fund's operator, will invest NT$200 million and look for other private companies to complete the fund by the end of second quarter.
The investment targets are local companies which are making an effort to establish international brands and promote a made-in-Taiwan image, regardless where the firms are based, Shih said.
He said the fund plans to invest in companies involved in digital technology, agri-business and culture-related industries.
Shih plans to complete the deployment of the venture capital within five years with a return of 30 percent.
The venture capital will help the Ministry of Economic Affairs' with its "Branding Taiwan" project, which aims to develop two Taiwanese brands that can crack the world's top 100 list, and five brands with value exceeding US$1 billion by 2012, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆) said at the conference.
However, the aim of making Taiwanese brands world renowned is a road full of challenges, said Steve Chang (張明正), chairman of Trend Micro Inc (趨勢科技), at a media gathering yesterday.
The anti-virus software maker has been the nation's top brand for the past three years, with brand valued at more than US$1.077 billion last year.
The first step to branding is quality products or services that cater to market demand, Chang said, citing Google and Skype as examples.
"Taiwanese companies should try to think and do differently, instead of looking for the so-called `correct answers,'" he said.
Creating a successful brand, however, takes huge investment and resources, as well as patience, Vithala Rao, a professor of marketing and quantitative methods at Cornell University, said at the gathering in Taipei.
Rao was invited by Trend Micro to deliver a speech on branding strategies at National Taiwan University yesterday.
Rao suggested Taiwanese firms buy or merge with major international brands to save costs. After acquiring the brand, the company still needs to maintain and keep marketing the brand to stay competitive, he said.
When looking for the right brand to acquire, cultural similarities and
complementarity are key, he said.
BenQ Corp's (明基) acquisition of Simens' handset division, is an example of
the right way to go, Chang said, but BenQ will have to overcome the
difficulty of integrating companies from different cultures before taking
the advantage of the brand.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure