A leading American industrialist told the cream of Taiwan's manufacturing community in early November that they would continue to succeed through innovation and sustainable development.
Speaking at a forum on business longevity in Taipei recently, John Hodgson, executive vice president of the Wilmington, Delaware-based conglomerate DuPont, also said that the industry needed to embrace change and not fear it.
Hodgson should know. He's been with DuPont for 36 years of its 200-year history.
"The move towards sustainable development, I believe right now, is one of the most fundamental shifts taking place," he said. "There are two ideas that are no longer valid. The first is the fundamental assumption that the world has enough resources for all of us, and second that the earth can absorb all the waste we produce."
And the situation is more pressing now than ever.
"If we were to bring the billions of people in the developing world to developed world business models, we would need three planet Earths to sustain them," he said. "We need to come up with solutions that produce products in different ways."
Hodgson offered some proven ways to approach the problem. Recycling and re-use are the most obvious examples, he said.
DuPont has a history of re-using what others would consider waste. The founder of the company took scrap iron and placed it in acid to create a dye.
"This was the start of our habit of using waste and the byproduct of the industrial process to create something," Hodgson said.
In order to sustain a company, Hodgson urged the audience to pass on what they learn.
"Productivity is the same as sustainability -- is getting more out of less, or an efficient use of resources," he said.
Hodgson gave some practical tips about sustained growth.
"There are three things that come to mind. Firstly, recognize fundamental shifts as they happen. Secondly, understand when the economic or business models are changing and thirdly, respond creatively and profitably," he said. "Companies that transform are those that pursue change and see it as an asset, not an obstacle. Groups that resist change go away. We've transformed so many times in our 200-year history, from black powder [gunpowder] to chemistry. Now we are adding biology and electronics."
Hodgson's advice is timely. Many industry watchers in Taiwan have expressed concern over the hollowing out of the nation's manufacturing industry to China. Now more than half of Taiwanese tech products are made in China, according to the Market Intelligence Center.
Echoing Hodgson's comments, Yang Jih-chang (楊日昌), vice president of the government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute said, "Taiwan's future prospects are now at an all-time high ... Manufacturing is 62 percent of Taiwan's industry. We need to change to a service culture. Taiwan's growth potential is huge."
Yang predicted that by 2008, Taiwanese would develop a phone battery that would last 50 days and squeeze 1 terabyte of data -- that is 1,000 times more than what is possible today -- on to 2.54cm2 of a hard disk.
"Two years ago we had 6 percent of the world technology market. Last year it was 24 percent. This year it will be 38 percent," he said.
Taiwan is DuPont's third-largest market after the US and Japan.
DuPont Taiwan Ltd was established in 1968. The company now has three wholly owned factories and four joint ventures in Taiwan, with a total investment of over US$1 billion and 1,200 employees.
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