Taiwanese companies that hope to tap global markets should improve their digital marketing skills, starting with building a really “communicative” Web site, said Able Studio Co founder Steven Yeh (葉俊宏), who in February was one of the this year’s German Design Award winners in the Excellent Communications Design category.
The award’s committee nominated the studio after seeing its Web page design for the Industrial Technology Investment Corp (ITIC) win other design awards.
Despite its 41-year history, the ITIC, a venture capital arm of the Industrial Technology Research Institute, had difficulty boosting its international visibility, partly because its old Web site lacked appeal, Yeh said.
After communicating with the ITIC about its target audience and needs, the studio renovated its Web site into one with a default English-language interface and user-friendly features, he said.
The studio considers the new Web site one of its masterpieces.
The new look of the site has helped the ITIC facilitate negotiations with Japanese and European collaborators, he added.
In his experience, over the past decade, many traditional firms have faced a generational transition, and some have struggled to access global markets, Yeh said.
Instead of visiting clients face-to-face as the older generations did, company operators now should think how to let outsiders know about their firm and get a good impression of it in the shortest time, so a well-designed Web site is a critical portal, said Yeh, who earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering from National United University in Miaoli.
The studio is working with a government agency to redesign their decades-old insurance system, which would have an impact on most of Taiwan’s working population and companies, he said.
It is a big challenge, as studio members have to optimize the complex functions of the system set up 20 years ago, without introducing too many changes for civil servants, he said.
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