One thing I wanted to do when I visited Taiwan this time was see if I could identify ”hole(s)” in the IT industry to possibly capitalize on post-mba (if that ever happens). After talking to my cousin who works in the semiconductor industry, he said that the one thing Taiwan desperately lacks is innovation.
Taiwanese companies compete with each other by pricing products lower than their competitor. I’m not that business savvy, but that principal seems to dictate that profit margins will keep shrinking and shrinking, which means cutting production costs by moving production to China or triming the workforce. I guess this could be mitigated if there are new products coming down the pipeline that will eventually be priced down. This is where the hole is: coming up with new products. New products are usually a duplication of existing designs. Unlike the Japanese and Korean companies (Sony, Samsung), Taiwanese companies aren’t known for creating cool new toys.
I told my cousin about the ways google and other innovative software companies in the states foster innovation. He said that that is what is missing in Taiwan. I can’t think of why that is the case. The kids there are no less intelligent than Americans, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, Brits, etc. Why not create an environment where you let your smartest employees flex their brain and create something cool rather than make them manufacturing monkeys.
Well, apparently the change is slowly underway. Here is an article from the NY Times that reports on the situation: Taiwan Wants to Focus on Building Its Own High-Tech Brands
Hopefully John invents something really genuis by the time I graduate. I’m counting on you. All of Taiwan is counting on you 