Mitac relies on three models to transform and upgrade

Jumping out of the red sea of OEM and sustainable operation, this is the goal that many OEM companies in Taiwan, especially IT companies, have been pursuing. In the Taiwanese industry, Miao Fengqiang, chairman of Mitac Computer Group, is known as a "long-term chess player". Founded in 1982, Mitac Computer Group used to be in the first echelon of Taiwan's foundry companies, but its different businesses have undergone many transformations and upgrades in terms of operations, product technology and management, and through differentiated products in terminal electronic consumption. Different brands have been established in the field and in the IT supporting industry.

“There are three modes for the transformation and upgrading of Mitac,” said Li Jingping, vice chairman of Shenxun Kunda Computer Technology (Kunshan) Co., Ltd., the main production base of Mitac Computer Group. “The first is the transformation and upgrading of the operation mode. Including the transformation and upgrading of products and technologies, including product innovation and production automation, and the transformation and upgrading of management models, enabling enterprises to improve management efficiency with the help of informatization "Change" is a characteristic of the IT industry, and Mitac Computer Group is well versed in this. Li Jingping said that by seeking changes on its own, Mio "hopes to foresee the future, rather than waiting for the future to come."

From foundry to own brand

The PC foundry business of Mitac Computer Group reached its peak from the 1990s to the early 2000s. At that time, it had a share of top brand computer foundries has reached 50%. But Li Jingping said that at that time, Mio "couldn't see the future. We only competed on the advantage of scale. The fate was in the hands of the customers. When the market was not good, the customers would kill your price and ask you to eat the inventory." At that time, Mio had a production base, service capabilities, and product R&D capabilities. With this in mind, Mio had to think about taking the initiative and creating its own brand. The connotation of the brand first comes from the market demand. In order to get in touch with the market and understand customers, Mio starts with setting up maintenance points.

In 2002, Mitac Computer Group officially launched its own brand Mio navigator, which became the market of civil navigator the earliest explorers. To be a private brand, "the first is not to compete with existing customers, and the second is to make use of existing technologies and channels." At that time, the civilian navigator market was blank, and even Garmin was only in the military, aviation and other exclusive markets at that time; secondly, this product also avoided the traditional computer market and avoided the impact on the existing foundry business. Li Jingping emphasized that to be a self-owned brand, it is necessary to consider the business mode of the company itself and the feasibility of stable growth. Today, Mitac Computer still retains part of the foundry business, but the main production force has moved to its own brand.

In 2006, Mitac Computer Group began to set up a back-office support center in Kunshan to centrally handle back-office business of overseas branches, including sales and financial work such as order follow-up processing and monthly billing. "For example, the US branch receives an order, but it is about to get off work. At this time, Kunshan is going to work, and the back-end support center can handle the follow-up operations of this order, including notification to the factory and cost analysis, and wait for the US branch to go to work. You can immediately quote the customer." Li Jingping said as an example. The advantages of doing so are: first, it can provide 24-hour service to customers; second, labor costs are greatly saved. "Kunshan's labor cost is only one-third of that in the United States. A branch that used to require 20 people can be reduced to 3."

However, Li Jingping pointed out that it is not easy for enterprises to implement such a unified management model in the background in the early stage of globalization, " This requires the cooperation of the front line to do it, and when developing a new market, it will be difficult to adapt to the environment. Enterprises must first understand the different cultures in different places, have a basic understanding, learn to deal with them, and then do corresponding supporting management later.”

Getac Technology, a notebook OEM under the Mitac Group, used to have the top two customers in China and the top three in Japan, accounting for at most one-third of the total. Seeing the successful transformation of Mitac, Getac also tried to become its own brand, and went even more thoroughly, completely giving up the foundry business in 2008.

The breakthrough point of Getac Technology lies in the transformation and upgrading of products, that is, from traditional notebook computer production to military and industrial notebooks. The basis is that in 1989, Mitac Computer Group established a joint venture with GE, specializing in the production of military electronic equipment. Today, Shenji Technology is one of the top three manufacturers in this field in the world. Li Jingping said that it is necessary to understand the technical needs of the military and industrial fields, and also to master the production technology of notebooks. Shenji Technology has both these two characteristics. This difference makes it discover a new opportunity for its own brand.

However, from OEM to branding, Li Jingping pointed out that enterprises need to face the difference in concept. OEM companies pay attention to cost control. As long as the cost can be reduced, the profit will be high; but branding should focus on the market and rely on Quantity wins, and in the end, go big or die. And OEMs are not necessarily like this, small and beautiful can also live well.

Transformation and upgrading of product technology

However, taking the road of own brand is not suitable for Handa, which is used for supporting cases such as chassis. Handa is making a fuss about the transformation and upgrading of products. In the industry, the original traditional plastic case is made into a metal-like material with high glass fiber and plastic. Li Jingping admitted that such a product upgrade idea is not new in the industry, and it is also the direction that everyone wants to go, but it is very difficult to achieve breakthroughs. Handa's success lies in the fact that Mitac Computer Group established a relevant R&D center many years ago, and six years ago set up a national-level laboratory for polymer materials research in Kunshan to conduct basic research. Compared with the usual way of transforming products by finding more R&D personnel, Mitac Computer Group's approach has made itself a technology leader.

At present, Handa is the only company in the industry that can efficiently produce metal-like materials containing more than 50% high glass fiber, so it has become the only manufacturer of ultrabook shells in the industry recognized by Intel, and has monopolized the high cost of ultrabooks. The market for fiberglass enclosures. In the future, lighter, thinner and lower cost metal-like products will come out. This feature makes metal-like materials can replace traditional alloy products, so that Handa can go further and even enter the automotive industry.

Li Jingping revealed that the second transformation and upgrading of Handa in the future will be to establish a brand in the supporting industry, just like Corning in the panel industry, to establish a concept similar to "Made by Handa" in the industry. "Through products and technologies, it has an influence on customers. For example, Handa often participates in Intel, Microsoft and other companies to conduct technical seminars and speech tours, which shows that Handa has formed certain aspects of professionalism in the minds of the latter." Li Jingping said that this is the definition of the second transformation and upgrading of Handa.

For Mitac Computer Group, another aspect of product technology transformation and upgrading lies in the production automation that Mitac Computer, Getac Technology and Handa are all implementing. However, Mio did not simply interpret this as buying a robot. Li Jingping said: "The robot only does fixed actions of taking and putting, but it needs to be taught by someone. Moreover, the production of different products has different operating procedures, which must be composed of technical developers, software developers and production process professionals. A professional team will make targeted revisions."

He pointed out that this professional team must be supported by the enterprise itself. Mitac started to build an automation team five or six years ago, and now it has nearly 200 people. For a manufacturing company like Mio, 20 minutes of production stoppage is completely different from a day's consequences for the production line debugging of different products. The rapid conversion of production lines requires the cooperation of software, hardware and related technical processes. This is not something that a robot equipment manufacturer can simply complete with a few engineers on site. In addition to time and cost factors, corporate trade secrets are also the focus. For example, Handa's metal-like casing is manufactured. Different high glass fiber components in the material mean that the robot's action strength during production is different.

Rotation of three upgrade modes

The transformation and upgrading of enterprise management is the management optimization work that Mitac Computer Group has been doing in the past few years. Its IT development team of more than 400 people has developed all information systems for the group. "Compared with outsourcing, self-development is not necessarily cost-effective." Li Jingping said, "It is entirely possible for the IT development team to become an independent consulting company in the future. This is another product transformation and upgrading that Mio may practice in the future."

Among the three transformation and upgrading models practiced by Mitac Computer Group, Li Jingping believes that the transformation and upgrading of product technology and management must be done, and it is the foundation for the company to continue to make breakthroughs and sustainable operations, and to strengthen the body; however, the transformation and upgrading of the operating model It needs to rely on the environment and products faced by the enterprise. Taking Handa as an example, it is impossible to make its own brand, and it can only continue to optimize product technology and management.

"Companies must build a solid foundation internally before they can rush to the front line. There are only a few OEM competitors, but to go to the front line is to compete with brands all over the world. If you don't have products and Good management, how to make a brand?" In the early stage of the development of MiTAC in the 1980s, MiTAC brand computers were also launched, but when IBM, Compaq, etc. lowered the price of computers, MiTAC was not allowed to do so. Do not change the strategy of pursuing the brand, instead focus on R&D and manufacturing, and do the channel.

Li Jingping is one of the heroes who built the MIO brand. He said that Mio did MIO because its production technology, product R&D and channels were mature and it had a competitive advantage, so it dared to jump out. Moreover, the current mainstream market is still in Europe and the United States, so it is very difficult for Asian companies to build brands, and the gap between the understanding of the European and American markets and consumers always exists. "If there is no differentiation and competitiveness in terms of products, costs, etc., and companies do not have a strong degree of self-mastery, it will be difficult to compete with European and American brands."