Made in Taiwan

Or at the very least, by a Taiwanese company. If you own an Apple iPod, a PlayStation, a laptop computer, a Numark CDX CD player (for Djs), you are most likely the proud owner of a little bit of Taiwanese manufacturing know-how. Many of these branded products are manufactured (and increasingly designed) by Taiwanese firms.

Taiwanese companies account for something in the region of 80% of global notebook production (many of these Taiwanese firms' factories are located in China). These are pretty amazing figures.

You've probably heard that relations between Japan and China are sour at the moment. This has benefitted many a Taiwanese company as Japanese firms continue to choose Taiwanese firms to design or make their products for them. Here is an interesting article from the Taipei Times on digital camera production.

Beyond just design and manufacturing, some Taiwanese firms are choosing to forward integrate and develop their own brands. Have a look at this Taiwan-owned brand, HANNspree. Who would have thought that this is Taiwanese?







innovation, innovation management, China, Taiwan

Another dummy

I received quite a few comments from friends and visitors to Broken Bulbs on the photo I posted recently of a shop dummy. Since it's halloween, here's another one from the same store.





innovation, innovation management, China, Taiwan

Too many terms

There are many different definitions of innovation flying around. There are also many different terms for the various stages/phases within the innovation process, which can be thought of simply as taking an idea to cash ("monetizing an idea" sounds too naff to be used in Broken Bulbs, me thinks). The initial phases of this process consist more of thinking (initiation) while the later stages consist more of doing (implementation). The early initiation phase requires "doing the right thing" (deep understanding of markets a must); and the implementation phase requires "doing it right."

There is also a distinction made between the activities that occur before a product is actually developed, often called predevelopment activities, and those that occur after. Predevelopment activities have also been referred to as "early development" (Kleinschmidt and Cooper, 1991); "preproject" (Verganti, 1997); "fuzzy front end" (Murphy and Kumar, 1997); and "front end" (Khurana and Rosenthal, 1997).

Getting some of these terms defined for your firm is a crucial step in getting on top of this whole innovation thing. Half a day is all it takes.

PS. I've been listening to the BBC broadcast in the previous post. If you haven't listened to it yet, I suggest you do. It really is good!



innovation, innovation management in China, Taiwan

Universities and innovations

The innovation process has been described as bringing an idea to market; bringing an idea to cash, bringing an idea to commercial value, taking the lab to the market etc. etc. The common theme in all these descriptions is a notion of making money from ideas: the commercial exploitation of ideas.

Very interesting broadcast from In Business, a BBC Radio 4 show, on the current finances of universities; and whether they can turn all their ideas into cash? (You need Real player for this).







innovation, innovation management, China, Taiwan

Levitt got it wrong

Levitt (1983) made the assertion that "the world’s needs and desires have become irrevocably homogenized." Twenty three years ago it may have felt like that, but in 2005 we see resistance to standardized, one-size-fits-all global products in every corner of the world. It doesn't matter what dimension of a product you look at: price, packaging, distribution channel etc. they are usually very different from one country-market to another.

Even music, which is often viewed as the global product, is still in many ways local. Today I was looking for a track and ended up on one of Universal Music's Web sites in Italy.

If you are looking for innovations for your own country-market; start looking at other country-markets -- preferably country-markets where the competition is fierce, for it is in these markets that innovation blooms.




innovation, innovation management, China, Taiwan

Innovation for dummies

Thought I'd post this pic of a shop dummy that I saw here in Taiwan at a night market. Taiwan is incredibly receptive to ideas from overseas and I guess that this shop dummy came from Japan.

Not much else to report apart from the observation that there are still plenty of pirated DVDs on sale in the night markets here in Taiwan. There is nobody at the spot at which these DVDs are being sold -- just a bucket where you leave your money once you've selected the movie you want. The cops are slack here; and "need a rocket," as my dad would say.

I watched one last night, Crash, and it was surprisingly good quality -- apart from the occasional silhouette of somebody's head popping up in front of the cinema screen!

Flagship stores

You know that scene in Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts is in the boutique? The other day I was in Taipei's new 101 building looking for a shirt in the many "mass luxury" flagship stores. I saw a Polo shirt that I thought was quite nice, so I checked the label. It read: "NT$ 17,000," which is around 500 bucks or two hundred and fifty quid. I asked the aloof-looking assistant (got to match the brand with the staff folks!)if this was correct to which she replied, "Yes." Yeah right! Oot the door I went. Looks like Polo is attempting to reestablish itself as a real luxury brand here in Taiwan and the rest of Asia after years of drifting into the middle area of being neither cheap nor luxurious.

There is a lot of talk these days that branding is all about selling dreams (some people frame this notion as selling lies that we want to believe). Brands appeal to the hedonistic part of our personality rather than the rational side -- and we don't like being told that we are "being silly" for paying extra for these brands as this spoils our dreams. (Nobody wants to hear that a Seiko keeps just as good time as a Rolex)

I meet people here who will at once refuse to wear a branded T-shirt and brag about the fact that they "prefer Macs." All this really means is that they may not be particularly brand conscious for clothes, but for so-called high-tech products, they sure are.

So there's another dimension of a product that can be innovated. The dream dimension.

innovation

Brains and brawn

Joseph Schumpeter (yes, I'm quoting him again) claimed that "innovation is ultimately not an act of intellect but of will." He is essentially talking about the thinking part of the innovation process and the doing part of the innovation process (or initiation stages and implementation stages). I would guess that Schumpeter was really trying to get the message across that the thinking part is not enough in itself. Obvious, and often forgotten.

You often hear claims such as, "They stole my idea." What people should be saying here is "Their will was stronger than mine to make it a success." Of course, it isn't always as simple as that, but oftentimes ideas just never make it out of the starting gate.

Here's an interesting article I found on entrepreneurship in .pdf format.

When to judge?

There is an interesting article in Businessweek about how Google innovates. There is one part of Google's innovation process which, if it has been reported correcty, is flawed. It has to do with the judging of ideas during the idea-generating phase (or option-generating phase) of the innovation process. The article says:

"Anybody can post thoughts for new technologies or businesses . . . but beware: newbies who post familiar or poorly thought-out ideas can face an intellectual pummeling."

If this is true, the fact that these ideas are judged -- at this stage -- is just going to stop people from coming up with much.

When second doesn't work

Apple have the portable MP3 market stitched up. They have benefitted from being first in a new category with a unique brand name, allowing them to "own" that category. They have also benefitted from positive network effects, courtesy of their iTunes Web site. This combination has made it extremely difficult for Apple's competitors to make any headway at all.

[Note: Technically, Apple were not "first" to develop a portable MP3 player, but as far as consumers were concerned, they were.]

With the new Apple Nano about to hit the shelves here in Taiwan, some of the local Taiwanese firms and Korean firms have resorted to cutting their prices.

Taiwanese firms are well known for their "fast-follower" innovation strategies (an innovation strategy that lets others take initial risks when developing new products and then the firm enters when that product "appears" to be successful). This type of innovation strategy has served Taiwanese firms well in the past, but there are times when a fast-follower strategy will not work.