Speed is definitely key to business success, especially true for Internet startups or enterprises specialized in mass production.
If we were an enterprise with annual revenue of US$10 billion, would we be willing to spend 0.0001% of the revenue or US$1 million to secure reliable information? As far as I know, this is the usual budget of a big enterprise for such purposes, for they know their decision making can no longer rely on an "epiphany." You can't wait passively for business opportunities to come knocking on your door, or you may lose the huge capacity you have already invested in.
In the second half of the 1980s when I started out as industry researcher in Taiwan, I would gather customs figures every month. The customs figures allowed us to understand the dynamics of Taiwan's IT industry. I remember Tatung once helped IBM pilot run a plasma display for US$3,000 per unit. In the second half of the 1980s, Northern Europe was an important testing market for Taiwan's Acer, MiTac and Copam. Consumers in Northern Europe could get tax rebates for PC purchases, which was rather attractive. The early deployment of Northern Europe in the hi-tech sector explains why today's sparsely populated, labor-costly Northern Europe is full of smart unmanned services.
I was right at the time when I witnessed how Taiwan's industry was taking shape, so I chose to launch a media business model integrated with industry research. It doesn't make much sense for others to imitate such a business model in terms of social contribution, let alone its high entry barrier. Taiwan's startups should learn from the Silicon Valley's model and explore patterns of differentiation from existing businesses rather than just imitate. As long as there is differentiation, we have the room for business collaboration.
As a Taiwanese company dedicated to global IT industry information, we need to have exceptional experts to define research specifications and business models. And this is work of a lifetime.
During the first meeting of our board of directors at DIGITIMES, TSMC chairman Morris Chang said that "if you can't do something different, I won't give you a dime." Acer founder Stan Shih said, "You are a professional team, and you take the wheel." It is clearly written in the terms of DIGITIMES management that shareholders must not interfere with the editorial affairs. For 24 years our shareholders have never interefered with the editorial affairs and have shown utmost respect to the professional managers. This is the key to DIGITIMES' survival till today.
(Editor's note: This is part of a series by DIGITIMES Asia president Colley Hwang about industry research work.)
