Experience with a small Taiwanese company [Warning]

Work Working in Taiwan
1

Hi everyone,
I am new here, so not exactly sure that this is the right area. I just want to share my experiences I have had recently with a small Taiwanese company.

  1. Before joining a small Taiwanese company, be sure that you know the background and management style of the company. I have worked for a few companies in Taiwan now, but I have never experienced such an efficient one in my life. The complete in ability to make decisions, not to mention the total lack of control the boss has over his longer term staff.

  2. In many Taiwanese companies, part of my job is to help the company adapt and suit their product to the European or American markets. On entering this company, I had a few clear items in mind that needed changing, i.e. Websites, catalogues. Stuff like this to begin with. This was agreed to be necessary. However, when it came time to doing it, certain members of the long term staff didn

2

Mr. Santoine. As the guy employing you into it, please takemy deepest apologies.

It was worse, always looking for scapegoats, boss really did a great job on that front. My assistants lasted 4 weeks on average…

Will post mroe later.

3

[quote=“saintone1”]Hi everyone,
I am new here, so not exactly sure that this is the right area. I just want to share my experiences I have had recently with a small Taiwanese company.

  1. Before joining a small Taiwanese company, be sure that you know the background and management style of the company. I have worked for a few companies in Taiwan now, but I have never experienced such an efficient one in my life. The complete in ability to make decisions, not to mention the total lack of control the boss has over his longer term staff.

  2. In many Taiwanese companies, part of my job is to help the company adapt and suit their product to the European or American markets. On entering this company, I had a few clear items in mind that needed changing, i.e. Websites, catalogues. Stuff like this to begin with. This was agreed to be necessary. However, when it came time to doing it, certain members of the long term staff didn

4

Moreover, the difference between us was that my mandarin is excellent. Therefore I got the shite from that fool who ran the company directly… His english was quite poor despite having a MA in marketing from flyover country somewhere.

5

Well yes, the assistants had a hard time staying. The good ones stayed 1-2 weeks, while the rest stayed a max 4 weeks. This was mainly due to the fact, that they were seen to be too friendly to and even worse that they thought that my ideas were good and well planned.
Well, my new job is in a much nicer company now and I got the job through a connection from one of my former assistants.
Saint :slight_smile:

6

I think rule number one when joining a Taiwanese company is to do nothing for the first six months or so. Do not try to improve things even if you see they are hopeless. Only give suggestions if you are specifically asked and do not try to put yourself into a decision-maker’s role. Then begin making some incremental changes after ou have established yourself as team player and are fully aware of the inevitable politics.

I’m not saying this is how things should be. I’m just trying to suggest a way of dealing with things.

Hell, this may be true for any job!

7

Hold a job for longer than six months? eeeek!

8

you are right - their website sucks.

9

Sound advice in most instances.

However, in this case you were under the gun from day 1. The pressure to sell a crummy product at a rather high price was big. I managed to get Klub into Australia by sheer luck, as we weren’t better or cheaper than the smaller European brands.

Other markets? No chance, and santoine1 spent several months getting doors shut in his face in Europe.

Also, the boss had a third rate marketing degree from some unknown state university in the US. (Or so he claimed).

That had let him to believe that we were able to find a magic bullet of some kind, allowing us to gain market share globally, despite being too expensive, unknown and of an inferior assembly quality.

If we were unable to think up that “magic bullet” then we were fools.

10

Joining a small (50 pers) Taipei Hardware company was a totally new experience to me. I am coming from a european software company…

Good:

  • very friendly colleagues and even boss and mrs. boss are nice to me
  • I get some “alien” special status and do not get shouted at like my taiwan. colleagues and they call me phone to see me instead of shouting through the company (which makes the colleagues running to them)
  • I do not have to work so long and usually not on Saturdays
  • The bosses respect sometimes I need longer for language barrier

Bad:

  • my european communication style to “cc” and otherwise spread interesting information soon shocked anyone. After learning that, I basically stopped giving information. Well, progress is slower since then, but they like it that way.
  • Many colleagues can write English, but hardly speak English, often only because they are very shy to speak. I was surprised to have someone speaking fluently English to me - when in the 2 month before he pretended not to speak a word :wink:
  • Language barrier is a good way for colleagues to ignore unpleasant work tasks, makes progress hyper slow

Basically, I gave up the idea to achieve big things and just try to contribute to the success of the company when possible.

I think too, in a western company they want you do be the “wizard” to improve things quickly, here you should be rather the “additional component” making a few small things better now and then.

11

Well, Saintone1, sounds like you worked at a company very similar to 85% of all companies in Taiwan. I read your post with amusement, but no suprise whatsoever…

These are the companies that need to fold quickly if Taiwan is going to maintain a strong economic presence in the world, IMHO.

12

[quote=“littleiron”]Well, Saintone1, sounds like you worked at a company very similar to 85% of all companies in Taiwan. I read your post with amusement, but no suprise whatsoever…

These are the companies that need to fold quickly if Taiwan is going to maintain a strong economic presence in the world, IMHO.[/quote]

Inefficient companies at the SME level exist in every economy and Taiwan is certainly not immune nor the only market that experiences the folding of SME’s left right and centre. It is an international phenomenon… only the strong (or efficient) survive, unless bolstered by govt (read cronyism) over time.

13

I think that Kedge was worse than most…

The managing director had his head stuck up his arse, and did not know a hoot about international markets.

The product was semi-decent, but could do with a better QC and much lower prices.

The management of the company maintained that all competitors were idiots and easy to trounce, we were up against the Italians, who are good businessmen, and who had brand names, experience, competitive pricing (for some), and a very strong reputation going for them.

The Managing Director managed by abuse, pressure, blaming everybody else, and evading responsibility in general. This lead to a brain-drain on a massive scale. The research department had 2 complete exchanges of personnel in the 8 months I was there. While this might be less of a concern, if they could get qualified personnel, the sad fact was that espresso machines and the knowledge you need to have to do a decent job in putting them together is something new here, and it takes some time for the engineering/research staff to put this knowledge together. By the time they were up to scratch, the Managing Director god rid of them by pressuring them out.

Brain drain… Apart from my assistants, there was also a constant makeover in every other department. when I left, there were 3 other employees, who’d stayed longer than me. I worked there for a bit more than 8 months, btw.

constantly being questioned in everything you did. When the customers said that your machine looked nice, but they could get a comparable Italian machine for a lower price, then the pricing would not be an issue with the management. The ability of the sales staff would. Oftentimes, you would have to suffer through having every email and note read thru by people unable to understand English. they would then question if you had scared the customer away. The conclusion was always the same: you were at fault, the company, the strategy, the quality, and the boss weren’t.

In other words, avoid Kedge Co., unless you get a kick out of constant suffering.

14

You are right. Kedge has great problems in management style and this is not the case in every company. But Kedge is the extreme of what I have seen so far.
I think I will shed many tears of joy when Kedge closes their doors for good. And I know this is only a mater of time. One week after I left they increased prices… so smart!!!
Saint :slight_smile:

15

[quote=“Mr He”][quote=“BAH”] That is incredibly offensive.

Taiwan is going it in the world, in an environment where a hostile power is trying to isolate it.

Thanks but no thanks for the “overview” and “analysis.”[/quote]

On price only seen from an economic viewpoint. After having spent time in several Taiwanese companies, I would say that most don’t have what it takes to enter the world markets in a meaningful way.[/quote]

Out of interest, how many people here have worked for SME’s in their own home countries? Making statements that Taiwan cant compete is a pretty sewwping one. In my experiences with Australian, Taiwanese, HK’ese, Singaporean, NZ and US SME’s there is a common thread - lost of good ones, lots of crap ones… the crap sink, the good rise, simple really. And it applies EVERYWHERE.

16

Dear lord… HK and Singapore are littered with Mickey Mouse operations…

17

[quote=“AWOL”]
Out of interest, how many people here have worked for SME’s in their own home countries? Making statements that Taiwan cant compete is a pretty sewwping one. In my experiences with Australian, Taiwanese, HK’ese, Singaporean, NZ and US SME’s there is a common thread - lost of good ones, lots of crap ones… the crap sink, the good rise, simple really. And it applies EVERYWHERE.[/quote]

Before coming to Taiwan, I worked in many SME’s. And the first SME when I came to Taiwan was pretty alright. This is mainly to do with orgainsation and process. When the company has none of this, or pretends to have (which is even worse), how can you expect anything to be treated consistently.

I do have hope for a lot of Taiwanese companies, otherwise I wouldn’t stay here. But you are right, the carp will sink and the good will rise …
Saint

18

Well, I dare to claim that certain cultural traits here make the excesses of poor management worse than in most other countries. Employees here will take more shite before walking than the average European worker.

Kedge is an extreme example, I stayed nearly 3 years in another Taiwanese company and thrived there, and the worst thing was that management of Kedge did not care about all the problems created by sheer mismanagement and saw staff turnover rates of 400% per annum as something normal…

Santoine, I would also add that I have rarely met bigger racists and idiots than our friend Mr. Young. (No shite, he calls himself mr. Young at times).

19

Dear lord… HK and Singapore are littered with Mickey Mouse operations…[/quote]
OK, that’s quite an optimistic assessment. Perhaps it would be more realistic to say that in HK or Singapore, you run a decent chance of avoiding mickymouse outfits if you do your homework. In Taiwan, you are more likely than not to end up in a poorly managed company, but I imagine that if you look and ask around, decent work in SMEs can be found. On the mainland, it is almost 100% certain that it will be 100% mickymouse.

20

You are all getting soooo off topic that it hurts.

Can’t we wait a bit with all that stuff, while we warn all foreigners off regarding the crummy Taiwanese outfit santoine and I worked for???

PLEASE!