| dc.description.abstract | The data from “2012 SMEs’ White Paper” revealed that in year of 2011, there were more than 1.2 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in Taiwan, and this number also hit a record high, accounting for 97.63% of all the businesses in Taiwan. Likewise, the number of people employed by such businesses in 2011 was 8.33 million and 7 thousands, representing 77.85% of the national employment. These numbers show that SMEs are the driving force of economies in Taiwan, and also the major players for increasing national employment and national domestic product.
Since the 1970s, Taiwan’s SMEs have been well-known for their advantages of competitive prices, faster delivery and services, and production flexibility. These competitive advantages also attract world-renowned manufacturers coming to Taiwan for seeking collaborations with Taiwan’s enterprises. However, SMEs have limited resources compared with large enterprises. Many of the SMEs’ entrepreneurs started their businesses from scratch and their business operations often lack planning and management. Under these awkward situations, how do these SMEs grow? How do they succeed? As time evolving, what strategy patterns will help SMEs growing into a large scale?
The case, Company K, studied in this research is a Taiwan-funded enterprise which produces electronic connectors. This research adopts a case study approach along with the “resource-based view” as the theoretical basis. The research explores how Company K did business decisions at different stages through strategy mapping. This research provides managerial implications based on the evolving business model of the case company.
Research findings and conclusions are as follows:
(1) Company K went through three stages of business lifecycle and adopted different strategic business model at each stage. The strategies are continuously regulated and adjusted to comply with the market expansion, technology evolution and management’s striving for improvement. The strategy evolution was from defender strategy, transformed into analyzer strategy, and then developed into prospector strategy.
(2) There have been three stages of decision-making process in Company K. Action-initiation and execution was the most urgent focus in the funding period while resource accumulation was the business decision that pursued further scale-up during the expansion period. The visionary approach is currently centered as the core as the company has entered the maturity stage.
This research suggests that enterprises’ strategy models are not immutable and frozen since businesses are always changing during different lifecycles. Business leaders have to understand the status of their business resources. Timely adjustments and improvements on market and product strategies, manufacturing technologies, and management competencies are essentially and critically required for the future success of any business. | en_US |