dc.description.abstract | Over 97% of firms in Taiwan are small and medium-sized ones, and nearly 80% of them are family-owned businesses. The life span of these firms seldom exceeds five years. The economic expansion that Taiwan had experienced in the past has been threatened by external factors such as the migration of manufacturing operations offshore, the ever-heightened raw materials prices, global financial crisis, European debt crises, and exchange rate fluctuations. Hence, products or services that can give a firm long-lasting competitive edge are indispensable.
However, during the course of business administration and development, challenges of all kinds will appear continuously. Examples include shortage of talents, restructuring, product competitiveness, cash flow, corporate successor program, and so on. This thesis analyzes a case, S Company, to explore the problems it encountered during business transformation. The case shows how the company pursued the management and strategies for improving its business operations and strengthening its competitiveness.
The case company studied is more than half a century old. With the experiences of three vital business transformations over the last five decades, the company has been able to offer lines of new products with the best value in the industry and prolong its life span through diversification, making it a valuable target for case study. This study is mainly based on Porter’s competitive theory, supplemented with other theories and tools in strategy analysis and management, in order to identify case company’s unique capabilities and values. The data are collected through interviews with customers regarding the company’s product characteristics and used to gauge and analyze the advantages and disadvantages between the products the company offers and those of the competitors. The study further reviews the company’s extant resources and capabilities, identifying the core resources and capabilities that may allow the company to establish new product portfolios that can help the company develop sustainable competitive advantage in the future. The results of this case study can serve as a reference for other small and medium-sized firms facing the similar competitive environments and problems to develop their future competitive strategies. | en_US |