Achieving “Separate front-ends with integrated back-end” synergy, WPG Maintains its Position as Asia’s Largest Electronic Components Distributor
2009-03-26
An Interview with WPG Holdings Chairman and CEO Simon Huang
(This article is excerpted from the Taiwanese media DigiTimes)
WPG Holdings was joined by Pernas Enterprise and AIT Group in 2008 and 2009, respectively. With the integration of service systems in its back-end and resource advantages of more than 200 production lines on the front, WPG has reaped the benefits of substantially reduced costs and improved management efficiency. The group’s revenue, profit and shareholder’s equity have also grown considerably. In the following interview, WPG Holdings chairman and chief executive Mr. Simon Huang shares how his company’s “Separate front-ends with integrated back-end” synergy model works and also his views of the future.
WPG Endeavors to Perfect the Performance of its Back-end Platform
Helping Front-end Operations to Provide Seamless Customer Services
WPG Holdings chairman Simon Huang says, “The main focus of the holding company is to separate the front-end operations but integrate the back-end.” Through acquisitions and consolidation, WPG now consists of five sub-groups: World Peace Industrial Group, Silicon Application Corp., RichPower Electronic Devices, Pernas Enterprise and AIT Group. Currently, each sub-group runs independently of one another, and is given policy guidance and target management indicators by the parent company. This way each sub-group has its own objectives and pursues them with its own pace. WPG’s main task is to establish a good example, model, and operational system for the front-end companies.
With the accelerated cooperation of similar functions and organizations among groups, companies and regions, WPG has implemented a common mode of operation and a knowledge-sharing platform to allow teams of different sizes but with distinct skill sets to work with and learn from one another through the philosophy of “helping one another yet relying on one’s own abilities” thereby allowing the organization, as well as the work, to maintain both competitiveness and an upward learning curve.
At the same time, the group is able to achieve “real-time communication” in its internal information flow via the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP), which optimizes internal knowledge sharing. With the group’s comprehensive and competitive marketing power and logistics support platform for the Asia-Pacific region, WPG can better meet the one-stop shopping needs of its customers and achieve synergies of economies of scale and scope.
WPG Maintains a Significant Asia-Pacific Presence
Dedicated to Long-term Customer Relationships with Professionalism and Integrity
Even in mainland China, which shares the same language and a similar culture, it took the group over 10 years to achieve initial results, let alone emerging markets with cultures and languages vastly different from Taiwan’s. The Asia-Pacific region has long been the major market in which WPG operates. As the globalization of customer service speeds up, WPG has plans to expand into to other emerging markets as well as European and North American markets. Regardless of the target market, accumulating professional credibility and establishing a relationship of trust with customers is the chief principle. In this age of technology, where everything is accelerated, customer relationships are still based on trust and are built over time from many different aspects, bit by bit and cannot be achieved in haste.
In this period of economic downturn, every person and each enterprise faces different circumstances and has a different mission. During good times, aggressive investment can be made, and in a period of downturn, one must view the situation as a turning point. One must also rethink one’s position, learn new things and start afresh, with the expectation that one will be able to provide better value in the future. Satisfying upstream and downstream suppliers and customers and enhancing service values are the objectives of every distributor. WPG chairman Simon Huang has great expectations for his company’s future, “Seize the growth opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region and emerging markets so that WPG can achieve rapid growth; as the largest IC and electronics distributor in the Asia-Pacific region and third largest in the world, we will continue to speed up the optimizing of our service platform in order to meet our customers’ needs, and we have set our goals of being the best-performing company in Asia (in terms of Return on Working Capital [ROWC] / ROE), as well as becoming the No. 1 choice for customers and suppliers.”
(This article is excerpted from the Taiwanese media DigiTimes)
WPG Holdings was joined by Pernas Enterprise and AIT Group in 2008 and 2009, respectively. With the integration of service systems in its back-end and resource advantages of more than 200 production lines on the front, WPG has reaped the benefits of substantially reduced costs and improved management efficiency. The group’s revenue, profit and shareholder’s equity have also grown considerably. In the following interview, WPG Holdings chairman and chief executive Mr. Simon Huang shares how his company’s “Separate front-ends with integrated back-end” synergy model works and also his views of the future.
WPG Endeavors to Perfect the Performance of its Back-end Platform
Helping Front-end Operations to Provide Seamless Customer Services
WPG Holdings chairman Simon Huang says, “The main focus of the holding company is to separate the front-end operations but integrate the back-end.” Through acquisitions and consolidation, WPG now consists of five sub-groups: World Peace Industrial Group, Silicon Application Corp., RichPower Electronic Devices, Pernas Enterprise and AIT Group. Currently, each sub-group runs independently of one another, and is given policy guidance and target management indicators by the parent company. This way each sub-group has its own objectives and pursues them with its own pace. WPG’s main task is to establish a good example, model, and operational system for the front-end companies.
With the accelerated cooperation of similar functions and organizations among groups, companies and regions, WPG has implemented a common mode of operation and a knowledge-sharing platform to allow teams of different sizes but with distinct skill sets to work with and learn from one another through the philosophy of “helping one another yet relying on one’s own abilities” thereby allowing the organization, as well as the work, to maintain both competitiveness and an upward learning curve.
At the same time, the group is able to achieve “real-time communication” in its internal information flow via the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP), which optimizes internal knowledge sharing. With the group’s comprehensive and competitive marketing power and logistics support platform for the Asia-Pacific region, WPG can better meet the one-stop shopping needs of its customers and achieve synergies of economies of scale and scope.
WPG Maintains a Significant Asia-Pacific Presence
Dedicated to Long-term Customer Relationships with Professionalism and Integrity
Even in mainland China, which shares the same language and a similar culture, it took the group over 10 years to achieve initial results, let alone emerging markets with cultures and languages vastly different from Taiwan’s. The Asia-Pacific region has long been the major market in which WPG operates. As the globalization of customer service speeds up, WPG has plans to expand into to other emerging markets as well as European and North American markets. Regardless of the target market, accumulating professional credibility and establishing a relationship of trust with customers is the chief principle. In this age of technology, where everything is accelerated, customer relationships are still based on trust and are built over time from many different aspects, bit by bit and cannot be achieved in haste.
In this period of economic downturn, every person and each enterprise faces different circumstances and has a different mission. During good times, aggressive investment can be made, and in a period of downturn, one must view the situation as a turning point. One must also rethink one’s position, learn new things and start afresh, with the expectation that one will be able to provide better value in the future. Satisfying upstream and downstream suppliers and customers and enhancing service values are the objectives of every distributor. WPG chairman Simon Huang has great expectations for his company’s future, “Seize the growth opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region and emerging markets so that WPG can achieve rapid growth; as the largest IC and electronics distributor in the Asia-Pacific region and third largest in the world, we will continue to speed up the optimizing of our service platform in order to meet our customers’ needs, and we have set our goals of being the best-performing company in Asia (in terms of Return on Working Capital [ROWC] / ROE), as well as becoming the No. 1 choice for customers and suppliers.”