Was having a conversation with a Taiwanese friend. Taiwan actually has many good products that are half the price of global brands, even simple things such as fans, hair dryers, water purifiers, etc. But they don't sell beyond Taiwan because my friend said ...
... Taiwanese businesses aren't confident. We spoke about how Taiwan has the capability to go global because Taiwan has been able to galvanize SMEs to work together during #COVID19 to produce masks, test kits and drugs. So, the expertise is there ...
... Yet, Taiwan's local brands haven't been able to go global, one reason of which my friend said is Taiwanese have been taught to be humble, or in other words to underestimate themselves. She also said that there's too much of an overreliance on China's market, ...
... so there was no impetus to think about selling globally since there was already an accessible market. Spoke to another friend once about how Taiwan hasn't been able to grow its movie industry like South Korea also because of the overreliance on China ...
... Overreliance on China has therefore resulted in complacency among Taiwanese businesses and prevented them from thinking about how else to compete globally. But now with the need to delink from China, it's a brand new world for these businesses, ...
... which now have to catch up for the past 20-30 years of lost time. But aside from that, I think the bigger issue is the overreliance on China's low costs and the 30 years of stagnated brand development means there hasn't been an impetus in Taiwan to think global, ...
... or to reform the education and labor system to catch up globally. Taiwan has thus been contended with the low wages and businesses were contended with above-average profits, since they didn't have to return too much to workers. Workers become discouraged, ...
... and so, it has become a spiral downwards which has resulted in demotivated workers who do not need to see the need to put too much into their work, if bosses aren't going to pay to increase their motivations. And then bosses blame workers for being demotivated ...
... and lack initiative, when bosses won't pay to increase it. So, I don't think the reasons why Taiwan's brand haven't been able to go global is simply because of poor marketing or over-humility. They are the apparent reasons, yes, but there are underlying issues ...
... How do you want workers to feel inspired, when workers feel undervalued? How are undervalued workers going to innovate to their higher capabilities? No one is going to argue that Taiwan has talent. But what I've seen regularly is workers who don't see the need ...
... to do beyond what they are paid for. And Taiwanese businesses are then only going to believe they are never good enough to compete globally, if workers cannot, or do not want to produce more. The other reason is Taiwan's hierarchy - it's causing Taiwan to be stuck in the rut.
Bosses think they know best, workers who question get slammed down because they are deemed not to be at a high enough position to do so, so young people don't speak up at work. This is at least what I see at my work environments. If this work culture does not change, ...
... how can Taiwan hope to create higher innovation? To be fair, I think Taiwan is at the cusp of change. Politically, @iingwen's win this year has inspired hope that Taiwan will move beyond the partisan politics, and youths are beginning to feel their voices ard being heard ...
... This also means that gradually Taiwan has the opportunity to start debating important social issues such as inequality and wages with greater urgency. But even so, there needs to be an urgent conversation to relook Taiwan's model, ...
... And to understand how Taiwan's stagnation isn't just about enhancing marketing, but to deal with this set of underlying issues. Taiwan's policymakers like to think Taiwan is a small country, but they are trapped in this mentality, because they have also become blinded by ...
... Taiwan's 30 years of stagnation. Netherlands has the same population but twice the GDP of Taiwan. Is the Netherlands small? It is, but it thinks big. Most importantly, if you want to become global, then you have to make sure your workers are paid on par with global players...
... You have to make sure your work culture is on par, you have to get rid of hierarchy, empower workers, encourage bottom-up innovation, you have to transform the education system. I don't think because Taiwan is supposedly "Chinese" that this is difficult to do ...
... Taiwan is "Chinese" but it has been able to become a democracy. It is time now for Taiwan's workplace to catch up with its democracy, and to transform, and there is no better time than now for Taiwan to do it. But to be able to become global, Taiwan needs to be bold ...
... Finally, if Taiwan can transform to be on par with South Korea's or Japan's branding, there is lesser reason for the world to ignore Taiwan, and it will give Taiwan leverage against China when Taiwan's brand image is no longer one of a second-tier manufacturing hub ...
... To me, these are all interconnected. If Taiwan wants to grow and become a country to be reckoned with among the top 20, and I believe it can, then Taiwan needs to change its mindset and boldly transform. It is no longer about taking piecemeal policy changes, ...
... but to look beneath the obvious problems, to undo the knots beneath, so that cleaner solutions can enable Taiwan to transform toward a future where it can definitely play a role as one of the most powerful countries in Asia and the world. I think it's very doable.
This is also related to the question of identity. Instead of looking at China as an extended Chinese market where Taiwanese businesses can sell to and then end there, Taiwanese businesses now need to adopt a mindset shift and think about how they have to ...
... reposition themselves as a brand for Taiwan, and to think about enhancing Taiwan's image, so as to better sell their MIT products. This also means enhancing the power (and therefore the wages) of workers, so that they can be part of the dynamism to grow Taiwan's businesses...
Basically, the whole overreliance on low-cost is making Taiwan lose out because Taiwan is stuck in the belief that being competitive means cutting away precisely what it needs to compete with - better talent, higher costs for higher innovation ...
... Moving forward, making Taiwan more relevant globally doesn't just mean better marketing, or better English. It actually means making the necessary mindset shifts, to reimagine Taiwan's identity and role as an important brand and power in this world, and to work from there.
