Acer Case Study

ACER, INC: TAIWAN’S RAMPAGING DRAGON – CASE ANALYSIS

Chao Zheng

ID:5489144

ACER, INC: TAIWAN’S RAMPAGING DRAGON (CASE ANALYSIS)

1. Based on the information presented in the case, what type(s) of strategy (i.e.  international, multinational, global, or transnational) would you say is used by Acer? Be sure to explain the reasons for your selection. (You will need to refer to Ch. 3 for details on these types strategies.)

Based on the information presented in the case, transnational strategy I would say is used by Acer. According to the definition in the text book, transnational companies are much more complex organizations. They have invested in foreign operations, have a central corporate facility but give decision-making, R&D and marketing powers to each individual foreign market.

According to the case study, one of the best decision that Acer made is that, Acer is targeting the smaller market, which is not really important to the other big companies.  The decision they made is real rational. According to the case, the Acer should be a transnational company, which contain a central corporate facility which can make decision for the foreign market. With the development of this successful strategy, Acer can improve its profit margin. In the meantime, the combination of all the smaller market was huge and cannot be neglected.  

1. Do you think Leonard Liu’s resignation was beneficial for Acer? Why or why not?

Yes, in my opinion, Liu resignation is beneficial for Acer. As a matter of fact, the Acer stop growing until Liu become the CEO of the Acer, and his business plan is not suitable for Acer. Actually, in that time the Acer Company has its own company culture and company image, so what Liu wants to do is against the Acer Company. The non-rational decision cause the Acer Company start going down. According to the book “Because AAC had been losing money since 1987, Chwang’s first actions as CEO focused on stemming further losses. As part of that effort, he embraced the dramatic changes being initiated in Taiwan, making AAC’s Palo Alto plant the first test assembly site of the Uniload system.”, the decision made by new Ceo is totally different from what Liu did, this is another reason that I think Liu;s resignation would be better for Acer Company.

3.   Should Shih allow the development of the Aspire to continue? Why or why not?

I do think Shih will allow the development of the Aspire to continue. The reason why is because back to 1994, not many people had PC in their homes, so it won’t be enough potential market for it.  As a matter of fact, Shih is also confused about if it need to approve the development of the Aspire, because he is thinking that the subsidiary which located in North America has been deficit for a long time, and it gonna be very difficult decision for him to make.