Acer, Inc was started in 1976 as a company originally named Multitech by Stan Shih, his wife, and three friends. He lies the foundation that was later called Acer 1-2-3 saying that above all, customer came first, employees second, and shareholder thirds. Acer was known by its strategy to develop joint ventures to expand sales, join force with commoners' culture, and targeted small neighboring markets that were lesser interest to global giant.
Its offshore expansion plan started in 1987 with the acquisition of Counterpart, US manufacturer of low end minicomputers). This strategy was strengthening when Shih appointed a former IBM executive named L.Lue in 1989. Lue performed reengineering on the organization and management approaches, introduction of SBU/RBU, layoffs, and paratroopers. SBU involve production and engineering, design, development while RBU involve sales, marketing, and distribution. While able to moved Acer to expand globally, Lue was unable to bring stability to the organization by leaving some original value of Acer that lead to his resignation and the come back of Shih in 1992.
Shih first initiative to rebuild Acer was initiated by rethinking Acer's management philosophy and organization model. It was translated into three major strategy which are global brand, global touch ? from a Taiwanese company with offshore sales to a global organization with deep local roots; client server organization model (1993) ? a company as a network with HQ and independency of BUs; and fast-food business model ? reduction Acer inventory, homogeneisation of the products and components, reduction of the new product introduction process, and cross-unit initiative.
Result was seen on Acer America (AAC) where they started to assembly and design products to adapt loc ...