10 Critical Decision of Acer Company

Acer Incorporate is a leading manufacturer of personal computers and notebook computers. The company is into research, design, development, manufacture and distribution of IT products worldwide. The company markets Acer brand products, including mobile and desktop personal computers, servers and storage, LCD monitors, projectors, high-definition TVs, peripherals and e-business solutions throughout the world.

The company principally offers its products under four key brands which are Acer, Gateway, Packard Bell and e-Machines. Acer is also a provider of ICT solutions and services, including mobility applications, information security management, systems integration, software systems development, system operation services, Internet data centre services, and value-added business solutions. The company’s operations are pned across the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Acer is headquartered in Hsien, Taiwan.

Acer founder and Chairman Stan Shih designed Taiwan’s first desktop calculator in the early 1970s. Acer is the EMEA region leader in the notebook sector, holding 18% market share in Q1 2005. Confirming its leadership in the EMEA notebook market, Acer ranks first in 13 countries which is Italy, Spain, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Russia, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Hungary and the Slovakian Republic. Acer’s product range includes PC notebooks and Desktops, servers and storage systems, monitors, peripheral devices, digital devices, LCD TVs and e-business solutions for business, Government, Education and home users. Acer employs 5,400 people throughout the world and has created a consolidated sales and service network in more than 100 countries. Revenues reached 7 billion US dollar in 2004.

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Mission of Acer Company

Mission Statements contain important information about a company in a nutshell. This should include the company mission such as what the company does, what is the products, how its services and its customers. The Acer Company as we know it is a multinational information technology and electronics corporation headquartered in Xizhi, New Taipei City, Taiwan. Acer's products include desktop and laptop PCs, tablet computers, servers, storage devices, displays, smart phones and peripherals. It also provides e-business services to businesses, governments and consumers. Acer’s mission is to create and promote research-based knowledge, products and services that can be used to improve learning across the life p. Read about Evolution of Job Design

Quality management Quality is represented by how close the project and deliverables come to meeting the client’s requirements and expectations. ACER is producing high quality, innovative research and research-based services and materials to improve learning.

Layout design Acer was taking a creative, flexible and bold approach to the development of knowledge, services and materials in innovation.

Independent Acer independence to providing advice and commentary that is informed through doing some research is authoritative, and non-aligned.

Responsiveness Acer was integrity being ethical, honest and trustworthy in all our relationships and interactions. Besides, Acer will respond in anticipating, understanding, meeting and exceeding client to achieve the customer expectations.

Positive relationship Positive relationships are creating an organisational environment characterised by respect, fairness, openness and support of physical and emotional wellbeing.

Human resources

Develop and manage human resources including recruitment, training, administration, career development, compensation and welfare, and staff relationship.

Strategies for competitive advantage The Acer strategy is to remain the third largest PC manufacturer in the globe in this highly commoditized and competitive industry. The strategy includes acquisitions, development of new technology, growing the emerging EMEA and Japanese regions and solidifying strategic alliances with firms such as Microsoft. Cost leadership

Acer’s overall competitive strategy is to be a low cost provider; undercutting rivals to maintain cost leadership to a large range of buyers. However, while this is true for the Acer brands, more premium offerings, such as Gateway and Ferrari, are targeted at other competitive strategies. Gateway has a focused low-cost strategy while Ferrari has a niche market strategy based on differentiation. Acer has also adopted a transnational strategy, selling their product anywhere in the globe and sourcing the components and production from the least cost source. This is unlike Dell which has taken an international strategy to source from a narrow range of producers and then to manufacture close to the market. While this provides efficiencies to Dell, it also allows Acer a competitive advantage to source product at a lower price. This is especially evident in laptops where the Acer product equivalent is considerably cheaper than Dell. The Acer business model is to provide low cost, premium PC that suit the local conditions. This is appealing to the public and is successful due to: Clearly defined vision

This factor is to have cost leadership, but allow customers to trade up or down according to their needs or requirements. This allows emerging markets consumers to afford a quality and trusted PC while in mature markets the consumers can choose to upgrade.

Distribution This factor is Acer using known retailers to help Acer company to grow the market share. Manufacture `Manufacture is one of the factor that sourcing premium product from the globe where a price advantage can be leveraged. Innovation Innovation this factor means that Acer Company pushing the boundaries to find new markets.

10 Critical Decisions

Design of goods and services

Acer is in the business of manufacturing and leading manufacturer of notebook, desktop, and notebook computers. Other Acer products include servers, storage systems, smart phones, projectors, LCD televisions, digital cameras, and computer displays. The company also provides IT support services, and its Acer facility is the largest stand-alone data centre in Asia. Acer has differentiated its customers into the various segments that such as home and home office, small and medium business, large business, global accounts, government, healthcare and education.

Quality

Quality means how the company process the product of material to meet the customer’s expectation. The quality of a computer can be broken down into the quality of various components that go into the manufacture of a computer. For example, customers can think of a quality computer application of the response time, look and feel, ease of understanding, level of help documentation, and absence of defects.

Quality control and quality assurance is two of the general quality processes of quality plan. Quality control activities ensure the deliverables produced by the project meet customer expectations. An example of a quality control activity is an inspection of each component that will be used to complete a final deliverable. Quality assurance activities ensure that the processes used to create the deliverables are of high quality. Besides, an example of a quality assurance technique is a checklist that contains all of the steps that a deliverable must complete before it reaches final acceptance.

Process and capacity design

The Acer operations strategy is the Acer direct models which enable Acer to direct sell to customers thereby eliminating middlemen like wholesalers and retailers. Acer also makes each and every system built to order which is built to the specifications that the customer wanted. Operation management such as product should decide what process it, what type of technology and to what extent, human resources, quality and maintenance that determines its basic cost structure. Services operation decision on this area is much simpler and it can determine by customers who directly involved in the process. For example, Acer might come out a limited edition design for few customers.

Location strategy Location can be an area for operation management to decide and with globalization of business, operation managers too must think global for instant Acer headquarters is located in New Taipei. For physical goods, location selection can be determined by pools of qualified human resources, technology, raw material, access to market and government policy. For services as it is direct to customers, the location is determined by market accessibility or near to customer as possible. For instant: Acer has manufacturing facilities located in most of the major markets that it sells to. In the early 2000s Acer implemented a new business model, shifting from a manufacturer to a designer, marketer and distributor of products, while performing production processes via contract manufacturers. All of Acer's products are now made by original equipment manufacturers in the People's Republic of China. In addition to its core business Acer also owns the largest franchised computer retail chain in Taipei, Taiwan.

Layout strategy Layout strategy is the material flow, process selection technology used, capacity needs, workers needs, inventory requirement, and capital will influence the decision for layout design. As described in the process section, Acer follows a process where the inventory is order only after Acer has received a firm order from the customer. The factory is also arranged in such a way that it is aligned to the manufacturing philosophy of just in time production. The layout that is implemented allows the in process system to easily move from one sequential stage to another before it is tested and then sent outside the factory to be picked up by the courier company. Human resources and job design

Acer is a very process oriented company with it having well defined set processes for each and every function in the company. To ensure that the employees understand these processes and have a clear idea of what is expected out of them, the human resources department has to ensure well defined job description with roles and responsibilities assigned to every job. At the factory operations, Acer has defined jobs and people specifically for the jobs, so that they get better at them leading to higher efficiencies. However Acer also encourages people to explore newer jobs if they are interested in trying out other functions that what they are trained on. Supply chain management

A supply chain consists of three types of entities which is customers, a producer, and the producer's suppliers. The extended supply chain includes customer’s customers and supplier’s suppliers. In order to identify the labour issues in Acer’s supply chain, research was undertaken on the working conditions in four factories in China and one in the Philippines. All of the companies that were researched provide manufacturing services to Acer. Acer is credited with having one of the most advanced and responsive supply chains in the world and this is one of the reason that why Acer had meet with such huge success. Acer has other business partners such as the courier companies that deliver the finished goods to the customer. Inventory

The decisions on how and where the inventory level to keep long term customers satisfaction, suppliers, material availability for not to disrupt the production, human resources needed for this purpose and important the holding cost from financial perspective. For example, Acer’s board of directors today agreed to take one-time action on recent findings of high channel inventory and disputed accounts receivable in Europe, Middle East and Africa operations. Acer will provide channels with 150 million US dollar in sales allowance to clear inventory, which will result in operating loss of the same amount. Scheduling

Scheduling is the efficient way of allocation, control and management of materials, capital goods and human resources to efficiently produce the final goods from the input available. Schedules are more formal in goods production with short, medium and long term planning to accommodate customers demand. For example, Acer Incorporation is the world’s second largest Personal Computer brand, is planning to set up a second operations hub in Chongqing, China, early next year. The move is designed to keep Acer close to the computer manufacturing supply chain in Chongqing, where top computer brands and makers such as Hewlett-Packard Corporation and Quanta Computer Incorporation have operations or manufacturing bases. Maintenance

Maintenance is the decision that must be made regarding the desired level of reliability, stability and systems must be established by management to maintain that reliability and stability. Maintenance and timely services of the machines are one of the most important things to ensure that they perform what they have to do and also churn out quality and defect free product. Acer uses lean periods in demand and off hours to perform its maintenance works. It also has the choice to switch production to other nearby facilities when there is maintenance going on at one of the facilities.

Conclusion Nowadays, Acer had expanded their business in to the worldwide. Acer Incorporated is a leading original equipment manufacturer of notebooks, tablet, handheld, and desktop computers from Taiwan. Acer has efficient its operations in recent years, spinning off all of its manufacturing operations, which the company considers to be of low value.

Acer has implemented a new channel business model, shifting from being a manufacturer to a pure brand company that markets and distributes its products, while leaving the actual production process in the hands of contract manufacturers. According to Acer, the company now sources from about one hundred system suppliers and primary component suppliers in Asian countries. Labour conditions at these suppliers are often appalling.

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