Exclusive interview Shih: How to recreate Acer

In the face of difficulties in the PC business, Acer founder Shih chose Dell and Lenovo as a way to go: the founder of the comeback to save the company. In November 2013, Shih, nearly 70 years old, was reinstated as chairman, CEO and President of the Acer Group. After six months, Shih proposed to resign as chairman of the post, the chief Cloud architect, then, in the past six months, Shih gave Acer what changes? How does the IT godfather in Taiwan, China, plan to reinvent the lost company? With these questions, Rui observes exclusive interviews with Shih, hoping to find an answer from the founder of the Acer Group.

1, change

For the elegant Taiwanese it godfather, Shih talks more about Tao than about surgery. such as chess, kingly, business and change. During the dialogue with the sharp observation, shih that over the past six months, Acer's changes have come mainly from two aspects, namely intangible and tangible two aspects.

Among them, intangible change is particularly important in this respect, that is, from the promotion of confidence. At that time, Acer CEO Lanci left, the executive team and the entire group somewhat confused, the reason why they are confused: how the PC business to reverse the losses? How should new business make money?

Shih that the biggest role in his own new mountain, is to give the Acer group stage of confidence and hope. In this half month, Shih unceasingly has conveyed the confidence to them, lets the company all staffs have a good anticipation to the company's future.

Tangible changes in this respect, the company's turnover is constantly increasing, the company's losses are shrinking. Shih stressed that the company's weekly accounting performance, the entire Acer group's problems have been small, and found a new direction of business development-self-built cloud.

2, the issue of succession

In yesterday's interview, Shih specifically referred to the successor system and made a brief comment on the company's former CEO Lanci and the future CEO. Reviews revolve around the cultural and corporate culture of the East and the west.

Shih that Western culture pays attention to winners, while Oriental culture pays attention to altruism, that is, winning together. Successor culture should be a long-term observation of the results, many companies in the successor culture problems, it is that these companies advocate the world, and Acer believes that the successor culture should be the Yin pass.

Former CEO Lanci, though working long hours at Acer, Lanci has been doing things the way the West has done, not enough to merge with Acer's corporate culture, or even to some extent dilute Acer's original corporate culture.

Acer's management is not very adaptable to lanci management, but because Lanci is the CEO, it is important to constantly adjust to the lanci rhythm. For Hu Hongyu, the future of corporate heritage can be expatriates, but this person must agree with Acer's culture.

Shih also stressed that the choice for the successor, the most important thing is to establish a corporate organizational mechanism and corporate values, that future successors should identify with this mechanism and values, in addition, Shih also tend to the future management team younger. Shih, for example, hopes that the incumbent CEO, Chen, will be chairman after three years.

3, smartphone and wearable equipment

Yesterday, Shih a keynote speech titled "The Role of the smile curve in the age of mobile interconnection". In a dialogue with sharp observation, shih that the nature of wearable equipment is the internet of things, and smartphone business will be one of Acer's priorities.

Shih admits that over the past few years, Acer's mobile phones have been unable to operate effectively because of organizational culture, and have not been effective in managing and operating. However, Acer has adjusted the business to turn the smartphone business into a relatively independent organization with a more flexible competition strategy.

Shih admits that Acer is a laggard, and that the industry will not flop quickly, but it will slowly get better. Last year, Acer's mobile phone had picked up, with its target of more than 5-10 times its sales growth this year.

4, Acer's future-self-built cloud

Shih that Acer has found its way in the future, which is to build its own cloud. Get more revenue from the cloud. In particular, Shih retired from the chairmanship of the Chairman, and he was in the position of the chief Cloud Architect.

For Hu Hongyu, the cloud is a relatively new business, Mr. Shih's description of the cloud is as follows: the existing PC devices as a cloud platform to attract more users to use Acer's products, Acer through an open mind to build the cloud.

About Acer's own cloud, I have 2 points to feel particularly deep

One is cross-platform operation. Not only will Acer PCs be a cloud service platform, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard computers can. The second is not only the interconnection of Windows devices, iOS and Andorid devices can also achieve interconnection between.

These products are connected through a Acer-developed app. A Acer employee showed the app: any PC-based file modification can be reflected in real-time on the phone's screen. For example, based on word,ppt modifications.

The second is security. There has been a constant questioning of the security of the cloud. The advantage of Acer's own cloud is its security, because files on remote data cloud platforms are deleted within 2 months and are not kept in the cloud. Personal Home PCs assume the role of a cloud platform. For users, it's safer to put data on a personal computer than on a cloud.

As for the business model of Shih, the old gentleman thinks he should look slowly. It is unclear whether users will pay for Acer's own cloud, but Acer's intentions are already clear: the company is in transition from a hardware PC company to Software + hardware + services. In Taiwan, Acer has built an ecosystem with its partners.

PostScript：

During the dialogue, Shih said that he was accustomed to ambitious, but absolutely pragmatic. Facing the media aggressive pressed, Shih confessed, I also hope that the situation will soon improve, but the industry does not suddenly flop, do things still need to be step-by-step.