Overview:

With emerging days, the way people has been doing has drastically changed. The way of doing business 20 years ago, might not be so fruitful today as the market dynamics, trends and the demands of the customers have been totally transformed. Businesses need to innovate the way they have been engaging the customers and try to move on with the emerging trends if they want to stay and thrive in the business.

Part one: Strategies

In order to recommend better strategies to Camco, I conducted two interviews, one with the owner and one with hers daughter, to understand more about their business, challenges and opportunities. After comprehensively studying the business and going through the answers of the interview, I have drafted few recommendations for their business which they can implement and continue to strive in their business.

Before suggesting any strategy for Camco business, we need to acknowledge and realize the limitations of the business and its owner, CEO. After taking the interview of the CEO and his daughter, I can say that the CEO likes to play safe and not interested in taking huge risks as in one answer he mentioned that if the cost of doing an innovation is greater than our available funds, we won’t do it rather than taking external borrowing or debt. Hence, while drafting out strategies for the business, we would keep in mind that the owner is little reluctant in taking excessive risk.(Wen-Hsien Tsai, 2006)

The first part for making and implementing any strategy is to know what to achieve from the implementation of such strategy. Only after you know what kind of result you want to derive, you can make better and reliable strategies. After taking the interviews from the owner and his daughter, who also works in the company, there are several aspects which came across which needs to be improved or fixed. The most important issue for the business is that they don’t have a proper department or system who will think, review and strategize for the business. All the decision making burden has been put on the owner which can sometimes act as a negative thing.

Strategy 1: Make a system/department which will review, think and strategize

The foremost action which in my opinion the business owner should take is to make a proper department or system which will look after strategical issues. It should consist of all the senior managers, daughter, mother and the boss should lead it. The job of this department/system should be to look after the strategic issues of the business. The tasks of this system should be like this.
Task 1: Collect all the relevant data and information of the business. All the data regarding the import, supply, sales and finance.

Task 2: after collecting all the data, the department should very comprehensively review it and see where the business should improve. The department should analyze and see what is happening with the business and where things are going wrong. If the import costs are increasing, the department should research and see exactly why the costs are rising and after finding out the reason the department should find out it solutions. Another example, can be declining sales in any particular region or area. The department should inquire exactly why such decline is happening, what are the reasons behind it and how can the business improve it.

Task 3: In this task, the boss who is the owner of the business will approve the solution provided by the department as it is very important in Taiwanese businesses to maintain the control and take decisions by himself.

By taking this strategy, the business will solve many of its issues. The department should meet at after 6 months, collect data, review it and see where the operations of the business is going wrong. Then provide the solution and then the boss will approve it.

This strategy will help the business in several great ways. The most important benefit of this strategy is that the business will see the issue and the problem beforehand and will try to solve it before it really become big. Second way this strategy will help the business is that it will provide innovations as the department will sit together and brainstorm better ideas for the upcoming problems, it will provide better solutions and innovative ideas for the business. Hence the business should develop this system of collecting the data, reviewing it and analyzing it to see how they can improve the business.

Strategy 2: Expansion

As mentioned in the assignment number 1 and interviews, it is clearly evident that the products of Camco is in very high demand and it enjoys great customer loyalty. Also as mentioned in my analysis of the company, in SWOT analysis it was mentioned that the weakness of the business is that its market share is still lesser than the market share of bigger players in the world.  This provides great opportunity for the Camco to expand to the southern region of Taiwan where the operations and sales of Camco is not as much as they are in the Norther side of Taiwan. However this would present certain challenges as it will require great amount of funds and would need to increase the number of employees.  However, I believe that in order to sustain the profits and grow with time, this expansion is the need of time and Camco’s owner and management should seriously think about expanding to the southern side of Taiwan.

The question remains, how the company can expand? Here are few recommendations to the company which they can implement and try to expand their operations.

1. Try to import more and different kind of products to Taiwanese markets which are not already available here.
2. Expand their network to the southern side of the country.

Strategy 3:  Prepare for the trade war between USA and China:

In the current era, the happening trade war between USA and China has started to damage the businesses all around the world. As mentioned in the interview of Owner’s daughter, Camco has been struggling from the trade war as they import equipment from factories located in China and due to the happening trade war between USA and China, the prices of equipment coming from China has drastically increased. So in order to deal with this scenario, the Camco should strategize to prepare itself to deal with the arising issues related to this trade war between USA and China.

One way to deal with this could be diversify the sources of importing goods and equipment. Camco tends to import a lot of their equipment from China as it is so nearby but as the prices of these good may escalate in near future, Camco should find some other importing country which can provide the same equipment and goods as of factories in China. However, this proposes certain problems like new suppliers might not be so reliable, price and quality may not be able to match the previous standards. Another way to deal with the issue of trade war between china and USA could be to find local suppliers of the goods and equipment who are making the products as of the similar quality as of the factories in China. This will greatly help the business as it will not only cut the cost but also provide the assurance of constant supplies and better rate.

Strategy 4: Start focusing on marketing and advertising

With emerging days, the way people has been doing has drastically changed. The way of doing business 20 years ago, might not be so fruitful today as the market dynamics, trends and the demands of the customers have been totally transformed. Businesses need to innovate the way they have been engaging the customers and try to move on with the emerging trends if they want to stay and thrive in the business.

As the business has been running for so long and the management still runs the business as they have been running it for ages. The new business dynamics are changings and newer trends are emerging on a daily basis; if businesses couldn’t innovate themselves in order to meet the changing criteria, they may suffer huge losses and even have to close it up. Spending money on advertisement and marketing was not an usual trends in Taiwanese business history. Usually Taiwanese businesses are frugal and spend money very carefully. Historically Taiwanese business has not preferred spending heavy funds on advertising and marketing. But as the market is evolving and competition is getting tougher and tougher day by day, businesses not only have to start spending money on marketing and advertising but also have to plan it very carefully.

Camco primarily deals in selling goods and equipment to laboratory, hence it is a business to business company which requires special marketing techniques. With increasing competition and growing trend of internet, Camco should starting thinking about strategizing its marketing plan and budget.

Strategy 5: Improve import department

As mentioned in the assessment of the company, import department of the company needs improvement. Being an intermediary between seller and buyer, having an effective and efficient import department is very important to the health of the business especially when you are importing items from several different countries. In order to improve the import department, the company should hire someone who has an experience of handling exports of a similar kind of company, who has relevant education and also someone who knows different languages who can deal and communicate with the people of different countries in their own languages. 

Strategy 6: Improve client relationships

The business of intermediary is all about building and maintaining good and fruitful relationships among the suppliers, distributors and the buyers. In order to perform good in this business, the business work really hard in developing and maintaining good and long term relations. The best way to maintain the relationships is to always fulfill the commitments and promises. Always provide the same quality of the product as agreed in the contract and always pay the same price. Also paying the suppliers on time is also a very good way of maintaining long term relationships.

Conflict Management:

Conflicts are very common among family members and in family businesses. There could be many matters or issues on which a conflict can arise, but conflicts should always be deal in a very careful manner as conflicts can sometimes grow bigger and can cause serious damages to the family ties and the family business.

After taking the interviews, I got to know that the family has a very effective conflict management system. As according to the daughter of the owner, everyone in the family are open minded and share their conflicts.

As per me there should be proper way to handle and manage conflicts. The first step should be that if anyone feels any grudge and conflict he or she should let that matter come out. He or she should properly communicate and let everyone know that what is bothering her or him. After this, elders of the family should listen to it and find proper solution to it. (Kirk Chang, Luo Lu, 2007)

Part two: Makes suggestions for improving social and environmental impact, driving community engagement and buy-in; include a stakeholder analysis and a discussion of family narratives.

As according to the owner of the company, he has always strived towards providing value and contributions back to the society. According to him, our real job is to serve our customers and provide them with good quality products at the most cheap price. He believes that by providing good quality products at a very good price he helps country’s manufacturers in making good products by which they can compete with the global players and provide benefit to the whole country. Not only this, he believes that the honesty and integrity are the fundamental values and believes of the company by which he has been running the company successfully for many years. As per him, his business has never done anything which in reality violated any law or principle as he really cares about laws and regulations. As he said that it is one the many reasons that my business has great reputation and loyal customers.

After thorough analysis of the business and taking two interviews from the representatives of the company, I can make following suggestions in order to improve social and environmental impact, driving community engagement and buy-in.

1. As the business deals with chemicals which can be very dangerous sometimes to the human lives if not properly handled, proper storage and maintenance mechanisms should be adopted in the warehouses and etc.
2. In order to promote community engagement, the business can engage in corporate social responsibility such as donations and fundings. However, after taking the interviews, I can say that the business owner and his daughter is not so into donations and charities as they believe in utilization of funds properly and in an efficient manner.
3. As the business deals with chemicals which can be very dangerous sometimes to the environment like air, land and water, if not properly handled, great care should be taken while importing the chemicals and while transporting from the port to warehouses and then to customers.
4. Before importing and selling chemicals, the business should run proper research and see if what are the implications and dangers of any particular chemicals to the environment. The business should try to only import chemicals which are safer and not harmful to the environment.
5. The employees who are directly involved in the dealing of chemicals and other dangerous materials, should be provided by safety materials like cloths, gloves, glasses etc. Also the company should health and safety insurances to the employees who are directly engaged in dealing with harmful chemicals and materials.
6. In order to increase the welfare work and community engagement, the business should strive to provide better and cheaper rates and give good discounts.

Part 3: Discusses next steps for leadership deveopment, and your potential role in each of the three circles (business, ownership, family)

As per the historical trend in the business and as per the Taiwanese culture of family businesses, it has been seen that family businesses are very reluctant in adding non family members in the top hierarchy of the business. Hence, it provides problems when the owner is getting old and his children aren’t that mature to look after and handle the business with the same responsibility, respect, integrity, honesty and success. (Lan‐hung Nora Chiang, 2004)

With this business, after taking the interviews I can that they are not so comfortable in letting people from outside the family enter into the business. This will present some serious problems as the owner is getting old and will face difficulties in managing the matter of business as he has managed for many years. However his daughter is grooming herself to take on the business and has started to take interest in the affairs of the businesses. She currently looks after the import side of the business as his education and English language support her in taking the role. But her parents wanted her to look after the sales side to it is one of the most important part of this business but as she believes that she is not so good in handling people and making contacts to them, she refused and agreed to look after the import instead. My suggestion would be that she should step up in all business dealings and start handling all the major departments and decisions gradually. As his father, the owner, is getting old, she should start learning the skills, acumen and knowledge through which he has led this business for many years.(Wen Long, 2010)

However, as in Taiwanese culture, after the marriage of a girl, it is supposed that the girl will look after her husband, his family and their business, the daughter of the owner, one day, sooner or later will get marries and leave. This would be another set-back for the business management.

The last solution is that I should start taking part in the day to day operations of business and start learning how to run this business as I would be the one who would be running the business properly after my dad gets old and my sisters get marries.

In order to make this happen, I should start gradually going with my father and see how he actually manages all the business. I should know each and every ins and outs and tricks of the business in order to run the business successfully just like my father has been running for many years.  (Hsiang-Lan Chen, National Kaohsiung, 2011)

Part 4: Discusses transitions and succession planning, including possible exit and leadership changes

As in Taiwanese culture, there is not a trend of going public or selling out the family business. Also my family especially my mother is not so in the favor of letting any non-family member in the business, there is no proper exit strategy because we shouldn’t exit this business instead the leadership should be transferred to me. Also as the daughter of the owner, sooner or later will get married, the transition of leadership should be to me as I am the one who would be looking after and handling the business after my father in longer run. However this will present many problems as right now I don’t have any such idea of running the business. In order to make this process smooth and not so difficult, I should start taking part in the business and start learning from my dad and sister as much as I can. Before the proper succession I should have proper command over the business knowledge and skills.

Bibliography

Hsiang-Lan Chen, National Kaohsiung, 2011. INTERNATIONALIZATION IN TAIWANESE FAMILY FIRMS. GLOBAL JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH.

Kirk Chang, Luo Lu, 2007. Characteristics of organizational culture, stressors and wellbeing: The case of Taiwanese organizations. Journal of Managerial Psychology.

Lan‐hung Nora Chiang, 2004. The Dynamics of Self‐employment and Ethnic Business Ownership among Taiwanese in Australia. Wiley Online Library.

Wen Long, 2010. Relationships of work–family conflict with business and marriage outcomes in Taiwanese copreneurial women. The International Journal of Human Resource Management.

Wen-Hsien Tsai, 2006. CEO Tenure in Taiwanese Family and Nonfamily Firms: An Agency Theory Perspective.