The distinction between the markets for consumer’s electronics and IPC has to be the fundamental knowledge a manufacturer has to have. A B2C manufacturer should always bear a few things in mind.
First of all, they will be delivering goods directly to individuals—end users. The will of purchasing personal items, or shopping, depends a lot on the moment of the purchase, at which the consumers in most cases would also want to feel happy about their decisions. That happiness should persist long enough to make a positive connection between the goods and the experience. That’s why services pertaining to the product become no less significant than the product itself to a consumer. A business should always be able to capture this behavior.

Second of all, end users do aim to entertain themselves when they purchase electronics. They feel alive when they belong—they follow the trends to feel they are relevant among their family, friends, coworkers, or everyone in their life. We are social animals through and through. And since the media have the most control over what to feed and how to frame information, having a renowned face as an opinion leader for the media to help instill our beliefs becomes a tactical solution. The aim, to be brief, is to evoke possible consequent happiness as much when customers make a purchase, and that is enough.

However, no business is able to have that amount of influence unless it becomes one of the titans either by providing a vast range of services that the brand is always associated with something, or by being the sole irreplaceable expert in a certain area. It will be a solid guarantee for an enterprise to direct plans for the market if a business can achieve both.

From a more practical point of view, strategies for a business to rise to success are more or less the following: rapid product releases, affordable prices, pinpointing the needs, creating the needs, getting end users to depend on it, and make profit from it. For example, Google achieved market dominance by creating the need to use search engines. And when it became an indispensable part of everyone’s life, ads were introduced to make profit. This business maneuver cannot be simple enough.

Sadly enough, the realization turned out to be a bitter reality when we decided to shift the course to the IPC market of which the business maneuver is never quite the same. Industrial computers are meant to solve the concatenation between systems. They are meant to meet operational needs when distinctive industries have to work hand in hand in the same framework. This multifaceted network of enterprises and industries creates a new collectivism that an IPC solution provider has to face: a smaller market of rather great variety.

Within the IPC industry, changes have happened nonetheless as I observed for the last 20 years. Immediately for example, boundaries have been blurred in terms of the definitions of manufacturers and solution providers. With resource allowing, manufacturers are not exempt from providing integrated services. Any turnkey solution that provides both hardware and integrated software applications as a package is great news to a client’s procurement. Another major change goes to the development cycle. Obsolescence of electronic products including industrial computers and solutions has contracted in time thanks to the flourishing technology advancement. By the time clients start sourcing for the perfect solution, what technology they were used to during the planning would have already gone obsolete. As a result, product launches should be rapidly arranged and so as the development phases. Lastly, it goes without saying that the market is highly impacted by uncertainties—the trade war, COVID-19, etc.

Everyday everyone is growing ever wearier in their mind and body. It is thus the corporate's duty to make adjustments at the corporate level and in the way we fuel our business opportunities.

Decision making used to rely on a top-down process, which has already seen its obsoletion. With the addition of inputs from professional managers, a decentralised process in planning to meet corporate goals is now crowned as a doctrine—a best decision made as validated through the most well-rounded perspectives regarded. On the other hand, change is not required when we set out in the right direction in the first place. We are going to keep up with the good work wherein we have been maintaining a tight, trusty bond with our suppliers.

Our business, by and large, is determined to have its way paved for grandeur. In its core areas lies the organic growth as a strategy to keep sparking new ideas, scheduling product launches, and maintaining a healthy clientele. In its structure lies the skeletal growth, wherefore M&A is strategically adopted for a lunge for growth through attaining external resources and prowess.

Staying put is not lack of progress. Staying put is regress. There is no doubt that we have to make preemptive transformations to arm ourselves and ride the crest of the future wave. Smart factories, manufacturing automation and big data—major objectives for our operation—are key advantages manufacturers should take to stay competitive in the near future. With this agenda in mind, optimization is called for, especially in the three facets: personnel, machinery, and system.

Let's talk about machinery and systems. Forty years of experience in manufacturing has made us realize the flexibility in production plays a huge part in supply chain management. To be more specific, opportunities always come with risks. It takes effort but it also mitigates possible losses when we have alternatives in the bag and always plan for the worst scenarios. It doesn’t mean risks are all bad—it means risk management should be as well-attended as flexibility is valued.

The smartization of factories, on the other hand, calls for data collection and analysis. As opposed to the outdated analytical habits such as sporadic single data points, a centralized database should be instead constructed. Further analysis, foreshadow, and improvement based on the collection of the data in the past are what optimize the production procedures as a whole.

With the advantages at our disposal, scaling our business comes without a question. Our goal has always been becoming a well-rounded turnkey solution provider. Such pursuit requires an ecosystem that, despite our organic opportunities, also entails trusty partnerships. That is why we are taking M&A as a strategy to give the scaling process a nudge.

As we design automation solutions, we also benefit from the same principles given that we are at the same time situated in the supply chain as a client. This hybrid role makes us realize that knowhow is by its nature crucial in high-end industries, and yet execution is no less what a client would expect from a reputable provider.

Having experienced expansions and evolutions for the past decades, our corporate mindset and culture are also infused with new ideas. Each employee who provides either indirect labor or direct labor serves as a piece in a jigsaw puzzle—they are all indispensable. We strive for the same objectives and have the consensus that we belong on the same ship. So we regularly have conversations between the corporate and the employees to constantly evaluate our understanding of corporate goals, the role each of us plays on the ship, and our faith in growth as a whole.

Cooperation between departments, on the other hand, is no longer a linear process. We used to play relay races, only start engaging in the project when we are notified and never participate in the planning. We are glad we scratched this old habit, and now we always make sure our schedules are on the same page. The outcome is surely fruitful: just by syncing every department with the schedule, lead time has greatly reduced, a great news our customers would always love to hear.

Our dedication in perfecting the design and the manufacture yields has always been driven by the sole pursuit of finding our purposes in the myriad market demands. And none of them can be achieved without versatility in our solutions. So before answering your question, here are some of the facts everyone should know about DFI. We have 30 years of experience in x86 architecture. We have established solid partnerships with Intel and AMD. We have started introducing MediaTek’s multiple platforms to our design in addition to the trusty regulars such as ARM, NXP, and TI. We are capable of putting together the demanding computing power sought after by the omni-connectivity and intelligentization in this era. All in all, our versatility in accommodating as many platforms as possible puts us in an advantageous starting point.

So based on that, here are, as you would like to know, some of the focus on our vision board. The imminent call for hyping AIoT, for starters, goes beyond the usual industrial apparatus and all the way to the smart cars and other applications. This means our role in providing the propelling core parts is crucial—our product design is by and large angled towards creating computing workhorses for intelligentization. It should not be a surprise since smart factories and automation have complicated the definition of AIoT in terms of how it is now part of everything.

Another highlight on our vision board should definitely go to our strategic maneuver for our in-vehicle focus. Now that we have reached a solid success in this branch, it is time that we took a further part in the making of EVs and especially self-driving cars by joining in the MIH Alliance. It is the move any solution provider should take in the booming phase of the EV market. It keeps DFI in the loop and helps us form a tighter and closer vertical integration.

Speaking of taking part, another vision worth mentioning goes to the partnership with the healthcare industry. Longer life expectancy has much to do with the intelligentization of medical treatments which include a variety of practical applications. It is quite likely and also inevitable a route that we are steering towards. Our rudimentary goal so far lies in identifying those specific needs in this market and how we can best leverage our strong suits.

These industries are not for anyone to enter, and it takes time, experience, and a great amount of constant adjustment for the corporate to situate well in the market. The only thing that is sure is our unwavering endeavor in catering to industrial needs by delivering our high-quality products unfailingly.

Back in the start-up times

For forty years as a manufacturer of IPC products, DFI has never had to produce any of the parts. We rely on the sole support of our suppliers. So let’s start by sharing some stories about how we interact with our suppliers. Recently we had to visit our packaging supplier Hsieh-Chi to inquire about the effect of the recent material shortage. We learned so much more about the history during the conversation. DFI was the very first client when the former president Chou—also the father of the current president—founded the company over 30 years ago, and as miraculously as it may sound, DFI is still highly reliant on them. They had evolved from manual to automated product lines, and also followed us to China for setting up new branches—all the way through these years. Although we pulled out our factories in China, they are still thriving over there and made it to one of the top packaging companies in South China.

In 2004, we made it official to switch our role to an IPC manufacturer. Immediately our dearth of experience in mechanical engineering put us in search of suppliers that were willing to share their experience in system design with us. Luckily Tong Yu came to our rescue. Back at the time we were only placing few sporadic orders for samples; they were patient enough and understood there was still a long way to bulk orders all because our former Chairman Lyu laid out our vision to them and won their support. Three years later, mass production started kicking in, and up until now Tong Yu is still our major mechanical supplier. They have since expanded in Taiwan and placed two more plants in China. They have caught the wave. I still joke about it. I always say that they used to have to put up with us—a very generous and selfless deed—so now the universe is paying back for them.

The mindset that matters most

Stories like these never go without any takeaways. We learned to no surprise that honesty and reciprocity are the principles that our procurement specialists should always bear in mind when facing our suppliers—or when facing everyone else, be it the employer or the employees. It has been stipulated since Chairman Lyu’s era that gaining trust always rides along with gaining profit for the corporate. Trust makes us worthy of support from partners, and from there comes long-term partnerships that become the most important asset and the advantage that we can never be more proud of. The same trust also stands when DFI joined the Qisda Group. For forty years straight, and after many a change, it was the mutual trust and the support that granted us the growth.

Coping with shortage: we took it for us

To elaborate how trust is an asset to DFI, let’s take the recent source shortage as an example. To keep a company at its best, every decision made should always be in the pursuit of the corporate’s best interest. The only question to ask is: What is the corporate’s best interest? Limiting cost would be the most intuitive answer. But in exchange of what? By sourcing for cheaper, we need to anticipate delay because everyone is desperately waiting in line for materials to arrive. But that also means we would have to break it to our clients that the delivery we promised would be subject to reschedule, which is nothing satisfactory to them. And this is going to cost the trust they placed in us. In the long run, these excused delays are going to cost us a higher chance of our clients giving up their loyalty to us. If we think of it this way, losing business is definitely not the best interest for the corporate. So, it means we have to live up to our promise even if it means we have to absorb the extra cost ourselves.
But since the crisis, we have also developed multidimensional strategies to improve how we cope with supply chain instability. For example, keeping ourselves well-informed of the current status of our suppliers and vendors, making sure alternatives are always verified, proposing forecast plans to optimize the stock.

Visions

The IPC industry has a wide range of applications as opposed to consumer’s electronics. Orders would usually come in small amounts but with great variety. IPC designers and suppliers upstream must be flexible in production, stable in finance, and extraordinary R&D capacity to meet the demands.

Since joining Qisda Group, the positive effect has been multiplying in our supply chain management. We are able to have cross-disciplinary cooperations with group members and more supplier sources for developing multi-faceted solutions. In-group supplier meetings that happen regularly also give us a more competitive lead time and pricing.

The smartization in factories has been the most imminent goal following the arrival of industry 4.0. DFI has been building a more robustly informatized framework, such as barcode management, automated warehouse, part traceability, and big data collection and application. Smartization is going to benefit not just DFI, but also our suppliers and clients as information can soon be more accurate and exchanged more timely.

All I can say is that it is the challenge we have been through that makes who we are today. We’ve all seen changes throughout the course of the 40 years’ progress of the company, and the only thing that has never changed, especially to me, is how we’ve always taken the workplace as a loving and reciprocal family. There was this year and an employee, a working mom, who worked at the production line—her mom was diagnosed with cancer. She had had to care for her mom, her kids and family while working at the same time after the devastating news. She just simply could not have made the ends meet especially with the extra medical expenses. So, we chipped in. In fact, everyone chipped in. No one had to ask or even hesitated for a second. So we raised enough money to cover their daily expenses for a year while she took long leaves from work to attend to her mom.
The vibe in DFI as a workplace has never been calm and peaceful. We always have arguments, but we also have a lot of fun together. There has never been a fine line between a friend and a colleague if you work here in DFI. We simply just share for better or worse.

It must be none other than joining the Qisda/BenQ Group. We are no longer fighting solo in this climate, finally, after so many years. We have progressed through this massive long-term cooperation.

Anticipation and precaution would be the rule of thumb, but that would not serve the purpose. Here are some examples of what we have adopted.

1. A thorough inspection of the vendor and material database
2. Reviewing the BOM
3. Standardized process of material sourcing as early as R&D stage
4. Procurement specialist training and cooperation across departments for seeking the optimal vendors
5. Broaden the choices of vendors, brands, and origins
6. Proposing forecast plans
7. Sourcer’s flexibility in accommodating market demand and supply with much regard to planner’s strategic foresight
8. Loyalty to trusty vendors for a healthy mutual dependency
9. Adopting automation and ERP data computing to up efficiency and accuracy for the team’s easier accessibility

Our best bet is always in people’s honor and, most importantly, people themselves.