In this week’s installment of Looking South, Eric Gau sits down with Buder Electric Appliance Company GM assistant Jordan Chuang.
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Transcript follows:
Eric Gau: Good morning, and welcome to yet another installment of Looking South here on ICRT. I’m Eric Gau, and we are continuing our look at how the Tsai administration’s New Southbound Policy is affecting the small and medium sized enterprises of Taiwan. To tell us about how it’s affecting his company, we are joined today by Jordan Chuang, of Buder Electric Appliance Company. Jordan, good morning, and welcome to the program!
Jordan Chuang: Hello everyone, good morning. My name is Jordan, and I am the general manager’s assistant.
Eric: Start us off by telling us a little bit about your company, what kind of services or products do you offer both here in Taiwan and to your customers overseas?
Jordan: I’m going to introduce a little bit about my company Buder. Buder was founded in 1970 and we have almost 50 years of history in Taiwan. We are professional water dispenser manufacturer and we have our own assembly line; started from raw materials to every single process to a perfect product. We have 6 domestic branch offices, 30 service centers in Taiwan and has been export the products to more than 40 countries.
Eric: So far, how has Buder been expanding its operations into the Southeast Asian market? What country or countries have you entered, and is there any specific reason you chose those places to start with?
Jordan: We started from Southeast Asia such as India, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. We target these countries because the rising awareness of healthy water has been the main concern in those countries such as India. Therefore, we wanted to improve the water quality in those countries and to bring healthy water to all around the world.
Eric: What assistance did Buder get from the Taiwan government as it was expanding overseas? The New Southbound Policy is all about helping small and medium enterprises expand their reach in the region.
Jordan: In fact, we have won the Taiwan Excellence Award in 2018 and 2019. What the Taiwan government had assisted us was the promotion of Buder and the visibility of our company. We used to be an original equipment manufacturer company, which means that we didn’t have our own brand. However, after the Taiwan government assist us with the Taiwan Excellence award, the visibility of our company has been greatly improved. After every exhibition we went, we receive a lot of inquiries from customers and even receive an order. Started from 2018 to 2019.
Eric: Just to be clear, when you say the government helped you with visibility, it was just by giving to this award, or did they actually provide extra funding or new opportunities for you to exhibit?
Jordan: The government actually provided us with exhibitions to a lot of countries, to overseas countries, exhibitions are all funded by government.
Eric: What were some of the biggest challenges Buder encountered as you entered those new markets?
Jordan: The challenges we faced in foreign countries are the environmental conditions and the high amount of tariff. Since every country has different water pressure and different water condition. For example, in UK, the water pressure is higher than in other countries; we must adjust the water pressure by installing the pressure relief valve to control water pressure. That’s a problem we face.
Eric: What about, you mentioned tariffs. Were there any measures that you could take or that the government could help you with to overcome that problem?
Jordan: The tariff problem was that we had to all the tariff and the transportation cost. So maybe the government can help us reduce some of the tariff cost. We are a company, and we stand with the government, and government assist us with…they can reduce the cost I guess.
Eric: Aside from things like tariffs and environmental conditions, how is doing business overseas different from here in Taiwan?
Jordan: Doing business overseas is going to be more challenging because local wouldn’t recognize our brand since Buder is a foreign brand. Therefore, we have to spend more time on promotion and credibility.
Eric: Since entering the Southeast Asian market, you said for the past year or two now, how has your business benefited or expanded since then? What have you learned from this that you can use to improve your operations?
Jordan: What we have learned is that we have to pay more attention to the environment and to recognize our customers. If you want to compete with all the South and Southeast Asia countries, their prices are much lower compared to ours. So we target our customers to…we actually put more price, we raise our price, because we have a bunch better product and better quality and we have our own specialty. So we target to the higher customer layers.
Eric: So instead of branding yourself as an economy brand, you are positioning as a luxury brand?
Jordan: Yes.
Eric: What are your future development plans in those Southeast Asian markets?
Jordan: In the future, we plan to promote Buder to more countries and to even looking forward set up a dealership. Most importantly we will keep producing more products and to keep winning the Taiwan Excellence award.
Eric: Before we wrap up, what is something Buder, that you wished you knew before expanding into these countries? Based on what you have learned, what advice do you have for other companies that could come after you?
Jordan: The advice we would like to suggest is to pay attention to the environment, because every country is different. And you have to recognize the customer, because if you target the wrong customer layer, you’ll make no profit.
Eric: We’ve been speaking with Jordan Chuang, the assistant to the general manager of Buder Electric Appliance Company. Jordan, thank you for sharing your experiences with us today.
Jordan: Thank you, thank you as well.
Eric: And that wraps up today’s edition of Looking South. Check out the ICRT website or APP and look for the podcast section for this and past episodes of the program, or head on over to the ICRT Blog for more. I’m Eric Gau, and thank you all for tuning in.