ACER – IDENTIFING MARKET
SEGMENTS AND TARGETS
GROUP’S MEMBERS
.
Mamunur
Rahsid
Nguyen Tan Nhat
Duy
Huynh Tan
Tai
Batty
Do Nguyen
Yen Nhi
ViVi
CONTENT
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The brief history of Acer
Market Segment
Global Brand – Local Touch
Market Target
Conclusion
THE BRIEF HISTORY OF ACER
• Acer was founded by Stan Shis and his wife
and five other people in 1976. Initially Acer
was a very small company, with only 11
employees.
• The company’s name originally was
Multitech and renamed Acer in 1987.
• Initially, it was primarily a distributor of
electronic parts and a consultant in the use
of microprocessor technologies, but over
time it began to develop as a PC
manufacturer.
THE BRIEF HISTORY OF ACER
• In 2000, Acer spun off its manufacturing
operations as Wistron Corporation, to focus
on sales and marketing of their core brand.
• By 2002, they were referred to as the pan
Acer Group, and were employing nearly
40,000 people who provided support to
distributors and dealers in over 100
different countries.
• The Acer Group is a family of four brands -Acer, Gateway, Packard Bell and
eMachines.
THE BRIEF HISTORY OF ACER
• By the year 2005, the company employed
almost 8000 people throughout the world
all while still maintaining a tight global
service and sales network.
• On August 27, 2007, Acer announced plans
to acquire its US-based rival Gateway Inc.
for US$710 million.
• In January 2008, Acer announced that it had
acquired a controlling interest of 75% of
Packard Bell.
THE BRIEF HISTORY OF ACER
• Acer also get into the sport sponsorship
field,
– 2000, pondering the BAR-Honda
formula one racing team back in
– 2001, they provided a sponsorship for
the Prost Grand Prix Formula one team
and even the teams Ferrari engines had
Acer badges.
– Currently, they are sponsoring the
Ferrari Formula 1 team.
– In January of 2009, Acer became
partnered in an agreement for the 2010
Vancouver Olympic Games and the
2012 London Summer Olympics.
MARKET SEGMENT
• Acer Inc manufactures and markets
personal computers for the consumer and
home office markets as well as chips,
monitors, keyboards,..
• Just as hungry consumers will shun a
restaurant that serves warmed over food,
most computer buyers want the absolute
latest technology
MARKET SEGMENT
• However, because of the fast of
Technological change in the computer
industry, Acer’s PCs sometimes became
absolute by the time they were shipped to
their destinations.
• Shih realized that one of the key to
McDonald’s success was the company’s
system of delivering beef patties, buns , and
other ingredients to local restaurants, where
they are assembled into sandwiches as
needed.
MARKET SEGMENT
He decided to decentralize computer in
nearly three dozen locations around the
globe and use a combination of locally
purchased component plus components
shipped in from Taiwan.
MARKET SEGMENT
Shih decided to change the company name
because the original name was too long.
And It didn’t convey the image of technical
innovation the way names like Sony, BMW
and Honda do. Shih spent 2 years searching
doe a new name, a consulting firm helped
generate some 20000 possible alternatives.
From the short list of finalists, Acer was the
top choice for several reasons: it mean
“sharp” in Latin and implies “energetic”
and “capable”.
MARKET SEGMENT
• Once the name change had been
implemented, Shih made a number of
deeper changes. He developed a policy of
“global brand, local touch”, a break from
the traditional Asian preference for
hierarchical, top-down corporate structures
and corporate cultures that stress deference
to authority.
MARKET SEGMENT
• Shih realized that hierarchies couldn’t act
quickly enough in the fast-moving
computer industry.
• Now Acer is organized into strategic
business units for manufacturing and
regional business units for marketing.
• Acer’s local management teams in
individual country or regional markets are
empowered to make decisions on a wide
range of marketing mix elements.
MARKET SEGMENT
Acer America, for example, is a wholly
owned subsidiary, but Marketing Vice
President was afforded free reinto target the
home-user market segment by distributing
Acer’s sleek and stylish Aspire line through
the Best Buy chain.
GLOBAL BRAND – LOCAL TOUCH
Positioning/Product Strategy:
 Acer has long positioned it-self as a
follower (first assembling for OEM)
 High quality but affordable products
(innovative but seldom pioneer)
 Progressive product diversification:
focusing on value-added segments
 Building a global brand
GLOBAL BRAND – LOCAL TOUCH
Production Strategy: Decentralisation
 Centralized R&D and (large scale)
manufacturing of value-adding components
in low cost countries (economies of scale,
low cost structure)
 Decentralised assembling process, together
with local marketing and distribution
operations (low inventory cost, „just-intime“)
GLOBAL BRAND – LOCAL TOUCH
Production Strategy: Decentralisation
 Local politic of joint ventures and
partnerships (good knowledge of local
markets)
GLOBAL BRAND – LOCAL TOUCH
Management/Ownership strategy:
 Decentralized and highly independant
management (flexibility to demand)
 Locally highered operationnal and
managerial workforce (local expertise)
 Participation of local shareholders: 21 in 21.
Break up Acer into a borderless networkof
21 independent companies that maintain
close ties with Taipei.
GLOBAL BRAND – LOCAL TOUCH
Acer Group
(SBUs)
Acer Inc.
TI-Acer
Acer
Peripherals
Acer Labs
GLOBAL BRAND – LOCAL TOUCH
Acer Group
(RBUs)
Acer
America
Acer
Computer
Int‘l
Acer Sertek
Acer Europe
Acer
Computec
Lat Am
MARKET TARGET
• In the United State, Acer’s market share fell
from nearly 15 percent in 1995 to only 5
percent by the end of 1997.
• “In the United States and Europe, we are
relatively weak. The local players there are
very strong. The problem is that we don’t
have good experience in marketing in this
those regions. It’s a people issue, not a
people issue.
MARKET TARGET
The Aspire line of home PC failed to
achieve profitability in the face of
aggressive price cutting by Compaq and
other competitors. In 1997, Acer America
shifted its communication emphasis from
brand-image advertising to product-oriented
advertising. Shih hope to achieve more
success by targeting small and medium-size
businesses with a new modular desktop PC
called Acer Power.
MARKET TARGET
Shih has discovered that building brands in
the business-to-business market is easier
than building brands in the business-toconsumer market”. Because “business-tocustomer” brands have more value but also
face more challenges. People involved in
business-to-business are usually rational but
consumers in business-to-customer are
usually emotional in choosing their brands.
MARKET TARGET
In the consumer electronics industry in
Japan, Shih hopes to move beyond PCs and
attain leadership in next-generation lowpriced “information appliances”. One new
product is the Acer Basic, a computer that
provides Internet access when hooked up to
a television set.
MARKET TARGET
• In 1999, Shih decided to pull out of the
United States altogether and focus Acer’s
manufacturing and marketing on a vast.
Fast-growing market much closer to home:
China.
• Acer and other jey players in Taiwan’s
high-tech industry stand to benefit from
closer economic ties with China
MARKET TARGET
• Shih wants to convert Acer Inc. from a top
10 global PC manufacture into a “marketing
and services power house”. He envisions
Acer marketing its PCs and IT expertise to
greater China and expanding from there to
the rest of the world.
• Shih believes that if greater China becomes
the company’s “home” market, Acer will
capture critical economies of scale that will
allow it to develop innovation new products
that will succeed in China as well as the rest
of the world.
MARKET TARGET
• “The challenge for this region is really the
poor image that is often associated with
products here”
• Shih believes that it is necessary for all all
companies to be stable and secure in the
local market before pursing regional, then
global markets.
MARKET TARGET
• Acer’s chief technology officer, anticipates
that Acer’s knowledge of China’s market
will help the company achieve its growth
and market share objectives.
• One of advantages of Acer in China is that
China and Taiwan share not just the same
language and culture, but a lot of
Taiwanese suppliers are already in China.
• Ronald Chwang, Acer’s chief technology
officer said that “We can take our brand
global by building a strong home market”
MARKET TARGET
• A cornerstone of Acer’s strategy for the
mainland is its first PC made in China from
start to finish. This new model, the Acer
Aspire, is comparable to currently available
Legend products in quality and price.
• Acer in China use its global brand as a
advantage to gain more market share.
Beside that, Acer will be able to compete
with better-known global companies that
are entering China because Acer is more
“local” than them.
CONCLUSION
• Acer try to become a global brand
• Hierarchies couldn’t act quickly enough in
the fast moving computer business.
• Acer was organized into strategic regional
business units for marketing.
• It use the “local touch, global brand” policy
to achieve the goal in each market around
the world.
• “Acer was providing the customer with the
freshest technology at the most reasonable
price”
CONCLUSION
• In each market, it produce a different
product under its brand to make the
advantage in competition. A product that
is appropriate to local user and combined
with a global brand.
• Acer decentralized computer assembly in
nearly three dozen location around the
world.
• Local management teams were
empowered to make wide range decisions
of marketing mix elements.
CONCLUSION
• Organized into strategic regional units for
manufacturing.
• Local touch using a combination of local
and Taiwan components.
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