Benq Corporation Case Study

BenQ Corporation, is a multi-national company from Taiwan that sells consumer electronics, markets technology products, computing and communications devices under the "BenQ" brand name, established in 1984. The name of the company stands for the slogan Bringing Enjoyment N Quality to life. BenQ produces mobile computing devices, TFT LCD monitors, digital cameras and digital projectors. The company was originally known as Acer Peripherals Inc., and in 2001 rebranded as BenQ.
The company operates five branch offices in Asia-Pacific, China, Europe, North America and Latin America. BenQ 's brand is present in more than 100 countries and employs over 1,300 individuals. The head office is located in Taipei.
1.1.1. BenQ Mobile
An important point

However, in the case of BenQ-Siemens, the merger failed to produce synergy and more value than each company could achieve alone. Although Siemens’s mobile technologies increased BenQ’s strengths by supporting it to directly compete with other leading players, there was also a conflict of interest effectively turning some of BenQ’s leading customers such as Nokia, Motorola and Samsung into competitors almost overnight.
It was no secret that Siemens mobile phone unit did not feel well when the company passed it to BenQ. Indeed, the division was losing cash at the rate of €1 million per day before the merger. Unfortunately, the Taipei-based company could not stop the bleeding. On September 28, 2006, BenQ Mobile GmbH -- the subsidiary formed as a result of the acquisition -- declared

Lee said “BenQ has a rather flexible, informal corporate culture; while the century-old Siemens’s corporate culture is centered on doing things by the book and following standard operating procedures”. Siemens practices a methodical decision-making process, paying attention to detail and doing things in an assigned order. BenQ, on the other hand, focuses on adaptability and resilience, while concentrating on product diversification. Lee argued that the biggest clash occurred over a different sense and perception of time and speed. Given the fact that prior to its acquisition of Siemens Mobile, BenQ was a regional brand, which lacked high level international management talent, it seems obvious how important the cultural impact was in terms of the failure of this deal.
Taiwanese culture is often understood to be less future oriented, less assertive, more collectivist, and more rule-oriented. In contrast, German culture places an emphasis on personal independence, individual rights, and contracts or agreements. These statements do firmly correlate to Hofstede’s study results (1980). According to it there are three important cultural dimensions – individualism, power distance and uncertainty avoidance, which eventually have important managerial