Last checked at 7 Nov 2013 11:37
Subject: A letter to Shareholders from Mr. Stan Shih
Date of events: 2013/11/07
Contents:
1. Date of occurrence of the event: 2013/11/07
2. Company name: Acer Inc.
3. Relationship to the Company (please enter "head office" or "subsidiaries"): Head office
4. Reciprocal shareholding ratios: None
5. Name of the reporting media: None
6. Content of the report: None
7. Cause of occurrence: None
8. Countermeasures: None
9. Any other matters that need to be specified:
November 7, 2013
Dear Shareholders
First of all, I wish to thank all shareholders for their support of Acer. We are now faced with our greatest challenge yet, and for sure it will not be easy to carry out the transformation.
The rapidly changing ICT industry presents a diverse and unpredictable future; under this extreme condition and with Acer's large-scale organization, the Board asked me to act as chairman of the Transformation Advisory Committee.
I have spent almost 10 years after my retirement from Acer in 2004 dedicated to promoting public interests. At the same time I remained watchful of the ICT industry's development. In recent years, I have also thought deeply about the development of Taiwan's industries in culture and creation, bio-medical electronics, and health services. As the director of companies in many different industries, it has allowed me to learn much more and gain a wider field of vision.
There are two major actions of the Transformation Advisory Committee. Firstly, with the changing market conditions and competition of our core products that include PCs, tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices, we need to think about how to adjust the existing operating process for more competitiveness in the future.
Secondly, we need to study in depth, how to draw on Acer's existing tangible/intangible organizational advantages, to find sizeable and relatively new businesses. As for the new business development, besides drawing on the company's existing core capabilities, we will also actively seek for complementary external partners.
As for other transformation actions, I have reached consensus with related staff and draw on power of team work. In the future, I will engrain the Wangdaoist spirits into Acer's corporate culture, to help the company continue to innovate and create value in this paradigm shift; while allowing our customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, and channel, and stakeholders, to build a balanced new mechanism in order to create value.
Currently, in the Transformation Advisory Committee consists of me as the chairman and George Huang as executive secretary. We are both the company co-founders and therefore hold a special feeling and social responsibility towards Acer, even without salary and reward. If we can help the company successfully promote transformational change, protect the interests of our shareholders; as the biggest shareholder, therefore also biggest benefiter. This is consistent with the spirit of Wangdaoism, which believes that altruism is the best self-interest.
I will allocate appropriate amount of time to support the transformation committee's actions. As the chairman of the National Culture and Arts Foundation, director of Public Television, with social welfare duties, I will give my full contribute. As for my public speaking engagements, apart from existing commitments I will suspend future appointments until the company's transformation is on track. Please kindly understand.
Together with Acer's employees, we will give our very best effort to carry through this mega transformation and meet the society's expectations. But it requires time and visible results cannot be expected in the short term. I hope you will have faith in our transformation, and allow us a sufficient time. Please give the management team encouragement, and I believe that with our work hard, you will eventually see the preliminary results. Once again, thank our shareholders for their support!
Stan Shih
Chairman
Transformation Advisory Committee
Board of Directors, Acer Inc.