Joseph Wang, Chairman of the Board of SINBON, Fudan EMBA 2005-06-30 00:03:02

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Systemtic Management Training

                By Joseph Wang, Chairman of the Board of SINBON, Fudan EMBA

SINBON is a public company which I founded in 1989 and later listed in Taiwan. After the listing, I treated the company as a public corporation rather than my own business or just family business. I am one of the shareholders, besides holding a management position.

We decided to enter the China market from Beijing in 1994 because we were impressed by the rapid development of telecommunications industry on the mainland at that time. We do not intend to just take advantage of cheap labour and
the manufacturing facilities here for export only, we want to have our
products consumed locally too.

In my view, getting listed gives the company's management a very good opportunity to transform the old management structures and build a sound organization. I always thought becoming a listed company is not an end in itself but a means to help the company grow and mature. Now, our sales on the mainland makes up about 50% of total sales revenue.

People ask me why I didn't retire after taking the company public. As the founder of a company, I believe you should not relax youself after becoming wealthy, because you are not showing responsibility to the company and its staff. I believe that continuity and stainable development are essential to any company. What I am doing now is laying a solid foundation for the company to enable my successors
take over smoothly. I have two sons, both of whom have MBA degrees, but they are not working in SINBON.

My next challenge is to successfully complete the Fudan EMBA. People accumulate a lot of experience while working in an enterprise. There are many effective ways of doing things, but we have never thought through them systematically. I wanted an
opportunity to think over our company's future management in a formal,
systematic way. So I thought it was necessary for me to be properly trained
in the theories of management.

Gaining a higher degree is also my personal ambition because I didn't have the opportunity to continue my education when I was young. Before going in to business I was a mathematics teacher at a high school in Taiwan. Now that I am older, I still want to fulfil my dream, which is going back to be a student again. In this
way, I can sort out the experience I gained in practice, get the chance to
network and share my views with classmates, listen to the ideas of
famous professors and the various points of view of other students. All the
above is useful for improving myself.

After our company's IPO and the EMBA, I hope my company can grow bigger and bigger to last for good. I take this as my responsibility because making a fortune is not the only goal in life and I feel I should create a sustainable and competent
company for my employees to work in securely.

Now Fudan has turned western courses into a Chinese-based program, which I think is good for most of the participants.We hope the teachers have not only practical
experience in China, Chinese language ability, but also international perspectives. Fudan offers us good teachers, including some professors who have
returned from business schools abroad, such as the University of Chicago, and others who are based in Shanghai but have also been to Hong Kong. They are good at both Chinese and English and they have also gained corporate experience. Fudan's faculty mix is good. I prefer a mix of teachers with diverse background. Each of them can bring some new ideas. Some of them are more academic, while the others are more experience-oriented, I think they complement one another well.
Now we basically have 4 day's classes a month. I usually come to the mainland and stay for one week to 10 day's. I presume that more and more executives and
entrepreneurs will participate in EMBA programs in the mainland, because they
want to enter the mainland market, establish a bigger network here and to
learn different ideas.

“I believe that continuity and sustainable development are essential
to any comany.”

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