May 16th

Today, we went to NTNU and we sat in on and listened to a Brand Management case study on relationship based web services and their evolvement, expansion and comparison to one another. They did a case study on the website eHarmony. The NTNU students spoke at length on eHarmony's mission statement, success/failure rate, guided communication options for customers, membership fees, guided communication for members, fast track option for members and marketing. I was surprised to find out that after answering over 150 questions, over 15% of the customers don't find a match. They also discussed the membership fee and different alternatives to help raise the membership population. A few different options discussed by the students but we did not have enough time to thoroughly analyze and debate these suggestions. The presentation that was produced by the NTNU students was very insightful and thorough.

After the Brand Management presentation, we visited the Taiwan Stock Exchange at the Taipei 101 building. 

We were shown a video about the TWSE from inception to the present day. Some of the information that was given was that the idea to start the exchange was during labor reform in the 1950s and eventually opened in 1962. The TWSE went to the “pit option” system (traders in the pit) in 1972 until 1988 when the exchange was fully automated electronically. From 1988 to the present, the volume went from 680,000 to over 5 million trades by 741+ companies. GIANT Bicycles is one of the companies that initially went public on the TWSE and they have always had positive growth. The computer company Acer is another company that started trading on TWSE. They have grown over $200 billion since they became a part of the TWSE.

Alex Lu, head of the Training department, spoke to us about the trading mechanism and their listed stocks. The TWSE has 809 stocks, 1 close-end Fund, 21 Exchange traded funds, 6 real estate investment funds, 7721 Warrants and 31 Taiwan depository Receipts. The TWSE doesn't deal with mutual funds at all.

It was explained to us that about 39.08% of Taiwan’s population (9,111,496 of 23,315,822 citizens) invest their money with the TWSE. This is a high percent for any single industrialized country. Alex explained that their typical investors are everyday housewives with no minimum amount to begin investing. And for a foreign investor to buy and sell on the TWSE, it only takes about ten minutes to register online. This has raised the Foreign Investors participation around 32.6% raising the trader value 22.6% last year.

Alex spoke at length about the basic goals of minimizing investors transaction costs, improve investor returns, facilitate the capital raising activities and promote economic growth; which is the basic goals of the TWSE trading mechanism. And what I found interesting is that the TWSE only allows a +/- 7% fluctuation or decline to keep the exchange volume stable.

And if you are wondering why "red" is positive and "green" is negative on their board, in Taiwan, red is considered to be the color of "luck" and "happiness." Unfortunately, there is no trading floor like in New York. All trades are done electronically on a computer.

After lunch in the Taipei 101 building, we went over to a famous porcelain pottery company called Franz.

Our guide Sean explained about the process of designing some of the world famous pieces that they sell. They don’t just create vases, they also design and make dinner sets, tea sets, and religious and seasonal pieces. The president of Taiwan goes to this company and purchases beautiful pieces to give as gifts to foreign dignitaries, Presidents and world famous celebrities. One special piece that they only created 1000 of was given by the President of Taiwan to the First Lady Michelle Obama as a gift for an invitation that was extended to him. Some of the pieces and sets that they sell are very expensive but they are not just beautiful but very durable and painstakingly detailed. The typical timeline from inception to creation usually takes between 6 months to a year. And a majority of the work is done in the offices that we visited. This company has grown to the point where they have retail stores in most major metropolitan area around the world.

After leaving Franz, we, the UM-Flint students, hosted an appreciation dinner for our friends at NTNU. Although it wasn't anything exquisite, it was allot of fun to just sit around and have good conversations, joke around and interact with them like we were all old friends. Although we all have become Facebook friends, hopefully one day, we’ll meet again.