Taiwan -Diversification management is a common type of business management strategy that can effectively increase client numbers and is particularly advantageous for companies looking to diversify risks in a business cycle. Uni-President Enterprises Corporation has expanded their business to both food and distribution channel industries, while Chimei Corporation’s business now spans from petrochemical and electronics to food and hospital industries. Additionally, King Slide works Co., Ltd., located in Luzhu, Kaohsiung, is a leader of brand diversification management in the hardware industry and has developed a successful layout in both server rail and home furnishing markets.
Like most SMEs in Taiwan, King Slide was originally a foundry, which specialized in manufacturing furniture hardware. To overcome economic challenges, it began to prepare itself by building a private brand named ‘King Slide’. It seized business opportunities as early as the cloud era in 2000, and aimed itself at the server peripheral product market, becoming the world’s second largest server rail brand with 30 percent market share. Many international technology companies, including IBM, HP and Dell, are loyal clients of King Slide.
After building a foundation in the server rail market, and giving consideration to the interoperability of the server rail and the kitchen rail technology, King Slide began to strive for the home furnishing industry to consolidate their brand diversification management strategy. General Manager, Jane Lin, observed that the kitchenware and server markets seemed to be irrelevant to one another, indeed the waxes and wanes of the two business cycles in the market could diversify the risk of order cancellation of a single product.
The ‘Hard Power’ behind the brand of King Slide is the critical key to a firm base in the server rail and kitchen rail markets. King Slide spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year on R&D, global product maintenance and patent application. It has obtained more than a thousand patents with as many as 124 patented technologies. Moreover, it has been recognized several times by the Taiwan Excellence Award. The product ‘SIMLEAD Safety Drawer System with Push Open, Soft-Closing and VSD’ was selected as the Taiwan Excellence Silver Award in 2019, drawing even more attention to the brand King Slide. King Slide pioneered three innovative designs, including ‘Ever-Active Push-Open Design’, ‘Vibration Safety Design (VSD)’ and ‘Switchable Push-Open Design’, which were exhibited at the National Hardware Show in Taiwan Excellence Pavilion in 2019. King Slide’s products were widely favored by international buyers, creating a huge amount of business opportunities in the European and American markets.
According to DIGITIMES Research, global server shipment is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 6.5 percent by 2022, and the compound growth of the kitchenware market is projected to be 30 percent. This represents a robust growth momentum for King Slide’s future revenue. Benefiting from brand diversification management, King Slide was not affected by this year’s pandemic and delivered outstanding results of 1.161 billion NTD in the first quarter, an increase of 1.01 percent when compared with the same period last year.
The Taiwan Excellence Award was established by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 1993. Based on the four comprehensive aspects of R&D, Design, Quality, and Marketing, outstanding products with the most ‘innovative value’ are recognized. The award-winning products from different industries combine to form a national team each year and are given assistance with carrying out a variety of domestic and international promotional programs, including digital marketing, which further enhances the high-quality image of Taiwan’s industries.
For more information, please visit the official website: https://www.taiwanexcellence.org/tw.
