倒下吧，HTC：看周永明(Peter Chou)的給員工的信有感

且說在經濟部長施顏祥說要愛用HTC、陳冲說HTC現在有98分不需要用救這個字、而彭淮南使用iPhone被拿出來大作文章，好像政府官員中哪個不用HTC就是不愛國的氛圍下，我看了周永明發給員工的打氣email。

看完，我心裡只有覺得，HTC大概完了吧。在兩強夾殺下，HTC即使是underdog，這時就是不能認輸嘛。結果周永明卻還在文中示弱，說對手品牌大、行銷預算多、市場規模又大，所以HTC打不過人。

哀，這是藉口嗎？

然後看到最後，周永明似乎有些語無倫次，只在講一些之微末節的執行細節，什麼開會不要只會開，但沒結論。又或者沒結論需要想想兩天沒關係，但最好兩天後就要給結論。這需要由CEO來說嗎？

哀，完全沒氣勢，沒鬥智，沒必勝的感覺，只是講一些不痛不癢，連感謝員工家屬都搬出來了。

現在就擺著看，若從這封信的氣勢來看，我敢說HTC怎麼樣都回不去一年前的光景，且跟蘋果與三星對戰，也已經失去必贏的決心。周永明文末寫的We are coming back感覺是吹口哨壯膽。

可憐可憐，或許這時候讓中國廠商來收購不失解套辦法，反正我是絕不會再買HTC的品牌了。

以下是Peter Chou寫的全文。



I would like to take this opportunity to share with you the situation and my thought regarding recent progress and challenges of htc.
You had probably heard of our announcement of q3 outlook which is definitely disappointing. Yes, of course we are disappointed that our sales are down while smartphone market share is growing.

I think there are multiple reasons for the challenges we are facing today.

The franchised Brands are playing a major role today. Htc has not built a franchised brand until HTC One. It requires sometime to build a successful brand. HTC One is a very strong product which is well recognized. However the mass awareness was not big enough. While building HTC one franchised Brand is the right direction, we still need to continue to improve the awareness of the Brand and drive greater consumer demand and preference.

There are multiple areas we need to be improving. Traditionally htc depended on products a lot. We have leading products and they have helped us in the market to get to where we are today.

However when market changed, competitors strategies changed and when they became better the product gap became narrower. Our competitors can leverage their scale, brand awareness and big marketing budget to do things which htc could not do.

There are always room for us to be improving, e.g. products, quality, holistics readiness of product, marketing, sales, retail, etc. We have identified those areas and  have plans to improve  them. We have recently optimized some organization to ensure that we have new way of working on them. To ensure we can focus on  making our big ideas bigger. To ensure our holistic readiness is there when we go to market.

We also need to improve our communication. Htc used to be a company where we did things quick and reacted quick. However the fast growth from the last 2 years has slowed us down. We have people in meeting and talking all the time but without decision, strategic direction or sense of urgency. Bureaucracy crept in without clear ownership. We agreed to do something but we either didn’t do it or executed it loosely.

That’s what happened to us. Market changed and we also have our own issues.

However I have strong confidence in HTC. Our origin and culture are still there. We have great people and they are still there very committed to htc. We have the best products as recognized by the One X having the industry’s best rating. In addition, our product pipeline is very strong and I am super excited about the new products we are working on for later this year and early next year. Htc’s design, innovation and technologies are one of the tops in the world. We have excellent customer relationship which is invaluable. We have reacted quick in  fixing our major issues. We are coming back soon; we are one of the top three worldwide major smartphone brands with tremendous respect from the industry.

I want to take this opportunity to thank you and your family as well for their support to you and to htc. I want to thank you for your hard work and contribution. You are the people who make me feel very proud of HTC.

You have every reason to remain confident. Do not be influenced by noises from market and industry. We really are the strong player in the market and we are just having short term challenges. But short term challenges are fine. We are still very strong and financially healthy. The most important thing is what we do to solve the problem. Our own action matters. The way we behave matters. Please make sure that we kill bureaucracy.

Make sure we are doing the right thing quick and make it works. We communicate with clear goals and targets and make it happen. For example, after meeting we say we want to prioritize to achieve A,B,C and we want to get this done within one week. If there is concern and conflict we should immediately talk and agree upon the goals and target. We need to prevent that yeh, yeh we are looking into that, we are working on that without clear target. Of course you can say I need 2 days to confirm it and that’s fine. But make sure you confirm it within the next 2 days.

When we are working on something we need to have a clear sense of what  the most important items and hero features are, and make sure we have high confidence to get those priorities done instead of everything is everything. Don’t let the processes, rules and norms to impact our important goals. Of course we have to follow certain rules and criteria but don’t let small things kill the major goals. Again make sure we have big things in mind.  Stay firm with the hero innovations and make them even bigger and deliver them.
We are coming back.