Welcome to the Zoe Design Associates blog. It has been a while since we last communicated with you. Don’t worry, we are still alive and kicking! We have been so busy this last year that we have barely had time to catch our breath.
The most important update is the rapid expansion of our Taipei office. We continue to find new opportunities to work closely with our Taiwanese clients, serve our US and European clients as a prototype and manufacturing liaison to Asian manufacturers, and tap into the design and engineering talent on the island.
We have also been furthering our collaborative relationship with the TaiwanDesignCenter, the national design promotion organization, by organizing and participating in seminars, training, and design competitions.
From our perspective, the trend towards outsourcing is real and is having a powerful impact on our industry and for us as a company, both positive and negative. The positive is that the willingness, and often the demand, by our clients to outsource design, engineering, and manufacturing puts us in the key position, with our experienced staff in Taipei and long-time collaboration with manufacturers throughout Asia, to manage and coordinate these activities.
The negative, in the short term, is the powerful downward pressure on schedules, fees, and overall costs. Longer term, however, we believe the necessity to increase efficiency will drive us to discover new ways to compete and offer even greater value and better service to our clients. It is also pushing us to more quickly identify and capitalize on new business opportunities, some of which I will share with you in future newsletters.
I appreciate your reading, and I hope that you find this blog interesting and informative. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to contact me at: kodama@zoe.com
