Wacom 2008 Annual Report Download - page 16

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Product development
Japan is where we develop most of our technology and
design hardware products. This is due to the country’s
strong infrastructure for technological development, as
well as its geographic location close to our main
Our market is global, and therefore it is vital to our
success that we continue to enhance our global
organizations and optimize our business models to
offer leading technology, and the most competitive
products in terms of features, quality and value
across the globe.
Manufacturing
We focus on developing optimal manufacturing models
for cost, scalability and product quality leadership. To
achieve this, all critical components continue to be
made by Wacom, and all high-volume manufacturing is
done by partners in China and Taiwan.
These manufacturing partners are under the guidance
of our QA division to ensure the highest and most
consistent product quality. We also have a supply chain
management (SCM) base in China.
We regularly organize global executive conferences for
strategic planning, business updates and
knowledge-sharing. These conferences provide a
platform for us to build and promote our corporate
vision and business strategies, and reinforce our
company’s global position as the industry leader.
Marketing and product management
The United States is home to the world’s most
advanced computer graphics market, so naturally this
is where we concentrate on building new partnerships
and planning new professional products. The focus for
our consumer products is different, however. For our
consumer products, we focus on Europe, which covers
the widest range of use patterns and is the most
competitive market, and Japan, where consumers are
keen for new trends and demand highly sophisticated
products. Asia/Oceania, typical of an emerging region,
shows very strong demand in the corporate sector.
Therefore, our current emphasis in this region is on
business products.
Back in the 1980s, we set up our corporate headquarters in Japan. We extended our global operations to the United
States and Germany, and then expanded to China, Korea, Australia and Singapore. In addition to these subsidiaries,
we also have sales bases in Taipei, Shanghai and Moscow. Each of our regional subsidiaries performs multiple
functions. These functions are carried out with localized execution approaches and staff to help forge close regional
ties. We believe that this balanced approach between global strategy and localized execution maximizes our
strength as a global company and helps us to continually offer dynamic products and services that exceed
customer expectations. This has been proven by the fact that we continued to increase the percentage of our
overseas sales to 79.6% in our 25th fiscal year.
Our global model
manufacturing bases in China and Taiwan.
The development of our driver software is performed in
the United States. Here, we are close to all the global
OS developers, such as Microsoft and Apple, as well
as leading software application developers. This
proximity allows us to work in close partnership with
these companies in developing emerging OS and
application standards.