KINGS ROAD ? Apple are facing ?bad PR??with their Foxconn tie-up.? That seems to be what columnists are saying.
(One bank, UBS, said yesterday that the pay rises for employees, brought on by expos?s of the loss of life and investigations into explosions at iPhone and iPad manufacturing sites, ?will have only a limited effect on the earnings and share price.? ?Which is something.)
There are in fact many brilliant PR people in the region who can help. (I?m thinking Michelle in Oz, Andy in HK, or Bob in Singapore.) Indeed some of those people are already?helping.
No.? What Apple, Foxconn, fellow manufacturers Wintek and others, need is to plan and communicate a programme of change.
And others having similar products manufactured by similar suppliers like Nokia, Sony, Samsung, HP, Microsoft, Dell etc. know that they?re only being left out of this because Apple is a bigger, shinier target.
?
Let?s back up.
Foxconn is a Taiwan-headquartered Chinese business that employs 1.2 million people. ?(There are only about 1 million in the UK?s NHS, and the Chinese army only has an estimated 1.5 million.)
?Taking it to the next level and creating real change conflicts with secrecy and business goals.?
? A former Apple executive
Foxconn is China?s largest exporter. ?The company assembles an estimated 40% of the world?s consumer electronics.
In 2010 Foxconn hit the headlines (and we wrote about it) when a frightening number of people committed suicide at a plant.
May 2011 an explosion at another Chinese plant was ?followed by the suggestion that Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions there.
The focus is around the boom-towns of Shenzhen, where suicides started on the campus of more than 500,000 workers in 2010, and Chengdu, where explosions have made headlines. ?And last month an extensive (but fairly soft) New York Times feature was published to coincide with Apple?s annual results announcement.
?Employees work excessive overtime,? the NYT says, amongst other things.
At the same time Apple also announced it was joining the US Fair Labor Association. ?And the FLA announced an investigation this month into Foxconn?s business practices.
(Quite brilliantly the FLA President, who?s members have previously primarily been textile companies, was?quoted this week in China as saying ?I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory.?)
Apple also produced it?s first ever supplier list.
Last night the Disney-owned ABC television station ran a report on Apple.
It was awkward and almost like a corporate tourism video. ?(And ABC has gone to painful and uncomfortable lengths to explain their corporate entanglements with Apple.)
?
But the story starts earlier. ?Arguably with an expos??in the UK tabloid The Mail on Sunday in 2006. ?When technology companies, led by Apple, realised they had an obligation to worry about where their products were coming from.
According?to many sources Apple is not alone either. ?Many companies have suppliers with troubling working conditions: IBM, Motorola, Sony and Nokia too.? Foxconn itself also assembles for Amazon, Nintendo ?and Samsung.
So there?s little here that couldn?t have been planned for and changed. ?But many would argue that the business?imperative?has not been strong enough.
The NYT quotes an Apple executive saying ?most people would still be really disturbed if they saw where their iPhone comes from.?
But almost everyone would be disturbed if they saw where their hot-dogs or hamburgers come from ? much closer to home. ?So that?s probably not a strong enough concept.
Everyone who understand macroeconomics and how industrialisation works will recognise that there are many issues at play here.
China is a country undergoing industrialisation, with a massive and motivated workforce. ?No one wants the jobs to go away.
At the same time the supplier issue has consumed a lot of time at big technology companies for at least the last 7 years. ?And that?s not just an issue with working conditions. ?Apple said in January that their results would have been better if they could get more products made?
Managing people, adjusting to change, and engaging employees all seem to be at the heart of the matter. ?Combined with a better cultural and social understanding.
The media are undoubtedly looking for a story and this makes a good one.
But that need not be the case ? if Apple, Foxconn and their peers were simply better at planning and communicating change.
Instead, one immediate impact is that while Apple continues to be embarrassed, ??Foxconn is now planning to invest quickly and heavily in automation.
Turns out employing millions of young Chinese people and helping industrialise a country is too much of a pain.
/df
Source: http://www.ableandhow.com/blog/change/apple-foxconn-and-change-management
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