Giant Bicycles’ second-generation owners Bonnie Tu and Young Liu continue the company founder’s legacy
Can the ‘godmother of bicycles’ and the ‘little prince’ surpass the achievements of the founder, King Liu?
The second-generation owners changed the company’s authoritative leadership into one of professionalism; can the ‘godmother of bicycles’ Bonnie Tu and the ‘little prince of Giant’ Young Liu surpass the achievements of founder King Liu and longtime chief executive Anthony Lo?
On Sept. 23, 2016, when King Liu, founder and then chairman of Giant Manufacturing Co., attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the company’s headquarters at the Central Taiwan Science Park, no one thought he would be announcing his retirement effective three months later.
On Dec. 16 that same year, King Liu decided that then Executive Vice President Bonnie Tu would take over the chairperson spot from Anthony Lo, and then Chief Operating Officer Young Liu would become the company’s chief executive officer starting from Jan. 1 the next year.
On the same day, a media event was held at the Liv Cycling flagship store on Dunhua N. Road to introduce the new chairperson and chief executive officer of Giant. The original executives, King Liu and Lo, did not attend, leaving the stage to Tu and Young Liu and symbolizing the official passing of the torch.
Almost half a century after launching, Giant and company founder King Liu were inseparable and news of his retirement had sparked worldwide attention. In his 44 years as chairman of Giant, King Liu and his chief executive Lo had increased annual production from 3,800 bicycles to six million, raking in annual revenues of NT$60 billion and becoming a global bicycle manufacturing colossus.
Many asked the new leaders of the company how they came to take over a business that had been operating nearly half a century.
Giant’s first woman boss
On the first day in their new positions, Tu and Young Liu sat side by side at Giant’s headquarters in Taichung City’s Dajia District. “Neither of us are rookies,” Tu said with a laugh.
Perhaps King Liu was too influential, since whenever Giant Bicycles was mentioned, everyone immediately thought of him. In truth, Tu and Young Liu had already been honing their skills, training in the company for almost 30 years.
Founded in 1972, Tu took the company public in 1994. Born in 1949, 67-year-old Tu is King Liu’s niece. Tu joined the company in 1978, taking up the position of special assistant to her uncle before becoming the firm’s financial manager. In 1999, she was promoted to executive vice president as well as chief financial officer. Also the founder of Giant’s product line dedicated to its women customers, Liv Cycling, Tu has earned the nickname the “godmother of bicycles.”
Around 1991, Tu wrote to King Liu, recommending financial changes for the company. After reviewing her letter, King Liu met with Tu to question her suggestions’ effectiveness. Determined to prove herself, Tu promised to bring results to the table.
Tu’s primary mission was to take the company public. Giant already had set up subsidiary companies in Europe, the Americas as well as throughout Asia. Overseas subsidiary firms regularly encountered financial problems. As the company further expanded, Giant set up a factory in mainland China in 1992. When in search of capital, it is important to find multiple sources instead of depending on banks for loans. And as the company now has many stockholders, each with their own opinions, transparency within the company is very important.
In 1994, Tu, who was the company’s first financial director, achieved her goal of bringing the company public.
In 2008, when Giant had firmly established itself as a leader in the bicycle industry, Tu launched Giant’s Liv product line. The brand’s origin was inspired by a biking trip King Liu took around Taiwan. Tu was the only woman on the team that circled the island. Not yet a seasoned cyclist, Tu had trouble keeping up. Unwilling to concede defeat, she continued to push herself during the expedition.
That experience inspired Tu to look into a new, untapped market—bicycles solely designed for women riders.
Henceforth, Liv Cycling was born. With its “Liv Beyond” spirit and its “Fit, Form, Function” brand philosophy, the bicycle products’ models, sizes and aesthetics were designed solely for female riders in an effort to encourage more women and girls to get into cycling. Since its inception, Liv has enjoyed double-digit annual growth rates, proving Tu’s visionary insight.
From average employee to top-level executive
Born in 1959, Young Liu is King Liu’s only son, which is how he gained the nickname the “little prince” within the company. Young Liu joined the family business in 1990 as a low-level employee. In 1992, he was sent to mainland China, to the front lines of the company’s efforts to tap into that market, where he oversaw the establishment of factories and company operations to supply domestic demand. In 2010, he became the firm’s president in the mainland China region, before becoming the company’s CEO five years later.
To the public, Young Liu has been accredited with laying the foundation to establishing a business empire for the company in mainland China. Before entering the market and achieving success, Young Liu completed a major company project that generated much of Giant’s global success.
The common industry standards for a kit containing parts needed to assemble a product are called complete knock-down (CKD) and semi-knocked-down (SKD). Young Liu’s company project worked to make Giant’s knocked-down exports as completely assembled as possible for companies on the receiving end.
Calling it the RKD project, meaning “ready to ride,” Young Liu said that he worked to assemble 95 percent of all parts, far better than the average SKD’s 80 percent.
Young Liu realized that this would bring along the advantages of decreased effort and time for clients to assemble the product. Normally, their U.S. manufacturer would take around 80 minutes to assemble one product.
Young Liu was determined to change this. King Liu gave him a goal of decreasing the assembly time from 80 minutes to just half an hour. In the end, Young Liu achieved results of 15-20 minutes.
It wasn’t easy to cut almost an hour of time in assembling the product.
This had never been done before, so to achieve the desired outcome, they had to go back to the drawing board. The parts all came from different manufacturers. How can they be assembled? What are the correct angles? Do the pieces fit? Do you need to apply oil? These were all questions that needed answering. And that’s exactly what Young Liu did.
[By Lin Pei-xuan / tr. by Wendy Kuo]
The original Chinese-language version of this story is available at Global Views Monthly Magazine.