Mumbai: "The idea of designing enjoyment influences everything we do and all the choices we make as a company," says KY Lee, CEO and member, executive management team, BenQ, who was in Mumbai as a part of a tour of the company's Asian and Middle Eastern markets. This designing "enjoyment", the company expects, would enable it to double its 2004 turnover of $5billion to $10-billion by 2008.

Lee adds, "As a philosophy, it guides our development of new technologies, our choice of product features and functions and our product design. It is as much about what is inside our products as what is outside." This year BenQ received ten 2005 iF Design Awards , taking its tally to 58 in three years.

Formerly Acer Communications & Multimedia, the name BenQ was adopted in December 2001 to reflect the motto motto, "Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to Life." BenQ's product lines are managed by four business groups:

• Display and imaging: scanners, optical drives, digital cameras, color laser printers, computer monitors in a range of sizes going up to 46-inch wide screen (the company is the world's third largest in 23-inch wide screen monitors, and the front runner in scanners).
• Digital Media digital hub, projectors, LCD TV's, MP3 players / USB flash drives, plasma displays, optical storages, multi-functional DVD (it is the world's No. 1 DVD maker).
• Networking & Communications: that makes GSM, GPRS, CDMA, CDMA2000 mobile handsets, WiFi-GPRS combo products and wireless modules, LAN modules and routers for SOHO applications.
• Computer Products making Joybooks in various screen sizes.

Lee says that the company would look at India as a global resource base, particularly for knowledge to aid in developing embedded capital software for the company's range of digital lifestyle products.

BenQ holds 2,162 global patents and another 2,258 patents pending as of March 2005. Over the years, the company has been increasing the market share for its products ranging from Joybook multimedia notebook computers to Joybee MP3 players, to mobile phones, scanners, LCD projectors and flat-screen monitors.

Global brand consultancy Interbrand has rated BenQ one of Taiwan's top ten brands for the past two years and reported that BenQ's brand equity grew by 35 per cent in 2004 - higher than the others on the list.

Eight R&D centers around the region contribute to the development of 10 product lines featuring over 420 products. Technologies such as the Senseye for image enhancement displays and integrated smart-phone software extends BenQ's commitment to "designing enjoyment" to performance and functionality, as well with Business Week and The Economist recognizing the company's success.

Effective execution enables BenQ to quickly roll out new products and make them widely available.

According to Adrian Chang, president, BenQ Asia-Pacific, "Philosophy, design and technology all contribute to BenQ's success. But strong execution is what brings them together and enables BenQ to deliver on its promise of an enhanced, digital lifestyle."

An innovative channel strategy called 'deep' (design, efficiency, experience and preferance) provides the strategic framework for this execution. The name refers to the four interlocking aspects of BenQ's performance:

• Design: Of innovative technology and aesthetic products
  
• Efficiency: From economies of scale and productive supply chains to get products to customers more quickly,
  
• Experience: Strengthening every point of contact with customers, whether that is through BenQ's products, branding or people,
  
• Preference: Bringing aesthetically designed, high quality products to market at the right price to make BenQ the preferred brand for communications, computing and consumer-electronics products.

On their tour of Asia and the Middle East, Lee and Chang will meet with the media to discuss the idea of designing enjoyment, relate it to BenQ's products and strategy in more detail, and explain the company's plans for the year ahead.