Co-Creation with Customers and Partners

Trends, Strategy Sharing, and Co-Creation

In 2022, Advantech is committed to deepening customer connection experience, expanding ecosystem partner management, and institutionalizing distribution authorization management. In terms of customer management and partner co-creation, Advantech aims at "altruistic cooperation for mutual benefit" and "digital service upgrade". Meanwhile, digital platforms such as the customer relationship management system and online technical services have been optimized to improve operational and service efficiency.

Advantech 2022 Key Contents of Customer Management and Partner Co-creation

Ecosystem Partner Management

The Internet of Things is a market where multiple industries are integrated. Advantech upholds the concept of creating and co-prosperity with partners. Industry ecological partners are built with IoT platforms and core products. It enables small system integrators, traditional automation system integrators, cloud platform system service providers or industry experts, etc. to enter the IoT industry through this platform. Ecological partners and Advantech work together to expand the market

Partner Co-Creation

Advantech proposed the concept of "co-creation" in 2017. While meeting customer needs and providing customer service, we also regard customers as partners and invite them to join us in actively creating value through cooperation in terms of technology, products, business models, business marketing, channels, and so on. From 2021, start-ups in Taiwan, China, Europe, the United States, etc. are supported by investing in external funds. We expect these key areas to form a complete ecosystem of the Internet of Things. Relevant contents are shown in table.

Advantech's 2022 list of activities supporting AIoT innovation

Ecosystem Fund Investment
Region Fund size Field of investment company
European and American USD 30 million Smart Manufacturing, Smart Energy Management, Edge Computing, AI, Information Security, Smart Positioning
China RMB 100 million Industrial control security, IoT security, smart 5G mine, integrated energy service integrator
Global USD 50 million Internet of things, new energy
Sponsorship of events for incubators, accelerators and IoT innovations
Region Number of sponsors Sponsorship fund
Taiwan 3 NT$3.9 million
Support for start-ups
Region Content supported
Malaysia Sponsoring partners US$60,000 to develop smart hospital solutions
Taiwan We and AAMA (Asia America Multi-Technology Association) launched the AIoT co-learning and co-creation project. Advantech's product department and 10 Internet of Things startup companies were deeply connected through entrepreneurship, business model and industry workshops. Product and business development experiences were exchanged, and potential innovative IoT solutions and market cooperation opportunities were expanded.
Taiwan We and IndustrialAI jointly create a smart water testing solution. The start-up company's AI analysis technology, Advantech's IoT platform and market resources are combined. Therefore, market opportunities for sustainable water treatment solutions are co-created.

WISE-PaaS

Advantech‘s IoT platform is a platform based on cloud-native platform services. It includes five core services: equipment management, asset management, visualization, data integration and analysis, and AI services. Eco-partners are developed based on these five major services. Equipment preventive maintenance is a typical application of IoT. Advantech combines its partners' equipment to analyze expertise, and jointly develops equipment health status estimates and early warnings. The energy application of smart city Internet of Things is also one of Advantech's key development directions. The WISE-IoT platform provides a cloud device management service platform, which is applied to large field management. There are multiple solar management case sites in Asia. Local operation and maintenance management is integrated with energy analysis applications to efficiently provide overall power generation and reduce operation and maintenance costs.

WISE-Marketplace

WISE-Marketplace is an end-to-cloud solution platform for the industrial IoT industry. It provides a rich introduction of solution content, a simple purchase transaction process, hybrid cloud remote deployment compatible with connection scenarios, and open and flexible expansion functions. It focuses on smart factories, smart energy management, smart devices, smart medical care, and smart retail vertical industries, including more than 100 selected industrial apps, as well as related education and training courses, certification and engineering support. In order to assist customers in accelerating digital transformation, WISE-Marketplace also assists system integrators and channel partners in different fields in the joint marketing, as well as the software developer's shelf mechanism, so as to jointly create a prosperous industrial ecological system.

WISE-IoT Solutions

The IoT cloud platform business group which WISE-IoT newly established for Advantech represents Advantech's first step in digital transformation. Various domain-type situational applications are developed by using the upgraded version of WISE-IoT Core Services of WISE-PaaS. The five areas of focus include WISE-iMachine, WISE-iFactory, WISE-iEMS, WISE-iService, and WISE-iHospital. In 2022, the territory expanded to Europe, and the diversity of partners was gradually completed. It includes CP (Channel Partner), VAD (Value Added Sales Partner) and DFSI (Domain SI Partner). Moreover, it strengthens the cooperative relationship, such as customers served together, products jointly developed, industries in specific fields entered, and strategic investments carried out. Consultant partners who are more based on the development of the field have entered the global energy-saving field market. In 2022, about 160 partners continued to carry out in-depth cooperation with WISE-IoT to establish a more consolidated and strong business ecosystem for WISE-IoT.

Customer Satisfaction Survey

In respect to Advantech‘s customer satisfaction survey method, the headquarters regularly sends out questionnaires to a portion of those customers who have purchased Advantech products. This is aimed at understanding customer satisfaction levels in five aspects, including ''sales services and pricing,'' ''delivery efficiency,'' ''product quality,'' ''technical services,'' and ''after-sales services.'' We take the customer satisfaction survey results as one of the performance measurement indicators of relevant units. For items with poor performance, relevant units are requested to propose improvement plans. Improvements are tracked by business units with a view to completing them within a time frame.

Regarding 2022 customer satisfaction survey methods, A total of 748 customers were sampled, including 325 customers in Taiwan, 102 customers in mainland China, 134 customers in North America, and 187 customers in Europe for customers whose accumulated sales in each region accounted for top 80% . The average coverage of this survey was 60.76%, the average recovery rate was 32.89%, and the average customer satisfaction score was 92.66. Set the goal for 2023: the average score is not less than 90 points on the basis of expanding customer coverage.

Lowest average of the top five surveyed items: Delivery quality. The main reason is the lack of cores and stock and the epidemic, which has led to delays in the output time of products and needs to be continuously improved. Satisfaction with “Delivery Quality” was improved compared to the previous year. In addition, the other four items all scored lower than the previous year. It is understood that the increase in surveys and coverage in regions (such as Taiwan, etc.) help to collect customer opinions more comprehensively. The results are expected to be surveyed to feed back the continuous review and improvement of relevant internal units. The future goal is to increase the coverage of customer satisfaction surveys year by year and maintain an average satisfaction rate of over 90 points.

Score and Coverage of Customer Satisfaction Survey in 2018-2022

Annual Satisfaction (score) Ratio of operating revenue of sampled customers to total revenue (%)
2018 94.94 17.36
2019 94.59 16.80
2020 95.16 16.98
2021 94.83 17.45
2022 92.66 60.76

Sub-item scores of customer satisfaction survey in 2022

  Score (out of 5 points) Satisfaction (score)
Sales service and pricing 4.68 93.60
Delivery efficiency 4.52 90.40
Product quality 4.66 93.25
Technical Services 4.69 93.70
After-sales service 4.65 93.05

Customer Audit

In 2021, a total of 19 key account (KA) customers requested audits (including online or document audits), covering quality systems, environmental safety and hygiene systems, and corporate social responsibility. Advantech also promoted online auditing modules in response to the pandemic. Through communication tools and remote videos, we explained the manufacturing process and intelligent control mechanisms in order to meet the needs of customer visits and audits in the post-pandemic era.

Customer Service

Global Customer Relationship Management System and Dealer Management Platform - MyAdvantech

Advantech has gradually converted the branch CRM system from Oracle Siebel to Salesforce CRM since 2014. So far, about 52% of the global business has been converted, covering the United States, Europe, Taiwan, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. In 2023, the introduction of Salesforce in the Japanese and Korean offices will be completed.

The CRM system is the starting point for business to serve customers, so Salesforce will accelerate the cross-system integration of important customer information into CRM. Advantech's internal systems are also committed to shortening the process time from demand to response to improve service efficiency and quality. In addition, Advantech attaches great importance to the security of customer data, so it has fully enabled Multi-Factor Authentication. It protects against challenging cyber-attacks such as phishing, credential stuffing, account compromise, and more. The legitimacy of system users is also ensured.

MyAdvantech is a customer and order platform that supports key global partners. It provides users with one-stop service and avoids additional time-consuming internal and external confirmation. Strong brand trust and reputation are built through an intuitive interface experience. In 2022, the Chinese channel management project was introduced and the European project registration system was upgraded. Customer management efficiency was improved to track quotes and orders

Global Online Technical Services Platform

In 2022, the online technical service teams in Europe and North America and the headquarters RMA team have completed the introduction of the cloud technical service management platform Zendesk to accelerate Advantech's response to customers. Customer requests from different channels will be automatically created and assigned, ensuring continuous service. In 2022, a total of 88,116 technical service requests was closed, an increase of 47% over last year, and the closing rate is 98%. In 2023, Advantech will expand this automated process to Japan and South Korea's online technology services and headquarters on-site service teams.

Advantech has also introduced chatbots to serve North America and emerging markets, such as Central Asia and Africa. Customers are directed to self-help support, allowing our service to continue throughout the day. Advantech looks forward to the future that AI technology will be continuously researched to provide a realistic and natural AI response assistant. In 2023, in addition to chatbots being introduced to more regions, the one-stop online customer service center will be improved.

Advantech Knowledge Center provides in-depth solution technical support and is integrated to create a closer cooperation framework

Advantech’s online technical support process

Analysis of Technical Support

Customer Privacy Protection

In order to allow everyone to use Advantech's various services with peace of mind, Advantech has formulated a privacy protection policy. It complies with Personal Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It has explained how to collect and use personal data, and further protects related rights and interests. In 2022, PwC Taiwan was entrusted to conduct a compliance assessment of personal data protection. After that, the personal data protection team was formally established, which is expected to further establish more detailed internal procedural rules for personal data protection.

Structure of Personal Data Protection Team

Employees

We regularly conduct personal information protection education and training for employees, and require them to complete and read the requirements of integrity management and employee integrity commitments every year.

Suppliers

The privacy administrator includes the information that the company has business dealings with, such as suppliers and so on; this should comply with privacy and data security laws and regulatory requirements when collecting, storing, processing, disseminating and sharing personal data. At the same time, for suppliers, the SRM system of the purchasing division requires suppliers to complete the reading of the privacy protection policy every year.

Customers

Compliance with laws and regulations: the collection and use of personal data is to be in accordance with the basic principles of the Personal Data Protection Act while providing personal data with the right to know, access, correct, delete, and so on; and compliance should be made with local regulations such as the European GDPR, the American CCPA, the Korean PIPA, and the Turkish KVKK.

Online privacy protection practices: we use the standard technology of “cookies” to collect information about how customers use Advantech‘s web pages in order to provide an optimal environmental experience. If a customer is unwilling to accept cookies, he or she can set a rejection or notification warning in the browser function items used by the customer and choose to reject or accept the cookie. Advantech has no purpose or intent to infringe on the privacy of customers/users when they browse Advantech's web pages.

Handling of customer issues: for customer-related personal data, there is a data protection mechanism and a mailbox for the Data Protection Working Party (Privacy.Inquiry@advantech.com) If there is a suspected customer data security problem, the processing mechanism will be activated immediately to minimize associated risk hazards.



Advantech Privacy Policy has been fully disclosed on Advantech's official website: https://www.advantech.com/en/legal/privacy