Tony Lo, former CEO and now advisor to bicycle behemoth Giant, grew a small Taiwanese OEM into a global business. We asked him for his idea of the best business model for our globalized world.
The following are excerpts from our interview.
Everything is like a bicycle. Everything is like a bicycle; your life, whatever. Bicycle is something you need to be balanced, right? If you don’t balance, you will fall. The best way to balance is to go forward. So for GIANT, we keep riding our bicycle, keep going forward. If you stop, then you’ll fall.
Now, our goal is how to promote a cycling culture.
So-called Ubike, the public share-bicycle (system.) Right now in Taiwan, Taipei City… 6 cities. GIANT is operating that. So in Taipei City in the past, you only see car, motorcycle or subway. There was no bicycle. But right now, even in Taipei, you have 400 stations, and about 10 thousand bicycles, being used every day by the citizens.
Everybody is very happy. Not only is bicycle good for health, also bicycles are good for the environment.
Because of cycling, they are more healthy. Their life becomes better. And the Earth becomes more beautiful. So this has become our mission.