Profile - Enta the dragon

Simon Meredith talks to Jason Tsai about Enta Technologies' success and the company's path to enlightenment.

Walk into Enta Technologies' reception area on 24 September andcess and the company's path to enlightenment. you'll see from the welcome board it is 'Gareth's day'. Gareth was a young Enta employee who, on this day in 1996, was killed in a road accident.

There are no collections or moments of silence, just a reminder on the board, and a bunch of flowers placed outside in the landscaped garden surrounding Enta Technologies' purpose-built, pagoda-style building, propped against a modest memorial plaque.

'Jason probably put them there,' says Jon Atherton, general manager of Enta and one of the first people to join the company back in 1990. 'It's just the sort of thing he does.'

Jason Tsai is not what you might expect the head of a thriving #80 million product distribution business to be. By his own admission, and by the testimony of his colleagues, he is an unassuming, modest man. He shows genuine concern for the people who work for him.

He is very quietly spoken and always appears calm - it is difficult to imagine him becoming angry or raising his voice. And he seems to be driven and motivated not by profit, but by the simple desire to achieve something.

To Tsai, the means seem to be more important than the end itself.

Atherton says Tsai's approach has permeated the whole business. 'Jason doesn't lose his rag and flare up in the middle of the office. If there's a problem he says, let's sort it out, let's do it properly. You got it wrong this time, let's make sure it's right next time. But it happens without people's egos flaring up, and Jason's influence definitely filters out through the management team and down to the staff.'

FROM EAST TO WEST

Tsai founded Enta in 1990. He had been working for Tatung UK since 1981, when he had come over from Taiwan to help the TV company set up its operations.

Prior to that he worked at the company's headquarters in Taipei for six years.

He had joined Tatung after graduating in electronic engineering from Chaio Tung University in Taipei. He started buying keyboards, but did not rush into selling motherboards or systems - he kept the products cheap and simple. But after the first year of its life, Enta needed to supply other products - its customers wanted them, the market was getting more competitive and vendors were approaching the company.

Atherton says: 'We decided we could only go so far selling 20,000 unbranded keyboards a month and 10,000 cases. Jason's goals were to build a successful company, a profitable company, and a long-term company for him and, more importantly, for his staff - all the people that put the effort in over the years. We decided you can only do so much with unbranded equipment and so we needed to be respected in the market.'

It was at this point that Enta started seeking brand-name suppliers.

It started modestly but today works with many high-quality brands - Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony and Kingston and it is also a Microsoft DSP.

Tsai began to think that Enta might develop into a sizeable company, so he decided to construct a brand new 70,000 sq ft office and warehouse building on a five-acre site in the centre of Telford.

The building was not going to be like any other in the area, perhaps even the UK. The pagoda-style design is very distinctive and Tsai has peppered it with the output of Chinese artists and craftsmen. Two large marble lions guard the entrance porch and you walk to the entrance over a pool that is teeming with Koi carp. In the grounds there is a landscaped garden which Tsai has devoted to his mother and also a large statue of his father.

THE GREEN PARTIES

There is enough free space on the site for another building of the same size to go up, but for now the grassed-over area is used for recreation.

At this point he could have upped sticks and moved the business to the Thames Valley, but he choose to stay in the area he had worked and lived in for the past nine years. 'Naturally you know the area and you don't move too far from home. We started from here so it was very natural for us.'

Most of the 130 people who work for Enta are local people and very few of them have come from an IT industry background. Tsai almost welcomes a lack of experience; he has an inherent belief in developing people.

This, he says, is probably one of the things that is different about Enta.

'We have a more gentle, softer approach to the people and also to the customer. We never try to fire a person - if he is not all bad, if he is honest, if he is not stealing. We always try to find a person's strengths. For the first three out of four years we didn't employ any computer people, they were always inexperienced.'

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

By giving people the opportunity to enter the industry and learn about the products and technology, Tsai believes they will genuinely appreciate the chance they have been given and will become more enthusiastic about the business as a whole, and more loyal to the company as a result.

This is all he really looks for in new staff. 'When I interview people, I always try to hire the most enthusiastic, whatever their background - they may not have any selling experience at all, they may have very different work experience - some have been cooks, drivers, anything - but young, enthusiastic, honest - they're the sort of qualities that I look for.'

Tsai tries to nurture this enthusiasm by creating a particular type of environment at the company. This, he believes, is what motivates most people. 'I think it is a good environment, a good atmosphere in the office, there is no shouting, there is no bad feeling or language, we say we have a soft approach and that's what we mean.'

The approach with customers is the same. Tsai wants the company to keep its customers and maintain long-term relationships with them, as far as that is possible with a customer database that currently has some 5,000 active names on it.

It is important to Tsai that the company provides a very good service to its customers. Honesty and trust are central to an approach which, Tsai believes, has been formed from a mixture of Chinese culture, his upbringing and also from his education.

In most areas, he says, he is following 'the middle way' as described by Confucius. He has also blended elements of Buddhist philosophy into his approach. People do respond to this approach, he says. 'If you respect them they will respond and we use this philosophy with our suppliers as well. We treat them as our friends.'

Every business deal with the Far Eastern suppliers is done on a verbal basis. Contracts are alien to Tsai says Atherton. 'It's the Western way because society is filled with doubt - there isn't that friendship. But in Jason's culture, your word is your bond and if you sign a contract it's actually the end of the relationship.'

CALL FOR SERVICE

Enta also tries to get customers to be loyal as well but it is not easy considering the types of product Enta sells - mostly low-cost basic components for systems builders. Tsai says: 'I have always believed that if you give them good service, a good price, and also try to develop a relationship and ring them from time to time, that generates a familiarity between the companies. We have a lot of loyal customers.'

Part of the philosophy is that something should be put back into the community and that the culture should be perpetuated. Tsai has started a Chinese school in Telford, which teaches local students Chinese language and culture. A teacher has been brought from Taipei to work at the school and, as well as taking classes locally, also works with schools and colleges in surrounding towns that have students studying Eastern languages and cultures.

Tsai started the school for two reasons. First, he felt it would be useful if English people could learn more about Chinese culture, that it would help to increase understanding. Secondly, he wanted to create a facility for the local Chinese people to stay in touch with their heritage. There are many Taiwanese firms in Telford and Tsai is the chairman of the Taiwanese Overseas Chamber of Commerce.

CULTURE CLUB

Other local Taiwanese enterprises contribute to the running of the school, but Tsai is the main player. It was his project and his wife - a former teacher herself - is also very involved. 'I wanted to try and help English people understand Chinese culture. If they understand it they won't reject it.'

It's part of Tsai's overall philosophy, which goes beyond the profit motive. 'Community, supplier, customer - it is all related,' he says.

His only real objective in setting up Enta was to see what he could achieve having reached 40. He did not start with specific ambitions. Until this year, the company has never set formal budgets, it has simply watched its spending very carefully. Nor have there been sales or profit targets, even though every year Enta has grown substantially and made a considerable profit.

Tsai has never borrowed money, the company owns its building - which cost #5 million to put up in 1995 - and has cash in the bank. Tsai is not involved in any other companies. He is totally devoted to Enta and is trying to take it further.

A sales office is being opened in West London with a small warehouse facility to increase the company's presence in the south. Tsai now plans to expand into other areas of business. Office equipment and industrial PC products are two areas Tsai is interested in. He has already set up an ISP - Entanet - which is run from the Telford office.

Tsai started this service simply because he saw an opportunity and a friend of his from the US had written a browser. While Entanet is established, it remains small, but hopes to launch into a new phase of growth on the basis of a new dial-up agreement with Mercury, signed in October.

But the plan does not go much further than a year. Enta is now operating in a very competitive market and has picked up many leading brand names.

According to Tsai, growing will no longer be a simple feat, and this is partly why he is diversifying. He believes distribution will remain a healthy sector, but the pressure on margins is worrying.

'The margin is coming down and overheads are going up so you've got to diversify and find products that make good profits and you've got to sell something which does not give you a headache.'

CHANGE OF LIFE

Tsai is inspired by the constant change and technological innovation in the industry, and struggles to find anything he really dislikes, except perhaps, the pressure. 'The pressure to do better, the pressure to find good people when you cannot get the quality you need.' Enta has expanded rapidly and, with Tsai's high standards, he's found it hard to find enough staff of the right calibre in the Telford area.

There have been no defining moments, no real turning points that he can think of in the rise of Enta. 'There has been nothing really special.

It has been a very natural process over the years, through hard work, partly my vision, and partly the team's work - not just mine, it's been down to everyone.'

He would like Jason Tsai, and Enta, to be thought of as an individual and a company that did more than succeed in terms of its turnover and profits. 'I'd like people to think I am a fair person, an honest and reputable person, and Enta is a good company - one they admire. I think that's what I'd want and for all employees to benefit from it.'

Tsai admits he is fairly modest about Enta's achievements so far. 'I still think I have a lot to learn. We are good at what we do and we are satisfied with the achievement so far but we still have a long way to go before we are successful.'

Atherton says this is typical of Tsai. 'Jason is very modest, he's a very laid back individual, but he's got his finger very firmly on the pulse and he knows what he wants to do, he knows where he wants to go.

He is a very good motivator.'

Tsai has a way with words and a unique way of handling the management team. At meetings he may not speak for a half an hour, but when he does, his words will be well chosen and full of meaning - he always gets to the nub of the issue straight away.

MODESTY'S THE BEST POLICY

Tsai feels his time in the military police helped him learn how to get on with people and how to get the best out of them. 'It was very valuable from the point of view of social and management skills, learning about personalities and how to manage human resources and about team work and discipline.'

In Taiwan, going into the national service and doing well during those two years is seen as being very important. It is regarded as a sign of your abilities and prospects.

Discipline, however, is not an immediately visible element of the Enta approach. It is there though, says Atherton. 'There is a pressured atmosphere in all departments, but there is a kind of relaxed euphoria. All the staff know, especially sales, what's got to be done. They know that they've got to get the orders out for next day delivery, they know that they've got to be here at a certain time and taking the orders, but they know they can have a laugh, and they can have a chin-wag with me as they walk by.'

Tsai does not rant and rave about problems, says Atherton. 'He just wants to do a good job for the customers and for himself, but more so for the employees, in order to show them that they have a long-term future here.'

He prefers to create an atmosphere in which everyone works for each other, in which those that don't pull their weight are almost shamed into bucking up their ideas. Few people leave the company. Of the five staff that were with Enta in the first two months of its life, four remain and the one person who has left has retired.

Working conditions are good as well. There is a staff canteen and a social club, the company runs a football team and there are regular social events.

Tsai still takes a personal interest in every one of his staff and tries to encourage them to take an interest in other things that might be beneficial to them.

THE QI TO LIFE

For example, Tsai has become personally interested in Qi-Gong, and relationships he has with other people. He wants to carry the people with him and for the business to work not just for him, but for the customers, suppliers and for the staff as well.

He has an 'open door' policy and this is healthy for the staff, says Atherton. 'They know that if they have a problem they can go straight to the MD'. Tsai claims to know all of the 130 people working at the company and conducts at least part of every job interview personally. He does this because there is one thing he wants to know about all the people who come to work at Enta - how they feel about their family.

'I ask them if they have a close family, if they have seen their father recently; if they are not close to their family then I would have doubts.

If they are from a close family then they won't have problems, if they respect their parents and they have a good family home they won't have any headaches.'

He believes that people from close families will be more stable individuals and better workers. But this is not to say that people with different or unconventional family situations will be rejected. What Tsai is really looking for is respect for the other members of the family.

This is a maxim that he has brought with him from Taiwan but one that he believes holds true in the UK as well. Respect for other people is very important, he says. The text of the Buddhist Heart Sutra that hangs on the wall behind his desk reminds him that all human life is precious.

He feels that keeping this in mind all the time helps him in his business life immeasurably.

DUE RESPECT

But it is important to understand why you respect someone, he adds. It is not enough simply to show the respect. 'It must be real, it is not just a word. Everyone is very powerful. We all have a lot of strength in us. I don't think everyone realises that.'

He encourages employees to believe in themselves. 'I try to get people to realise this is a good philosophy and if you learn it and understand it, you see that it has value.'