Irresistible Trend (The First Wealth Creation Saga Written by a Chinese Entrepreneur)

Author: Zhang Mingzheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: The classic case used by Harvard, Peking University, and CEIBS! A firsthand account of a Chinese entrepreneur's success story in wealth creation! For all who dream of starting a business, for all Chinese entrepreneurs seeking to seize the 'trend' of going global, reading this book will help us embark on a thousand-mile journey in the future! — Tian Suning, Ms. Chen Yizhen. The author, a graduate of the Chinese Department of Taiwan University, writes with a fresh and lively style, and the narrative flows smoothly like clouds and water. It makes serious business management as engaging as a storybook, both entertaining and thought-provoking. Truly a talent from the Chinese Department of Taiwan University, and the Chief Cultural Officer of Trend Micro. — Zhang Weiyi. Trend Micro not only produces high-value products but also produces happiness. I admire this kind of joyful corporate temperament! — Qin Shuo.
In 1988, Zhang Mingzheng and his wife, Chen Yizhen, started Trend Micro from scratch in the United States, specializing in antivirus services. A decade later, Trend Micro went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan and the NASDAQ in the United States. With branches in 30 countries and regions, employing over 2,500 people, and a market value that once exceeded $10 billion, it became Asia's most valuable software company. In 2002, Trend Micro was included in the Nikkei 225 index, becoming the first Chinese company to join it. Two years later, it was added to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, one of only 300 companies worldwide to receive this honor, representing the top 10% of sustainable, first-class companies. The story of Trend Micro's cross-border management was even incorporated into a Harvard Business School case study, making it the only security company included in Harvard MBA cases.
As the leader of a company dedicated to network security for over a decade, Zhang Mingzheng's most unforgettable experience was the devastation caused by new-generation worm viruses like the Red Code and Nimda. This hybrid attack, combining hacker intrusions with virus infections, forced Trend Micro to rethink its antivirus strategy. Faced with the unavoidable "virus window period," the primary task shifted from "racing to get the virus code first and announcing the antidote first" to responding to biological viruses—preventing large-scale outbreaks when new viruses appeared, issuing warning messages, and effectively isolating affected systems to minimize infection risks. Trend Micro creatively proposed a theory for managing the life cycle of viruses and, based on this, developed the EPS (Enterprise Protection Strategy) corporate security protection strategy. Trend Micro pioneered a shift in antivirus thinking, "changing from reactive to proactive," offering comprehensive proactive services to enterprise users, enabling them to face viruses without being overwhelmed. This strategy can be summarized in three points:
1. Focus on preventing large-scale outbreaks of new viruses rather than the viruses themselves.
2. Assist clients in developing security guidelines for different types of viruses, implementing preventive measures before the virus codes are known.
3. All product lines are centrally controlled, fully integrated, and antidotes are rapidly deployed across servers and endpoints.
This strategy laid a solid foundation for the later introduction of Trend Micro's renowned second-generation corporate security protection strategy, EPS (Enterprise Protection Strategy), while its proactive service spirit quickly earned user trust, achieving the effect of "winning through service."
After the Nimda outbreak, the leaders of Trend Micro realized that to completely eradicate network worms, antivirus measures needed to go beyond the application layer to the network layer, collaborating with hardware vendors like routers and firewalls. If "combining hardware installation at the network's starting point to intercept viruses before they enter the operating system" proved effective, this would also be the core of the third-generation EPS (Enterprise Protection Strategy). Trend Micro pioneered alliances with major networking companies like Cisco, joining Cisco's renowned "Network Admission Control (NAC)" security program to jointly develop and launch new security products. As a result, Trend Micro became the first specialized security vendor to deploy antivirus strategies on network devices, helping users block the source of widespread network worm, setting a precedent for deep collaboration between antivirus and network vendors and opening a new chapter in antivirus history.
Since network viruses and malicious codes are borderless, they can affect the entire world within minutes of activation. Combating cross-border network viruses requires a company like Trend Micro that transcends borders. In the process of fighting malicious codes, Trend Micro also transformed itself into a multinational company with a multicultural and "transnational management" approach. "Transnational management" can be summarized in three key features:
1. Multi-head operations. The marketing center is in the United States, leveraging advanced IT technology there; five R&D centers are located in Germany, Japan, the United States, Taiwan, and Nanjing, serving as the R&D hub; the financial center is in Japan, utilizing its low-cost capital while also being a major market for Trend Micro; the global customer service center is in the Philippines, which has a service-oriented culture and language talent; and the administrative center is in Ireland, which has a diverse pool of multilingual talent.
2. A multinational management team. Trend Micro's 13-member core management team comes from six countries: China, Japan, India, the United States, Germany, and Argentina. Under Zhang Mingzheng's leadership, this "mixed team" achieved coordination and collective decision-making.
3. Cultivating a strong, diversified corporate culture. Trend Micro's management model, which "takes the strengths of all countries," not only made it a world-renowned and internationally recognized security software company but also attracted the attention of Harvard Business School. This led to Trend Micro becoming the only Chinese software and security company included in Harvard University's MBA research cases.
For all transnational companies, the most challenging aspect is communication, as bridging cultural gaps is harder than crossing borders. Half of Trend Micro's global employees are in the Eastern Hemisphere, and the other half in the Western Hemisphere; two-thirds of the employees joined after the company went public, and one-third are professionals recruited after 2001. This created two distinct cultures within Trend Micro: "entrepreneurial vs. professional" and "Eastern vs. Western." To address this, Trend Micro proposed a human-centric core value system "4C+T" (Creativity, Change, Communication, Customer, Trustworthiness) to unify its diverse corporate culture. At the same time, Trend Micro introduced two key principles:
1. "No self"—prioritizing the company's overall interests above all, focusing on solving customer problems, using resources reasonably, and working together in harmony.
2. "Be yourself and unleash your full potential"—fostering confidence, mutual trust, and a results-driven culture where hierarchy and authority are absent, allowing everyone to reach their full potential.
With its release, The Unstoppable Trend sparked great interest in the industry. The author, Chen Yizhen, a graduate of the Chinese Department, recorded the joys and sorrows of starting and managing a business, from entrepreneurship to guardianship, and from guardianship to achieving transnational management, with a down-to-earth and humorous style, unlike the didactic approach of traditional management books. Academics like Zhang Weiyi, the Vice Dean of Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, and media figures like Qin Shuo also praised the book, calling it highly beneficial for entrepreneurs, managers, and technical professionals.
Founded in California, the United States, in 1988, Trend Micro currently has headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, and Silicon Valley, the United States, with branches in 30 countries and regions and over 3,000 employees. Trend Micro is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan and the NASDAQ in the United States, and it was included in the Nikkei 225 index in October 2002 and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in September 2004. In 2004, Trend Micro's revenue approached $600 million, making it a high-growth multinational information security software company. Since 1999, global enterprises have faced economic storms and the collapse of the dot-com bubble, yet Trend Micro, like its "Global Rollout" marketing strategy, has grown stronger worldwide. What has enabled it to weather the storm and rise to prominence?
In the wave of globalization, Trend Micro is one of the true representatives of a "globalized" company. Its unique international operations have attracted the attention of major global media, and Harvard Business School has conducted long-term case studies on its multicultural management, continuously tracking its progress. Trend Micro, this "mixed team" with a global footprint, diverse nationalities, skin colors, backgrounds, and cultures, has bridged gaps and built a transnational company. How did the founders, Zhang Mingzheng and Chen Yizhen, achieve this over 17 years of building their overseas business? Through the author's vivid writing, readers will see the struggles and challenges faced by entrepreneurs, the difficulties of adhering to an independent brand path, and the mindset and challenges of international operations.
When Trend Micro was founded 17 years ago, it was a typical Taiwanese company. But 17 years later, its "Global Rollout" marketing strategy made it a global brand, transforming it from a small startup into a successful multinational company. In 2003 and 2004, it was named one of Taiwan's Top 10 International Brands twice. What enabled it to thrive amid storms and rise to prominence? Harvard Business School has conducted case studies on Trend Micro's multicultural management, researching how it built a transnational company that transcends borders.
In 1994, when Trend Micro was still in its early stages, Intel offered $8 million to merge with Trend Micro. What was Trend Micro to do—accept or reject? How did Zhang Mingzheng and Chen Yizhen their own brand path and navigate international operations and challenges? Faced with these questions, The Unstoppable Trend provides the answers.