Story about SUNMATCH

Three Brothers

Daniel Chen is the eldest among three brothers and in charge of international marketing. The other two brothers, David and Peter, have mechanical engineering backgrounds and are in charge of developing and manufacturing new products. It has been a good combination to have three brothers working together, and as the old Chinese saying goes, “brothers working together will have enough power to break steel”.

A dream

Our father was a bus driver with limited income. Our mother was selling vegetables in the traditional market to make a little money to help improve our living. Raised in a poor family, three brothers were encouraged by our father to study hard and work hard to be outstanding people. The dream is “united, brothers work together”. Sunmatch allowed this dream to come true.

Dream comes true

At the time Sunmatch was established, David was the only one who knew a little about Pneumatic Tools, as he worked for a small company, named “FULLIN”. In English, “FULLIN” means “luck is coming”. But yet luck didn’t come, soon “FULLIN” went bankrupt. David was in search of a new job. The three brothers decided to start manufacturing Pneumatic Tools and to locate the Sunmatch factory in their home town of Hsinchu. Peter was a teacher at a senior high school teaching mechanical engineering. Daniel had a background of international trade, as he had worked for a trading company. From that start, the three brothers worked together to make the dream come true.

Almost bankrupt

For the first ten years, Sunmatch made no money and almost went bankrupt because of cash flow. Sunmatch received orders from trading companies with very limited profits. In fact, Sunmatch was at the mercy of the trading companies. Make a change or die. Thank God, Sunmatch started growing with their direct export business to customers in countries worldwide. Sunmatch attended trade shows in different countries and talked to customers to help understand their needs.

Advice from customer

One of the reasons that Sunmatch made no profit was due to low prices, as Sunmatch only made DIY quality at that time. With low quality came low prices. One day, a customer said “Daniel, you have to make your own way in professional quality, or stay the same with DIY. I don’t mind paying more if you could make better quality.” We changed to higher quality products with higher prices. Thank God, Sunmatch is now on a new track with only Professional Quality!

A lesson of 25 years

It was a surprise to me when I was told that business relations could lasts 25 years. That was my first visit to the USA in August 1985, a few months after Sunmatch was established. My customer in the USA told me that his company had been doing business with a Japanese manufacturer for 25 years. 25 years was almost my whole life, as I was 30 years old that time. I was so impressed with such a long lasting relationship that I wanted to do the same with my customers. That was a great lesson for me. It has been 25 years since Sunmatch started in business and I am proud to say that I still keep a sound business relationship with my first customer.

An Expectation

I believe that I am a lucky man to have two brothers working with me on the same dream. With them, everything has become possible. The product range continues to improve while the quality has improved from DIY to Professional level. Even though Sunmatch went through a difficult stage in the beginning, we continue to grow. Our expectation is to develop more tools covering different industries and make them to the highest quality standards. At Sunmatch, we consider this a daily challenge. We define Sunmatch as a manufacturing company and partner of many different brands.

~ by Daniel Chen
2011/4/21