Y. F. Lu,

A Woman

Undaunted by Fate

She may have suffered a failure in her marriage, but it didn’t stop her from being a successful career woman and a loving mother.  With her unyielding will power, Y. F. Lu managed to get trauma of family break-up and created for herself and many other who for her a world of glory and fortune.

It started from about a decade ago.  Lu, a kindergarten teacher at the time, was nearly end of her tether.  She’d just had a divorce and was left with meager income and two children to raise.  An undaunted woman, however, she didn’t grumble about her misery and, instead, soon found a way to fix it.  

In 1972, with about 30 thousand NT dollars borrowed from her relative, Lu took over a small workshop-which she later named Chi-Fung Craftwork Ltd. – that produced shell paintings exported to Japan, thus launching her career that was to be a huge success.

In the beginning, as more orders started to come in, the new owner of the mill was faced with a labor shortage problem: she could not get workers that would stay.  To solve this, she hired 50 people with poliomyelitis as craftsmen, a bold move at that time, when poliomyelitis workers were still not welcome in most workplaces.  Evidently, however, later showed that it was a wise strategy.  By doing so, she was e not only offered much needed job opportunities to those workers, but also succeed in improving the productivity of her enterprise.

In 1974, when the world energy crisis occurred, Chi-Fung was among the companies in Taiwan that suffered a recession.  But this situation didn’t keep Lu from expanding her career.  In February of the same year, a dress she bought, which was totally ruined after a wash, gave her fresh ideas about setting up a laboratory that would provide the domestic textile industry with quality dyeing chemicals and auxiliary agent that were much in need at the time.

Before long, she realized the ideas by creating Youn Foung Enterprises Co., Ltd., along with a cousin who had just come back to Taiwan after studying dyeing techniques in Japan.  A firm with only NT$ one million invested at the time of its establishment its capital 80 times in the past decade.  But, despite its success, it has not always sailed on smooth waters.

At first, marketing was the major challenge.  The company had to come up with good products and effective marketing strategies in order to break into a market where competition had already been fierce and win the confidence of clients who had customarily been very skeptical about new products.  In view of this, Lu left no stones unturned to upgrade her products.  

One fifth of the company’s revenue went to the R&D department and rewards were given to staffers who had found better production techniques.  To keep her customers, Lu also made it a point to offer them satisfactory aftersales services. She would go to them, acquaint herself with the types of material and machinery they used, their problems and needs.  She even acted as advisor to her clients.  Offering them cost-effectiveness analyses with a view to helping them lower down their cost of production.  Her motto: ”Always put yourself in the shoes of your customers.”

When she first stared marketing her products, Lu was confronted with the difficult task of debunking the myth prevailing in the marketplace that local-made dyeing & finishing agents for textile were inferior to imported ones.  Nevertheless she accomplished it by calling on her customers, learning the brands of the products they were currently using, and then convincing them with lab reports that her company’s products were as good as any imported one.

By 1977, Youn Foung already had a firm foothold in the domestic market.  It was at the time that Lu began to set her eyes on overseas markets, with Hong Kong the first goal in her mind.  In July of the same year, she flew to Hong Kong and later came back to Taiwan with the colony, a market of which her company was to have an increasing share.

Part of Lu’s formula for success is to constantly come up with new goods to meet the needs of the marketplace.  For instance, a few years ago, when cotton and linen were widely used in the fashion industry of Hong Kong and Singapore, Youn Foung’s technicians developed a new dyeing and finishing agent fit for the two types of cloth, solving the problems for its clients who had been plagued with the poor quality of the existing products and thus bringing in big bucks for the company.

A few years ago, Lu started another company, the Hua Kang Chemical Ind. Co., Ltd., which specializes in the production of metal treating agent used by the defense industry.  Today, the two companies of hers have a combined annual output of more than 16,000 metric tons of dyeing & finishing and metal treating agents.  But Lu is not satisfied with what she has achieved.  She is planning to further diversify and one of her long-time goals is to continue to upgrade her products so that they may surpass foreign goods in quality.

A busy career woman as she is, Lu has never overlooked her roles as a mother.  After work, she spends as much as time as possible with her children.  She also cares much about the welfare of her employees.  She said it’s not possible for her to have achieved anything  without the support of her parents and particularly of her staff members who have worked so hard.         

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Lin Kou Plant:

No. 1, Kung 8 Th  Road ,Second Industrial Park, Lin Kou, Taipei County, Taiwan.

Telephone: (02) 2603-5382 (representation line)

Fax: (02) 2601-2938,      2777-3608

E-mail: yuanfeng@tpts6.seed.net.tw

Shanghai Plant:

No. 92, Chin An Street, Hsaio Kun Shan Town, Song Jang District, Shanghai.

Telephone: (021) 57761802, 57766688

Fax: (021) 57761806