Business Week’s cover story on September 9, 2010, provides a detailed look at one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world, that few students have heard of. But they will know the products it produces under contract – iPhones, Sony Playstations, and Dell computers. With 920,000 workers at its 20 Chinese factories, Chairmen Terry Gou was thrown into the spotlight after eleven Foxconn employees committed suicide last year. Although Apple pressured Foxconn to eliminate its triple-decker bunk beds and excessive overtime, Steve Jobs was not about to sever ties with the iPhone being produced at the rate of 137,000 per day.
Possible class discussion questions:
- How diversified is the Foxconn supply chain?
- How did Gou get into the business of making the chassis of Compaq computers?
- What was Flextronics reaction to the Gou supply chain?
- Why do workers stay at a company known for it “suicide cluster”?