CEO of the Eternal Prowess Group Yuan Shao-Ting supplies material to the world's best known sports shoe companies. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, his smooth ascension as successor was long planed by the family. However, keen to show his ability and learn, he started from the bottom and engaged in product development. 20 years ago, he set up his own internal business, step by step helping the company develop more application materials, expanding the group's territory. The course of running and growing the business was full of hardship but also full of inspiration.

Prior to the establishment of the Eternal Prowess Group in 1996, 1988-1989 founder of TBC Yuan Chi Fan established Eternal Prowess Co. Ltd (EP) in Vietnam to make shoe outsoles, sensing the future prospects in a market that was not fully opened but had great potential. He was a pioneering Taiwan entrepreneur in Vietnam. After a few years of struggle, by 1996, the company stood firm in the Vietnam market and had stable customers. However, the upstream materials that shoe outsole makers depend on had unstable quality that held the business back. At that time, Yuan Shao-Ting joined the group after graduating and, following the group philosophy of "Customer first, quality first." determined to give customers the best quality products, therefore as a basic level specialist, he threw himself into the area of materials development, focused on developing more stable and better product formulas.

The business environment was not as favorable as many might image. At that time, EP was still in an old factory in Ho Chi Minh City and there were shortcomings in terms of external resources and internal environment; insisting on materials innovation even in a traditional industry, there was friction and conflict between Yuan Shao-Ting and the founder on many occasions. Together with a few young supervisors, he engaged in R&D, sales and integration of resources, gradually developing more stable materials and received the affirmation of many customers, gaining steady business and gradually developing an independent business entity; Eternal Prowess Chemical Industry Division was established (the forerunner of Force Tech,) focusing on the materials industry, providing excellent and stable materials to the outsole division in the group.

With the stabilization of the materials industry, the group continued to produce excellent products for customers and the business domain gradually expanded upstream and downstream, carrying out vertical integration, consequently, different divisions were successively established making transparent glue, EVA film, traditional insoles and injection molded insoles. All were based on the importance attached to and insistence on innovation of the founder and Yuan Shao-Ting. In 2011, in response to brand requirements, the central laboratory was established, helping with the development of more innovative materials, allowing production of more stable products to be maintained through laboratory sampling and testing.

At this time, Yuan Shao-Ting had bigger dreams for the future and, even though in a traditional industry, made every effort to upgrade automated equipment, moving towards Industry 4.0; he introduced an automated scale system to save on manpower, introduced BMI and ERP systems to improve the efficiency of decision-making and horizontal communication in the group and continued to implement change as the external environment continued to change. When there were strikes and increased labor costs and labor shortages in Vietnam, various automated equipment was used to increase production capacity and save on manpower costs, reducing the impact of manpower costs. He says in future robot arms automatic vehicle transport and other equipment will be introduced to keep up with the arrival AI era. With full equipment automation, more capacity data can be collected and used in future Big Data analysis, from the automation level rising to the digital management level.

Yuan Shao-Ting does not only have the foresight to take tradition industry to Industry 4.0, he also energetically takes on the group's Corporate Social Responsibility responsibilities. A company that began in southern Taiwan has not forgotten its roots, donating funds after the Kaohsiung gas explosion in 2014 to help with reconstruction. Attaching importance to arts activities, 2015-2016, Yongxin Elementary School's Wind Orchestra was sponsored and the expenses of a trip to Vietnam to perform by Youngsun Chorus were covered; also, the expenses of Taipei School in Ho Chi Minh City team's returning to Taiwan to take part in a futsal tournament were covered in 2017. Various internship programs have also been implemented with universities in Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and TAITRA to give young Taiwanese an opportunity to train in Vietnam. In the last few years, he has cooperated with Taiwanese chambers of commerce in Vietnam on various occasions to build the local medical system.

"The stronger the force, the quicker the response". Still full of a childlike confidence, Yuan Shao-Ting is always searching for the power to go forward in this force.