1 Title: To examine the success of Taiwan Foguangshan in the promotion of Humanistic Buddhism against modern promotion strategies. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS A) ABSTRACT B) INTRODUCTION C) LITERATURE REVIEW D) PROMOTION OF HUMANISTIC BUDDHISM BY MASTER XING YUN IN TAIWAN E) PROMOTION OF HUMANISTIC BUDDHISM BY MASTER XING YUN IN HONG KONG F) FOGUANGSHAN’S COMPLIANCE TO STRATEGIES G) SUMARRY OF FINDINGS H) REFERENCES TABLE OF FIGURES • FIGURE 1: FORMULATION OF COMPETITIVE STRATEGY • FIGURE 2: FORCES DRIVING COMPETITION • FIGURE 3: RED OCEAN STRATEGY VS BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY • FIGURE 4: BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY ACTION FRAME WORK • FIGURE 5: SUCESSFUL TAIWAN BUSINESS USING BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY 3 A) ABSTRACT Master Xing Yun of Foguangshan (FGS, Buddha Light Mountain) would no doubt be one of the most important Chinese monks in the development of Chinese Buddhism in recent times. Born in Zhejiang Province and moved to Taiwan in 1949 at the age of 23, Master Xing Yun was without money and connection. His only asset is the faith that Humanistic Buddhism can bring happiness to all living beings. Today Master Xing Yun operates a religious network consisting of temples, schools and universities, multi-media networks and charitable organisations with a total asset value estimated to be over US$5 Billion1. Much has been reported on Master Xing Yun’s Philosophy on Humanistic Buddhism, but report on the magical expansion of Master Xing Yun’s organisation from a promotion strategy point of view was lacking. This paper examined the success of FGS against modern promotion strategies. It was found that FGS’s success story is very much part of the Blue Ocean Strategy proposed by Harvard Professor W Chan Kim and practised by quite a number of other successful Taiwan Industries. 1 Madsen 2007, p61 4 B) INTRODUCTION Master Xing Yun, founder of the Foguangshan (FGS) operation, was born in Zhejiang Province in 1927 and joined Qixia Temple near Nanjing at the age of 12. He was ordained at 14 and started to study at Qiao Shan Buddhist College. He was influenced by Master Tai Xu’s initiation of Humanistic Buddhism at that time. Master Xing Yun became the principal of a Buddhist primary school for a short period after his graduation, before moving to Taiwan2. Master Xing Yun arrived in Taiwan in 1949 from Mainland China at the age of 23, without any money and connection. He was even briefly jailed by the Taiwanese government for suspected espionage. He started to promote Humanistic Buddhism since his arrival. Master Xing Yun believes that his practice of Buddhism should bring happiness, hope and convenience to his followers. He considers giving is a fateful coincidence (yuenfen). In his teachings, he reminds his followers that as long as there is faith, Buddha lives inside everyone’s own heart. He requires his followers to respect the Chinese tradition of close connection between family members3. Master Xing Yun grew in a chaotic period of the Chinese history. When he was a young monk, he has been accused by both the Communist Party and the KMT party of espionage at different times. His first effort to promote Buddhism on Taiwan Television was turned down by wife of the then President Chiang Kai-shek because she is a Christian. When he asked for the official registration of Foguangshan (Buddha’s Light Mountain FGS), it was delayed over ten years4. Master Xing Yun was born in a period when Master Tai Xu was proposing changes to the conventional preaching of Buddhism. Master Tai Xu (1889- 1947) was a very important monk in the history of modernisation of Chinese Buddhism because he proposed revolutionary change to the way how Buddhism is promoted in China. The system he used is called Humanistic Buddhism. He considered the direction of future Chinese Buddhism should be based on the salvation spirit embedded in the Mahayana Buddhism for the 2 Madsen 2007, p6 3 高希均 2016, p28 4 高希均 2016, p41 5 improvement of people’s livelihood5. For Master Xing Yun, he considers any teaching that helps to improve the wellbeing of people belongs to Humanistic Buddhism. Master Xing Yun’s approach on the promotion of Humanistic Buddhism is as follows: • Reach out to his followers under the love-merciful spirit of Mahayana Buddhism in various areas • Communicate and engage with other religions to ease the tension of competing for believers • Attract new followers by attending to their needs • Create new vision for the Humanistic Buddhism endeavours for his followers to participate. • Improve the internal and external training on operations and languages6 Under the direction of Master Xing Yun, FGS connects with the average people through the organisation of cultural, sport, musical and art related activities. FGS provide easy to read literatures so that people will be easier to access Buddhist philosophies. He educates his younger followers of piety to their parents and to involve themselves in social services. All such teaching was undertaken as part of Buddha’s love and mercifulness to all living beings. He believes such teachings of Humanistic Buddhism will bring confidence, happiness and hope. He encourages his followers to lead a reasonable economic life, social life and family life7. Today he has created the Foguangshan operation that comprises of Temple, Schools, and Universities both in Taiwan and in the US, Australia and a number of other locations. FGS also owns and operates a multi-media network which includes TV station, magazine, books publishing and journals8. 5 李友明 2000, p133 6 何建明 2006, p16-21 7 高希均 2016, p211 8 FGS website 6 The followers in Taiwan were estimated to be over 1 million. It also operates the Buddha’s Light International Association, which provides the Lay Buddhist a means to participate in the management of FGS affairs. It was estimated that the net worth of the FGS organisation would be over US$5 Billion9. The FGS operation consists of around 1,000 clergy and 1,000,000 believers. The hardware side of the network included temples, museums, libraries, publishers, hospitals, High schools, universities and welfare organisations10. My question is: Can the above phenomenal expansion be explained by any modern promotion strategies? 9 Madsen 2007, p61 10 Kuo 2008, p22 7 C) LITERATURE REVIEW To find out how successful organisations conduct their business and try to learn from them is always an interesting endeavour. This is why the book titled “In Search of excellency-lessons from America’s Best-run Companies” is till the overall best seller. The book was published in 1982 and was authored by T.J. Peters and R.H. Waterman Jr. During that time they are working for a management consultant called Mckinsey. The book tried to explore the art and science of management used by leading companies with records of long-term profitability and continuing innovation11. However, the book is also not short of its critics. While it included strategies of major companies that were still in the market today, it also included strategies of companies like Wang Lab that failed and collapsed after their interviews. For promotion strategies, we shall first review the work of Michael E. Porter and then the work of W. Chan Kim, both of which were associated with the Harvard Business School. Porter published his work on promotion strategies, or in Porter’s own words, competitive strategies in a series of books starting from the 1980s. A lot of the strategic planning techniques are still being used by big corporations today. Some of his key emphasis is differentiation and capture of market share. Because of globalization and development of internet as a communication system, the world is a closer place in terms of doing business. Professor Kim published his international best seller “Blue Ocean Strategy” through Harvard Business School Press in 2005. Professor Kim refers to the competitive strategy for capturing market share by differentiation and cost reduction as the Red Ocean Strategy, while the strategy he proposed would be called the Blue Ocean Strategy. He considers the Blue Ocean Strategy is a superior strategy because it creates uncontested market space for one’s product and makes the competition irrelevant12. We shall now walk through some of the above strategies. 11 Peters 1982, p26 12 Kim, 2005 p4 8 C.1) Strategy Strategy is a plan of action that will develop a business’s competitive advantage13. Developing a competitive strategy is to develop a broad formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be, and what policies will be needed to carry out those goals14. C.2) Red Ocean Strategy We shall now review the theory proposed by Porter in the formulation of the competitive strategies15. I. Relevant Factors in the formulation of Strategy Two sets of factors will be vital to the formulation of an organization’s strategy. The first one is factors internal to the company; it consists of the strength and weakness of the company and the personal values of the key implementers. The second one is factors external to the company; it includes the opportunities and threats, and the societal expectations in the industry. These factors must be considered before a business can develop a realistic and implementable set of strategies. The relationship is depicted in Figure 1. II. The Driving Forces As pointed out by Porter, the essence of formulating competitive strategy is relating a company to its environment. Although the relevant environment is very broad, encompassing social as well as economic forces, the key aspect of the firm’s environment is the industry in which it competes. The state of competition in an industry depends on five basic competitive forces, i.e.