46 one in 1991 to 14 in 1996. Firm-wide R &D has benefited substantially from the Singapore input on issues relating to stress and testing. Very recently, TI entered into TECH Semiconductor, a joint-venture wafer-fabrication plant which produces state-of-the-art DRAMs for worldwide sale.
TECH has already generated a
substantial amount of new technology information that has directly benefited TI's other waferfabrication plants in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Moreover, TECH has been able to undertake
investments that otherwise would not have been possible and that should lay the foundation for future firm-wide advantages. In addition to these firm-wide research and development gains, TI's Singapore presence has also helped TI gain access to the wider Asian market by helping establish brand-name recognition. As Asian economies have grown very rapidly, this recognition of the TI name helped the firm gain market share in many countries. During the 1990s, TI's net revenue in Asia has grown at an average annual rate of 30 percent for its non-MosMemory businesses. An important part of this growth has been TI's ability to provide quality support and service to customers in personal computers, disk drives, and telecommunications. Revenue growth in this area has averaged 42 percent per year. Case Study: 3M Company This case study demonstrates the importance both of host-market services to support domestic manufacturing and of proximity to market. Headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, 3M produces a large and continually evolving range of technologies and products. For example, it currently offers more than 900 varieties of tape alone. In 1996, 29 percent of its revenue came from products invented within the past four years. 3M also generates an extremely large amount of foreign sales. In 1996, sales in countries outside the United States totaled $7.6 billion, 53 percent of the firm’s total. The volume and range of these international activities complement 3M’s U.S. operations in at least three important ways. First they require extensive sales and technical support staff in foreign countries to generate the sales. Second, they require extensive investments in warehousing and distribution facilities in the foreign markets to ensure that customer service requirements are met.