This month E-BI is celebrating 20 years of business. It is a great opportunity to look back on where we have been and what we have accomplished since 1999, and to look forward to where we are headed in the future. Most of all it’s a chance to thank our customers, professional network, and partners like you that have helped make our first 20 years a success.
Most of you likely know E-BI as a global contract manufacturing solution. To E-BI’s founder, president, and CEO, Dr. George Wang, the company’s core value is simply to help clients worldwide to achieve their dream of engineering and manufacturing their product(s). Over the last 20 years, Dr. Wang and his team have succeeded in making countless product ideas a reality. But the real gift is seeing the success of each product and the impact is has made on the lives of our clients.
“We want to help clients to build their products with the best specialists worldwide. American quality with China price and speed,” George has said. 
Before E-BI came to be what it is today, George worked through many ideas. In the late 1980’s, he earned his Ph.D. in Electronics Physics and Electronics Engineering from the distinguished Tsinghua University in Beijing. Upon graduation he worked as a business manager for AT&T in Beijing, but he always had greater aspirations. It wasn’t long until Dr. Wang found the opportunity to come to the U.S.
“Everyone wanted to come to the U.S. for their dreams. You wanted to see [the view] from the top of the world,” says Dr. Wang.
In the U.S. he began working as a scientist and engineer. He did research, development, and engineering, mostly focused on semi-conductors and new product development. Along the way he co-founded a company that aimed to build and distribute home intelligence control systems. However, the project proved to be extremely time consuming and impossible for just a couple of guys to manage. Not to mention that after years of building the product’s software, it cost so much that nobody could afford it.
This is when the idea to manufacture in China emerged. George knew it would be cheaper and more beneficial to manufacture in China, but still the accessibility to China’s manufacturing infrastructure seemed limited and difficult for young companies to navigate. How would they know where to start? Especially without being physically present in the country. The idea of helping others figure out how to manufacture overseas quickly became a main focus.
And it couldn’t have been better timing for an idea like that. In the late 90’s the internet was really growing and George realized he could utilize it to create a portal in which factories in China could pay a membership fee to have their services, processes, and type of products they could make listed. So he started out using one of his bedrooms at home as his office and hired a small team in China to go into factories and gather information for the website (the same business model as Alibaba).
“I didn’t really have any fear [about starting the business], it was all excitement about what the future holds and what we can turn this into” George said. “The excitement really took over any other emotion. If it’s not for excitement, you wouldn’t do it. It over takes everything else. It’s a really great feeling helping clients achieve great value.”
And thus E-Business International was born!—and during a time when electronics and the internet was on the rise and everything was “E” this or that, which is how the name E-Business came to be. In 1999 after gaining some investors, E-Business was able to move into a small office. The office building in Shenzhen was conveniently chosen due to the fact that China Telecom was down the street and DHL internet could be obtained, key in making the business work.
One fundamental thing Dr. Wang learned from starting E-BI is that while a great idea may come to you relatively easily, it takes years and years of hard work and dedication to execute it and make it become a reality. But if you have the excitement, it is worth it. The more you practice something, the more you will learn. If you don’t practice, that piece of knowledge will never be a part of you.
Of course over the last 20 years things have changed and expanded, but George and his team still hold onto the values that started E-BI in the first place.
“Focusing on customer value is the number one thing. If the customer believes in that value, you will get paid for that work,” George explains. That’s why he believes strongly in having a higher goal, a persuasion. “I also like the wide variety of challenge in the 14 dimensions. That makes me very excited. That’s the personal side,” he continues, referencing the mix of 14 elements he has found that lead to supply chain success.
At E-BI we are constantly adapting to different types of customer needs, different types of products, solutions, and industries, which can be a challenge. But by working together and following the PCPC rule (proactive, cooperative, positive, creative), as George calls it, we find things that connect us and allow us to be successful.
For the future, George envisions E-BI as an international brand name that clients will reach out to for best fit resources worldwide. One that continues to change and adapt to the changing needs of our customers because as he puts it, “adapting and changing is the gene of a good business model”. He hopes that when people need their ideas to be delivered, they think of E-BI. Not just for the company’s sake, but because he truly believes in the value E-BI can bring to clients. The company has already begun to expand beyond China, the start to creating the truly global company George envisions. In the future we hope to have the supply chain in place to be able to go to whichever country or place that is the best, fastest, lowest price solution for each project in order to help customers realize their dreams.
He’s not saying it will be easy, but it will be worth it.