*4.1. Description of the Problem*

The case company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of electronics. Its products include energy-saving equipment, hardware for automation facilities and ICT infrastructure. The company has long been concerned with environmental protection, so continues to develop innovative energy-saving products and solutions and constantly strives to improve the energy conversion efficiency of its products. Headquartered in Taiwan, it is committed to innovation and research and development. It has locations all over the world including China, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Europe. It has 175 operating locations, 37 production locations and 69 research and development centers.

In March 2018, US President Trump signed the "Section 301 Investigation" officially launching the China-US trade war, which has caused a lot of turbulence and had a major impact on manufacturing in Asia and around the world [61]. Shocked companies have had to consider countermeasures in advance, to strategically adjust the layout of their global supply chain, speed up automation, accelerate mergers and acquisitions and supply chain transfers and strengthen cross-border management capabilities in order to reduce the negative impact of trade friction [62]. The major production lines of the case company have been heavily influenced by the impact of international economics and trade. To respond to the rapidly changing international trade situation and keep its core competitive advantage, the company set up a relevant project working group to conduct an evaluation and selection of possible transfer locations. The company has some experience and certain standards for the evaluation of such locations. First, global competitiveness indexes were used to evaluate the possible alternatives. After several rounds of discussion and field surveys, five potential locations for final decision were made, which included Croatia (HRV), India (IND), Taiwan (TWN), Uganda (UGA) and Vietnam (VNM). The company is now faced with how to make the choice of a new location that will affect the business performance of the enterprise and ultimately whether development can be sustained. It should be noted that the selected five possible locations were based on the needs of the case company. The other company might have other alternatives due to their specified requirements and operational environments.
