Emerging Risks & Response Strategies

The Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is a vital key to an effective corporate management efficiency to ensure operational continuity. For a constant management of the risks with potential impacts on CHT operation, product, and services, Chunghwa Telecom relentlessly establishes a corporate culture of discovery, management, as well as prevention and mitigation of risks by all personnel to ensure business stability and a sustainable operation.

Emerging Risk 1

Emerging Risk 2

Name Geopolitical Differences Heighten Conflict Risks, making Taiwan a Communications Isolation Island Taiwan's Aging Population and Low Birth Rate Challenge in the Recruitment of Emerging Tech Talent
Description The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war and Israel-Palestine Conflict has triggered increased international geopolitical risks. Taiwan is also vulnerable in terms of geopolitics, with the potential risk of war. Chunghwa Telecom is the main communication infrastructure service provider in Taiwan. Under the geopolitical impact, Taiwan's foundational communication infrastructure is at risk of damage, which also raises the possibility of Taiwan becoming a communication isolation island, thereby affecting the operations and services of Chunghwa Telecom. 5G and AI are expected to be the mainstream emerging innovative technologies in the next decade. The talents of the said emerging technologies may be employed by companies worldwide through remote working, hybrid working, or other work styles. An outflux of talents from Taiwan is observed for there are competitors from not just domestic companies but also multinational corporations. Taiwan's population trend of aging society and low birthrate is leading to a worsening talent supply year by year, exacerbating the competition for talents. Meanwhile, domestic and multinational companies are attracting brilliant talents with diverse workplace models and generous compensation packages, posing a serious threat to the Company in recruiting and retaining talents for emerging technologies.
Impact At present, most of the multinational organizations investing in Taiwan and domestic listed companies are the corporate clients of Chunghwa Telecom. The geopolitical risks pose impacts as follows:
  1. It is necessary for Chunghwa Telecom to invest more to enhance network resilience, resulting in higher construction costs, along with rising operating costs due to geopolitics and wars worldwide.
  2. The cost and downtime associated with repairing critical communication infrastructure will lead to significant losses for the Company.
  3. Geopolitical risks may lead to reduced investments and business operations of foreign and domestic enterprises in Taiwan, thereby affecting the revenues of CHT.
  4. Cyberattacks and digital warfare arising from geopolitics result in cybersecurity issues and incur losses.
The operational strategy of Chunghwa Telecom is to develop emerging businesses such as cloud, AI, IoT, cybersecurity, etc. Also, to cope with the massive retirement of employees, it is necessary to acquire a large number of talents in the emerging technologies. The failure to improve the attractiveness to emerging technical talents shall lead to the following impacts on Chunghwa Telecom, which in turn will affect the profitability and impact the sustainable business of the Company.
  1. The AI talent shortage will hinder the corporate development of the next business growth driver (e.g., AI service development), which will in turn affect the revenue and profitability of the Company in the medium- and long-term overall. In addition, the difficulty in use of AI technology to improve the performance of network services will hinder the improvement of operational efficiency.
  2. The cybersecurity and privacy protection demands an extensive application of technologies related to emerging technologies. AI technology also brings about misinformation/disinformation. Without relevant professionals to manage and protect data, the Company may suffer reputational damage due to negative cybersecurity incidents.
Mitigating actions To mitigate the communication disruptions brought by geopolitical risks and prevent Taiwan from becoming a communication lone island, CHT has implemented measures as follows to reduce the impacts:
  1. Infrastructure/network resilience improvement:Network vulnerabilities check, emergency backup design enhancements, redundant rerouting with multiple marine cables, and using microwaves and satellite communications as the second and third lines of defense. .
  2. Use emerging technologies to maintain network security:Strengthening network resiliency and improvement of overall network reliability through combining with big data, smart network management and emerging technologies. .
  3. Regular exercises/ protection plans: Participation in the annual “National CIP Designated Exercise for Critical Infrastructure” of the government in Taiwan to coordinate with military and police to deploy a comprehensive response plan for new types of hybrid attacks, with robust preventive measures, excellent network synergy, and rapid horizontal communication, effectively reducing the impacts and losses brought by disasters.
To recruit, draw, and retain outstanding workforce, including AI talents and emerging talents, the Company designed well-rounded talent recruitment, cultivation, and retention:
Talent Recruitment:
  1. Diverse means to talent acquisition, including job banks, agile permanent job postings on corporate website, and campus recruitment, along with industry-academia collaboration programs with schools, to preemptively secure students as talents upon graduation
  2. Use of social media, website image, and various ESG-related awards to cultivate the employer brand
Talent Cultivation:
  1. Tailored talent training program, e.g. on-the-job training, short-term development, and retiree rehire for education.
  2. Providing reward directions for secondary function programs and certifications for relevant works, supporting employees to cultivate multiple expertise for career development
Talent Retention:
Design of incentives and benefits better than the industrial standards, e.g. flexible work hours and locations; provision of childcare benefits better than the statutory standards, among other benefit package; ESOT promotion for employees to become shareholders of the Company.
 
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