| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 政治經濟研究所 === 104 === SUMMERY
Taiwan’s functional textile manufacturers have been devoting to the innovations on R＆D and technology, and thus obtain the competitive advantages attributed to the left end of the Smiling Curve. In fact, since 2006 Taiwan’s government has executed the policy “Branding Taiwan” to encourage and assist those manufacturers to build their own brands. However, there is only one manufacturer participating in this project and a few of them established own brands. The rest of the manufacturers maintain as the functional textile suppliers. The objective of this research is thus to study on the role and effects of “Branding Taiwan” on the development of those high-tech manufacturers.
The research utilizes case study as the approach to investigate the role of policy “Branding Taiwan”. The data was mainly collected by semi-structured interview with four selected functional textile manufacturers; those datum were analyzed and compared in a theoretical comparative approach. The research finds that those manufacturers who built own brands didn’t grasp the brand management capabilities. The policy didn’t take effect because the policy information was not efficiently conveyed and the design of development strategy was not attractive to manufacturers. As for those manufacturers who maintain ODM operation model was impeded by the long-term business model/ mindset and threats from international buyers, for which the policy didn’t design any strategy to overcome. Further, the policy reinforces the role of Taiwan’s textile manufacturers as suppliers. In conclusion, the policy “Branding Taiwan” couldn’t encourage neither assist manufacturers to successfully transform into OBM operation mode.
Key words: Branding Taiwan, Functional Textiles, OBM, Smiling Curve
INTRODUCTION
The market competition grows more and more fierce, and so does the competition among brand operators and manufacturers.Taiwan’s functional textile manufacturers have been devoting to the innovations on R＆D and technology, and thus obtain the competitive advantages attributed to the left end of the Smiling Curve. Mr. Shih has pointed out that enterprises can only sustain its long-term advantages by mastering in R＆D as well as brand and marketing. In fact, since 2006 Taiwan’s government has executed the policy “Branding Taiwan” to encourage and assist those manufacturers to build their own brands as well as to promote Taiwan’s industry image. However, there is only one manufacturer participating in this project and a few of them established own brands. The rest of the manufacturers maintain as the functional textile suppliers. The objective of this research is thus to study on the role and effects of “Branding Taiwan” on the development of those high-tech manufacturers.
The study reviewed related literatures on brand, establishment of own brand, and brand policy. Those literatures indicate that the factors for successful establishment of own brand are the grasp of precise brand position, marketing strategy, and channel strategy; the role of brand policy is through appropriate design of implementation architecture and development strategy to assist enterprises to overcome the impediments and obtain the brand management capabilities. The research utilizes case study as the main approach to investigate the role of policy “Branding Taiwan”. The data was majorly collected by semi-structured interview with four selected functional textile manufacturers; those datum were analyzed and compared in a theoretical comparative approach. The research finds that those manufacturers who built own brands didn’t grasp the brand management capabilities. The policy didn’t take effect because the policy information was not efficiently conveyed and the design of development strategy was not attractive to manufacturers. As for those manufacturers who maintain ODM operation model was impeded by the long-term business model/ mindset and threats from international buyers, for which the policy didn’t design any strategy to overcome. In conclusion, the policy “Branding Taiwan” couldn’t encourage neither assist manufacturers to successfully transform into OBM operation model.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study mainly adopts the theoretical perspective from “Smiling Curve” asserted by Mr. Shih. It indicates that enterprises must devote to R＆D as well as brand and marketing to sustain its long-term benefits and competitive advantages. Thus, the study further establish a research construct based on those brand-related literature review and utilizes case study approach to investigate the role and effects of “Branding Taiwan”on four selected functional textile manufacturers. Theses four enterprises were chosen for their own high-tech textile technology and were interviewed with a semi-structural questionnaire, which lasted at least 30 minutes for each interviewee. The questionnaire design was separated into two parts: one for the manufacturers who built their own brands, and the other for the manufacturers who maintain the ODM operation mode. Furthermore, other documents were also collected to understand the background of each manufacturer and operation of the brand policy, such as government’s related publications or reports of “Branding Taiwan”, enterprises’ own publication/ websites, newspapers or magazines and etc. Finally, the datum collected were analyzed in a theoretical comparative approach to observe whether brand policy can function as an assistance for those manufacturers to successfully transform into OBM operation mode.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The research findings can be separated into two groups: manufacturers who devote into OBM mode and manufacturers who maintain ODM mode. In the former group, the enterprises determined to establish their own brands on account of the consideration over the future sources of profits and even expected that their brands would bring more textile orders from international buyers. In fact, those companies couldn’t comprehensively master in brand position, marketing strategy and channel strategy because they lacked brand expertise and sufficient capital. However, “Branding Taiwan” didn’t support their development of own brands because of the following reasons. First, the policy information was so inactively conveyed that the companies couldn’t grasp all the resources provided by the government. Second, due to the aimlessly-designed policy measures, the enterprises weren’t confident in it. For instance, the matched consultant company, charged fee and other supporting projects were all unclear to the companies. In the latter group, the enterprises determined to maintain the ODM operation mode for being accustomed to the past management pattern and afraid of threats from international buyers once they developed their own brands. “Branding Taiwan” couldn’t encourage those companies for lack of strategy that helps them overcome the impediment from international buyers. However, “Branding Taiwan” along with the “Excellence Taiwan”, a reward held annually by Ministry of Economy under the project of “Branding Taiwan”, actually encouraged and supported the development of B2B textile brand of manufacturer, which reinforced the role of functional textile manufacturer as the textile supplier.
CONCLUSION
The study mainly holds that due to the inappropriate design of the implementation and strategy of “Branding Taiwan”, the enterprises were not clearly aware of and not attracted to the details of this policy and thus couldn’t garner any assistance to improve the their brand operations. On the other hand, due to the lack of integration mechanism among several major policies and projects, the enterprises tended to apply for policies which subsidize their activities in R＆D and innovations rather than activities in brand and marketing for own brand (in B2C market). “Branding Taiwan” instead assisted B2B textile brand in international marketing and channel expansion and thus reinforced the role of Taiwan’s manufacturers as textile suppliers. Therefore, the study plays a critical role in identifying the urgent need for rearrangement of policy’ implementation architecture and strategy to adjust the mindsets of CEOs in enterprises, overcome the threats from international buyers, and attract those companies to actively participate in this project. Furthermore, the study found that clothing design is another crucial factor for successful brand operation especially for textile and apparel industry, and therefore there is also a need for government to cultivate more talents of clothing design.
Furthermore, the study made a contribution to the existed theory: brand policy can function as a factor for inspecting and explaining its role in assisting enterprises in the process of comprehensively mastering in two ends of Smiling Curve, as previous literature has pointed out there are a lot of impediments on manufacturers’ transformation into OBM business model. Nonetheless, on account of the limit by time and places, the exploratory study can only conducted researches on outstanding textile manufacturers first who own capabilities on high-tech and innovations, and thus ignore other small-medium enterprises’ performances and interactions with brand policy. Hence, the future researches may go deep into the field by examining more enterprises of the same industry or applied the research construct the study has established to other industries.
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