eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

Objectives of the Study

Along with the Chinese market growth and reforming, the Chinese consumers behaviors have changed as well. In order to follow the pace, many smaller and medium sized companies, which are interested entering or expanding market, have been studying this phenomenon. In particular, some of these companies struggle with their market access methods. Therefore, this thesis aims to solve case company's practical problem of expanding the market share and retain customers. The thesis results are collected through analyzing the factors and combing relevant theories. Ultimately, the thesis would draw a general results that can apply to similar cases.

Academic background and methodology

In this thesis, the author used three theories: 1) Supply Chain Management (SCM) framework, 2) Channel management and 3) 5 Port force analysis. The SCM framework analysis draws the overall blueprint for case company, including the external relationships among suppliers, distributors and customers; in addition, SCM framework indicates the impacts of different players towards case company. The channel management analysis comes into the core of the dilemma of case company - sales channel optimization. Combine the practical problems of case company, channel analysis introduces the selection method that can be implied on case company. The channel management also brings the potential risks and opportunities when choosing the channels. Last but not the least, the 5 port force analysis assists the theories to enrich the evidences of supporting. The methodology is conducted in qualitative methods. As for the data collection, the techniques include benchmarking interviews, individual interviews, and case studies.

Findings and conclusions

The findings and conclusions are divided into two parts: 1) findings and 2) contributions. The key findings are, competitiveness assessment is critical for profitability, business process should be leveled in terms of significance and right channel selection is critical for improving sales performance. As for theoretical contribution, this studies includes three different main theories along with the supporting studies to thoroughly analyze the case company, draw relevant conclusions and make a prototype for similar cases. As for the managerial implications, this studies draws separate suggestion plans from supply chain management and sales channel management perspective.