• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.185-197
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• 2012

Caffe Bene, one of the most notable coffeehouse chain brands in Republic of Korea, gives us some thought-provoking issues in terms of sustainable success. Despite harsh competition among various coffeehouse brands, Caffe Bene has been accomplished astonishing outcomes in domestic market and now ranked 2^nd place in sales among the global coffeehouse franchise in 2010 and 2011. These achievements were possible mainly because Caffe Bene adopted distinctive shop design, maintained aggressive marketing strategy, developed new menu, and combined the unique Korean culture with ordinary concept of café to make its place attractive. However, since Korean coffeehouse market is getting saturated and consumers are becoming savvy about coffee, Caffe Bene needs to find a new solution to overcome growth stagnation. Besides, many experts pointed out that irrational increase in the number of stores might hurt its business in the aspect of managing distribution channel and providing consistent services. Also, customers of Caffe Bene have shown that it has to complement its critical weaknesses: inferior coffee taste and relatively high price for a cup of coffee. Especially, some people view that the company is shifting its high rental fee, interior cost and PPL marketing cost to consumers by charging high price for coffee. To get over the problems, Caffe Bene is currently using C/S Consumer Management System though experts are questioning about the efficacy because of the conflict between purpose of the system and the headquarters' plan. Present CEO Kim also announced that the company will complete its logistics system in the latter half of 2012 to provide stores with more high quality coffee beans to improve taste of coffee. Thus, in this case, we describe how Caffe Bene succeeded in Korean market and enumerate its key success factors. Also, we specify the long-term goals of Caffe Bene and introduce the current policies and strategies to show how the company is working on to achieve its ultimate goal. By reading and analyzing this business case, students could get useful insights regarding franchise management and think about issues on competing in a saturated market. Also, it would be worthwhile to generate creative solutions for the problems that Caffe Bene is now facing to broaden the practical perspective.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.5-13
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• 2011

This study provides analysis of the effectiveness of domestic marketing strategies of the Korean coffee shop "Caffe Bene". It bases its evaluation on statistical outputs of 'choice attributes,' "market segmentation," demographic characteristics," and "satisfaction differences." The results are summarized in four points. First, five choice attributes were extracted from factor analysis: price, atmosphere, comfort, taste, and location; these are related to coffee shop selection behavior. Based on these five factors, cluster analysis was conducted, with statistical results classifying customers into three major groups: atmosphere oriented; comfort oriented; and taste oriented. Second, discriminant analysis tested cluster analysis and showed two discriminant functions: location and atmosphere. Third, cross-tabulation analysis based on demographic characteristics showed distinctive demographic characteristics within the three groups. Atmosphere oriented group, early-20s, as women of all ages was found to be 'walking down the street 'and 'through acquaintances' in many cases, as the cognitive path, and mostly found the store through 'outdoor advertising', and 'introduction'. Comfort oriented group was mainly women who are students in their early twenties or professionals, and appeared as a group to be very loyal because of high recommendation to other customers compared to other groups. Taste oriented group, unlike the other group, was mainly late-20s' college graduates, and was confirmed, as low loyalty, with lower recommendation activity. Fourth, to analyze satisfaction differences, one-way ANOVA was conducted. It shows that groups which show high satisfaction in the five main factors also show high menu satisfaction and high overall satisfaction. This results show that segmented marketing strategies are necessary because customers are considering price, atmosphere, comfort, taste, location when they choose coffee shop and demographics show different attributes based on segmented groups. For example, atmosphere oriented group is satisfied with shop interior and comfort while dissatisfied with price because most of the customers in this group are early 20s and do not have great financial capability. Thus, price discounting marketing strategies based on individual situations through CRM system is critical. Comfort oriented group shows high satisfaction level about location and shop comfort. Also, in this group, there are many early 20s female customers, students, and self-employed people. This group customers show high word of mouth tendency, hence providing positive brand image to the customers would be important. In case of taste oriented group, while the scores of taste and location are high, word of mouth score is low. This group is mainly composed of educated and professional many late 20s customers, therefore, menu differentiation, increasing quality of coffee taste and price discrimination is critical to increase customers' satisfaction. However, it is hard to generalize the results of study to other coffee shop brand, because this study have researched only one domestic coffee shop, Caffe Bene. Thus if future study expand the scope of locations, brands, and occupations, the results of the study would provide more generalizable results. Finally, research of customer satisfactions of menu, trust, loyalty, and switching cost would be critical in the future study.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.39-54
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• 2012

Franchise system in Korea has been developed in different way compared with American way of franchising based on mutual contract and intellectual property context. Korean franchising is mostly based on product distribution franchise concept rather than business format franchise in which franchisor makes revenue sources from providing their products as much as possible thru group purchasing and logistics rather than receiving royalty. Many franchise enterprises from Korea drive to enter into global franchise market based on the successful performance of Korean way of franchising. Korean enterprises are required to prepare completely for research and survey regarding local culture, custom, way of life and legal matters etc. when entering into global franchise market to gain a substantial performance. CaffeBene recently entered into American franchise business with success, and many other Korean franchise enterprises have a deep interest in proceeding with global franchise business modeling CaffeBene case. There is no Korean franchise enterprise in United Kingdom in which service franchise area in particular with personal service is considered to become a promising and potential franchise business and many people show a great interest in Oriental foods and beverages with well-being trend. Korean franchise enterprises have now access to United Kingdom easier because IT industry including internet of the country have been developed by leaps and bounds since London Olympic in 2012. The purpose of this study is to suggest key success factors and basic strategy such as situation analysis, selecting business format, and marketing strategy for successful launching of franchise business in United Kingdom.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.346-357
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• 2012

This study classified the various quality features of coffee shop by Kano model with customers' perspective. Also both satisfaction coefficient and dissatisfaction coefficient are calculated to analyse the relative influence of quality features on customer satisfaction. This study also dragged the potential customer satisfaction improvement index to scrutinize the quality improvement possibility for coffee shops. The analysis results showed that low price, luxurious interior, restfulness of table and chair, usability of wireless internet are belonged to the Attractive quality. On the other hand, cleanliness and hygiene, quality to price are identified as the One-dimensional quality. The current satisfaction level for both 'Caffe Bene' and 'Starbucks' are measured to draw the potential customer satisfaction improvement index. The result showed that low price and quality to price appeared to be the highest in its quality improvement possibility. The findings of this study help understanding the quality features to focus on and strengthening the competitiveness for coffee shops.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.37-51
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• 2016

The purposes of this study were (1) to investigate the important selection attributes of coffee brands and the relative positions of major coffee brands on the positioning map through similarities and preferences of coffee brands that customers perceive and (2) to provide Korean coffee brands with strategic information about how to differentiate themselves from existing competitors in the Chinese market. A total of 268 samples were used for data analysis that comprised frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, ALSCAL, and regression analysis. The results showed that among 8 coffee brand selection attributes the most important was atmosphere, followed by cleanness and sanitary condition, and convenient location and transportation. Friendly service, taste of coffee, price and variety of menu were next and brand was the least important among 8 selection attributes. The results of positioning map showed that Maan Coffee was evaluated the highest iin atmosphere, cleanness and sanitary condition, and convenient location and transportation compared to other coffee brands. Marketing strategies for Korean coffee franchisers (Angel-in-us Coffee and Caffe Bene) were provided for successful repositioning in the Beijing coffee market.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.33-43
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• 2017

Purpose - Previous studies about corporate image generally explore how corporate image affects a company's effectiveness from the consumer view. However this study attempts to explore the impacts of corporate image (reliability, friendly, corporate social responsibility, and innovation) on employees' altruistic behaviors in the franchise industry context. This study also examine whether organizational trust and affective commitment play a mediating role in the relationship between corporate image and employees' altruistic behaviors. The authors developed several hypotheses to achieve these purposes. Research design, data, and methodology - The data were collected from employees in food-service franchise companies located in Seoul, Korea. Among a total of 363 questionnaires distributed, 294(response rate of 81%) questionnaires were returned. After excluding 18 invalid respondent questionnaires, 276 valid questionnaires(response rate of 76%) were coded and analyzed using frequency, confirmatory factor analysis, correlations analysis, and structural equation modeling with SPSS 21 and SmartPLS 3.0. Result - The findings of the study are as follows: First, friendly, CSR, and innovation had positive effects on organizational trust, but reliability did not have a significant effect on organizational trust. Second, reliability and friendly of corporate image had positive effects on affective commitment, but CSR and innovation did have a significant effect on affective commitment. Third, organizational trust and affective commitment had positive effects on employees' altruistic behaviors. Conclusions - The aim of this study is to investigate the franchise corporate image as a significant influencing factor of employees' altruistic behaviors. The data were collected from only employees from franchising companies. The findings might vary from position to position. Future studies need to collect and compare data from managers. Future studies need to consider other variables that affect employees' altruistic behaviors. For example, leadership and market orientation might influence employees' attitude and behaviors. Also, future research should include other variables and it may have limitations in sample representative because of sampling franchise corporate in Seoul. Future studies will include franchise corporate all over the country. Future studies can also consider other variables (e.g., job performance and turnover intentions) to measure employee performance at the level of individuals and identify the impact of employee performance on business performance at the level of corporate.