• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.173-178
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• 2010

A privately held, third generation family owned company, Boom Technologies, Inc. (BTI), a provider of products and services to the electric utility, telecommunications and contractor markets, continues to make progress in exporting. Although export sales only equaled 5% of total revenue in 2008, BTI has an entire export division. Their export division's Managing Director reveals the trial and errors of a privately held company and their quest for success overseas. From its inception, BTI has always believed its greatest asset is its employees. When export sales struggled due to lack of strategy and direction, BTI hired a Managing Director for its export division. With leadership and guidance from BTI's president and from the Managing Director, they utilized the department's skills and knowledge. Structural changes were made to expand their market presence abroad and increase export sales. As a result, export sales increased four-fold, area managers in new countries were added and distribution networks were successfully cultivated. At times, revenue generation was difficult to determine due to the structure of the company. Therefore, in 1996, the export division was restructured as a limited liability company. This allowed the company to improve the tracking of revenue and expenses. Originally, 80% of BTI's export sales came from two countries; therefore, the initial approach to selling overseas was not reaching their anticipated goals of expanding their foreign market presence. However, changes were made and now the company manages the details of selling to over 80 countries. There were three major export expansion challenges noted by the Managing Director: 1. Product and Shipping - The major obstacle for BTI was product assembly. Originally, the majority of the product was assembled in the United States, which increased shipping and packaging costs. With so many parts specified in the order, many times the order would arrive with parts missing. The missing parts could equate to tens of thousands of dollars. Shipping these missing parts separately in another shipment also cost tens of thousands of dollar, plus a delivery delay time of six to eight weeks; all of which came out of the BTI's pockets. 2. Product Adaptation - Safety and product standards varied widely for each of the 80 countries to which BTI exported. Weights, special licenses, product specification requirements, measurement systems, and truck stability can all differ from country to country and can serve as a type of barrier to entry, making it difficult to adapt products accordingly. Technical and safety standards are barriers that serve as a type of protection for the local industry and can stand in the way of successfully pursuing foreign markets. 3. Marketing Challenges - The importance of distribution creates many challenges for BTI as they attempt to determine how each country prefers to operate with regard to their distribution systems. Some countries have competition from a small competitor that only produces one competing product; whereas BTI manufactures over 100 products. Marketing material is another concern for BTI as they attempt to push marketing costs to the distributors. Adapting the marketing material can be costly in terms of translation and cultural differences. In addition, the size of paper in the United States differs from those in some countries, causing many problems when attempting to copy the same layout and With distribution being one of several challenges for BTI, the company claims their distribution network is one of their competitive advantages, as the location and names of their distributors are not revealed. In addition, BTI rotates two offerings yearly: training to their distributors one year and then the next is a distributor's meeting. With a focus on product and shipping, product adaptation, and marketing challenges, the intricacies of selling overseas takes time and patience. Another competitive advantage noted is BTI's cradle to grave strategy, where they follow the product from sale to its final resting place, whether the truck is leased or purchased new or used. They also offer service and maintenance plans with a detailed cost analysis provided to the company prior to purchasing or leasing the product. Expanding abroad will always create challenges for a company. As the Managing Director stated, "If you don't have patience (in the export business), you better do something else." Knowing how to adapt quickly provides BTI with the skills necessary to adjust to the changing needs of each country and its own unique challenges, allowing them to remain competitive.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.9-21
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to identify the current situation and actual condition of the video security industry, The research method was based on interviews with twelve specialists, and examined the market trends, the problems of the video security industry, the improvement plan and the government promotion strategy. The problem with the domestic video security industry is that there are the decline in overseas exports and the slowdown in exports to China, insufficient measures to overcome certification barriers due to the strengthening of national certification system, domestic demand growth slowed, expansion of domestic market share of Chinese products, lack of high-tech development of domestic products, lack of expertise in technology development and operation and inadequate legislation for revitalizing the video security industry. The improvement plan is as follows. Need to implement export expansion support policy, need to build tailored response system for each country, need improvement of security related demand creation system, take measures such as domestic industrial protection policy, certification barriers and tariff barriers, induce future core technology to create high added value. The government also needs to actively support human resources development, and induce stabilization of relevant laws and institutions. This study will contribute to the development of related industries by suggesting the development direction of the video security industry.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.235-243
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• 2015

Recently, due to the spread of the Korean Wave, as worldwide interest in Korean culture and the appearance of Korean celebrities increases, overseas expansion of Korean beauty companies have been activated. Despite the global economic downturn, Beauty Industry is continuing to grow, Korea's growth rate is remarkable level. Despite this growth in order to maintain a steady growth since the beauty industry is small and polarization based on the Beauty-IT Convergence Technology creates new markets, that require development of Beauty-IT Convergence Industry. For the status and prospects of the Beauty Industry, some research has been carried out, not all the studies carried out so far for Beauty-IT Convergence Industry. Therefore, this study is significant that Beauty-IT Convergence Industry's first research. The global Beauty-IT Convergence Industry is at the beginning yet, tThe government selected research topics of Top-Down approach to Beauty-IT Convergence technology, granted extra points, supported by establishing long-term Technology Roadmap as other industries, such as by establishing a global market strategy for the systematic occupation and promising technology development planWe will get focused training.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.3-23
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• 2017

With the globalization of the world economy, international trade networks are expanding beyond geographical proximity, and the expansion of such trade networks is playing a role in promoting globalization. Korea has established itself as a strong FTA for the past 13 years, starting with the Korea-Chile FTA. Successful establishment of a short-term FTA network has shown positive economic effects such as increased trade volume with partner countries and market share in overseas markets. Other countries are also turning to the paradigm of economic development through the formation of a regional economic integration and a bilateral trade agreement network, and it is time to investigate new opportunities through understanding the entire RTA and FTA network. In this study, we analyzed the status of RTA and FTA from the 1960s to 2010s, analyzed network structure and centrality through SNA(social network analysis). The results of the study show that the structure of the FTA network is gradually expanding, and the FTA network, which has been expanding to the center of the early European countries, is changing toward the Asian countries such as Korea, China and Japan. As a result of the analysis of the degree of centrality, Korea was ranked as the top in all the degree of centrality(Degree, Betweenness, Closeness and Eigenvector) indicators for a short period of time and it means that Korea's FTA strategy was evaluated as very successful. This study examines the FTA among the global RTAs, assesses the structure of the FTAs and evaluates Korea's FTA strategies and the FTA network from a network perspective.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.78-90
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• 2016

The contents industry is usually divided into the movie industry, music industry, drama industry and the online digital industry. In Korean contents industry, since mid-1990s CJ E&M (Entertainment and Media) has implemented and continued experimental attempts in order to expand the hallyu contents. On basis of a theoretical background, I designed a case study to investigate the mechanism how the CJ E&M's strategy influences on hallyu growth. This study categorized the strategic direction into two key factors: digital business and glocal (global + local) contents production. Those attempts have made positive effect to the expansion of hallyu contents and creation of growth in CJ E&M. CJ E&M have increased experimental movement through digital platform augmentation, digital contents enhancement, and contents creator promotion strategies. In addition, utilization of local contents expert who provide production services for joint production at overseas markets should also be organized to expand the hallyu contents and growth of CJ E&M. This study suggests that the quality of digital business and glocal contents production have a positive relationship with hallyu contents growth and corporate performance.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.168-178
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• 2019

This study takes a close look at the recent success of independent documentaries to find its implications and a way to invigorate Korean documentary ecosystems. To this aim, this study performed in-depth interviews with independent documentary film makers and television documentary directors. Also, it analyzed the case of POV (Point Of View), which is television's longest-running showcase for independent documentary films in the USA. The results display that independent documentaries convey competitive edge of contents and expansion of distribution and funding through film industry systems, based on the producer systems, global distribution networks of overseas pitching and film festivals, marketing and audience strategy of film industry. Although this shows its molding of documentary industry ecosystems, there are great needs for various platforms other than film industrial outlet in order to make an advancement of the ecosystems under the digital environment. POV works on the basis of 'open sourcing' form when collaborating with independent film makers. Independent documentaries picked up by POV are aired on PBS, streamed via its online service, and distributed through community screenings; this three-outlet strategy makes POV a unique platform and has a relevance and feasibility to apply for Korean documentary ecosystems. Therefore, this study suggests to create a platform adopting POV system hoping that more studies and efforts would come for various and novel platform building so to make more advanced and invigorated ecosystems of Korean documentary.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.57-75
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• 2019

In this paper, we conducted a study focusing on the innovation direction of the documentary model on the Internet of Things industry, which is the most actively industrialized among the core technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Policy, economic, social, and technical issues were derived using PEST analysis for global trend analysis. It also presented future prospects for the Internet of Things industry of ICT-related global research institutes such as Gartner and International Data Corporation. Global research institutes predicted that competition in network technologies will be an issue for industrial Internet (IIoST) and IoT (Internet of Things) based on infrastructure and platforms. As a result of the PEST analysis, developed countries are pushing policies to respond to the fourth industrial revolution through cooperation of private (business/ research institutes) led by the government. It was also in the process of expanding related R&D budgets and establishing related policies in South Korea. On the economic side, the growth tax of the related industries (based on the aggregate value of the market) and the performance of the entity were reviewed. The growth of industries related to the fourth industrial revolution in advanced countries overseas was found to be faster than other industries, while in Korea, the growth of the "technical hardware and equipment" and "communication service" sectors was relatively low among industries related to the fourth industrial revolution. On the social side, it is expected to cause enormous ripple effects across society, largely due to changes in technology and industrial structure, changes in employment structure, changes in job volume, etc. On the technical side, changes were taking place in each industry, representing the health and medical sectors and manufacturing sectors, which were rapidly changing as they merged with the technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In this paper, various management methodologies for innovation of existing business model were reviewed to cope with rapidly changing industrial environment due to the fourth industrial revolution. In addition, four criteria were established to select a management model to cope with the new business environment: 'Applicability', 'Agility', 'Diversity' and 'Connectivity'. The expert survey results in an AHP analysis showing that Business Model Canvas is best suited for business model innovation methodology. The results showed very high importance, 42.5 percent in terms of "Applicability", 48.1 percent in terms of "Agility", 47.6 percent in terms of "diversity" and 42.9 percent in terms of "connectivity." Thus, it was selected as a model that could be diversely applied according to the industrial ecology and paradigm shift. Business Model Canvas is a relatively recent management strategy that identifies the value of a business model through a nine-block approach as a methodology for business model innovation. It identifies the value of a business model through nine block approaches and covers the four key areas of business: customer, order, infrastructure, and business feasibility analysis. In the paper, the expansion and application direction of the nine blocks were presented from the perspective of the IoT company (ICT). In conclusion, the discussion of which Business Model Canvas models will be applied in the ICT convergence industry is described. Based on the nine blocks, if appropriate applications are carried out to suit the characteristics of the target company, various applications are possible, such as integration and removal of five blocks, seven blocks and so on, and segmentation of blocks that fit the characteristics. Future research needs to develop customized business innovation methodologies for Internet of Things companies, or those that are performing Internet-based services. In addition, in this study, the Business Model Canvas model was derived from expert opinion as a useful tool for innovation. For the expansion and demonstration of the research, a study on the usability of presenting detailed implementation strategies, such as various model application cases and application models for actual companies, is needed.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.95-115
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• 2011

Food service is the major part of franchise business in Korea, accounting for 69.9% of the brands in the market. As the food service industry becomes mature, many franchisees have struggled to survive in the market. In general, consumers have higher levels of expectation toward service quality of franchised outlets compared that of (non-franchised) independent ones. They also tend to believe that franchisees deliver standardized service at the uniform food price, regardless of their locations. Such beliefs seem to be important reasons that consumers prefer franchised outlets to independent ones. Nevertheless, few studies examined the impact of qualify features of franchisees on customer satisfaction so far. To this end, this study examined the characteristics of various quality features of franchisees in the food service industry, regarding their relationship with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The quality perception of heavy-users was also compared with that of light-users in order to find insights for developing differentiated marketing strategy for the two segments. Customer satisfaction has been understood as a one-dimensional construct while there are recent studies that insist two-dimensional nature of the construct. In this regard, Kano et al. (1984) suggested to categorize quality features of a product or service into five types, based on their relation to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Must-be quality, Attractive quality, One-dimensional quality, Indifferent quality, and Reverse quality. According to the Kano model, customers are more dissatisfied when Must-be quality(M) are not fulfilled, but their satisfaction does not arise above neutral no matter how fully the quality fulfilled. In comparison, customers are more satisfied with a full provision of Attactive quality(A) but manage to accept its dysfunction. One-dimensional quality(O) results in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. For Indifferent quality(I), its presence or absence influences neither customer satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Lastly, Reverse quality(R) refers to the features whose high degree of achievement results in customer dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction. Meanwhile, the basic guidelines of the Kano model have a limitation in that the quality type of each feature is simply determined by calculating the mode statistics. In order to overcome such limitation, the relative importance of each feature on customer satisfaction (Better value; b) and dissatisfaction (Worse value; w) were calculated following the formulas below (Timko, 1993). The Better value indicates how much customer satisfaction is increased by providing the quality feature in question. In contrast, the Worse value indicates how much customer dissatisfaction is decreased by providing the quality feature. Better = (A + O)/(A+O+M+I) Worse = (O+M)/(A+O+M+I)(-1) An on-line survey was performed in order to understand the nature of quality features of franchisees in the food service industry by applying the Kano Model. A total of twenty quality features (refer to the Table 2) were identified as the result of literature review in franchise business and a pre-test with fifty college students in Seoul. The potential respondents of our main survey was limited to the customers who have visited more than two restaurants/stores of the same franchise brand. Survey invitation e-mails were sent out to the panels of a market research company and a total of 257 responses were used for analysis. Following the guidelines of Kano model, each of the twenty quality features was classified into one of the five types based on customers' responses to a set of questions: "(1) how do you feel if the following quality feature is fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit," and "(2) how do you feel if the following quality feature is not fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit." The analyses revealed that customers' dissatisfaction with franchisees is commonly associated with the poor level of cleanliness of the store (w=-0.872), kindness of the staffs(w=-0.890), conveniences such as parking lot and restroom(w=-0.669), and expertise of the staffs(w=-0.492). Such quality features were categorized as Must-be quality in this study. While standardization or uniformity across franchisees has been emphasized in franchise business, this study found that consumers are interested only in uniformity of price across franchisees(w=-0.608), but not interested in standardizations of menu items, interior designs, customer service procedures, and food tastes. Customers appeared to be more satisfied when the franchise brand has promotional events such as giveaways(b=0.767), good accessibility(b=0.699), customer loyalty programs(b=0.659), award winning history(b=0.641), and outlets in the overseas market(b=0.506). The results are summarized in a matrix form in Table 1. Better(b) and Worse(w) index indicate relative importance of each quality feature on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Meanwhile, there were differences in perceiving the quality features between light users and heavy users of any specific franchise brand in the food service industry. Expertise of the staffs was labeled as Must-be quality for heavy users but Indifferent quality for light users. Light users seemed indifferent to overseas expansion of the brand and offering new menu items on a regular basis, while heavy users appeared to perceive them as Attractive quality. Such difference may come from their different levels of involvement when they eat out. The results are shown in Table 2. The findings of this study help practitioners understand the quality features they need to focus on to strengthen the competitive power in the food service market. Above all, removing the factors that cause customer dissatisfaction seems to be the most critical for franchisees. To retain loyal customers of the franchise brand, it is also recommended for franchisor to invest resources in the development of new menu items as well as training programs for the staffs. Lastly, if resources allow, promotional events, loyalty programs, overseas expansion, award-winning history can be considered as tools for attracting more customers to the business.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.61-118
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.225-232
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to explore the necessity of technology commercialization aiding service from government-supported R&D institutions and find key success factors for market performance improvement of business ventures and SMEs. For this aim, we researched relevant theories and KICET(Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology)'s "Ceramic Hidden Champion Supporting Project. As government-supported R&D institutions, KICET is not only providing its original main service which is technology advising and development, but also providing a full range of technology commercialization aiding service for business ventures including diagnosis, strategy planning, capital procurement, overseas marketing activity. Qualitative analysis based on relevant theories and meta-analysis framework suggest that such expansion of services is desirable for government-supported R&D institutions to increase market performance of business ventures and SMEs. To lead this business to success, we should develop effective management system and incentive system for external supporting companies and client companies. Also, coordination between team member's activities and budget procurement issue should be solved for further performance creation.