通路與通路品牌之創新策略

Abstract

摘 要 一般而言，企業對於創新的做法，往往停留在作業層次，比如 「製程創新」或「產品創新」，多是追求生產力、品質與效率上的改善，難以轉換成持續性的獲利能力。然而，最近有些創業家開始運用整合性的思考，在策略層次來實現創新，建立並維持與競爭者截然不同的策略性定位與差異，並獲得持續性的競爭優勢。實務上，企業可在買方價值基礎上，針對消費者尚未滿足的需求，選擇一套獨特性的活動，以提供有別於競爭者嶄新的價值，即所謂『價值創新』。 本論文以著名咖啡連鎖店－西雅圖極品咖啡為個案研究對象，採用歷程分析法與策略形態分析法，探討自創業以來，過去10年的轉型成長歷程。自創業之初，西雅圖極品咖啡以消費者尚未滿足的需求為基礎，在滿足目標市場需求的過程中，透過其以體驗式行銷為主的價值活動，進行價值創新，使通路創新模式得以成功實現；在價值創新的過程中，西雅圖極品咖啡不斷增進品牌權益，乃至於在其進行品牌延伸後，確保綜效的產生，使通路品牌創新模式能繼續延展企業的成長空間。本研究期望能確認西雅圖極品咖啡運用通路及通路品牌創新模式，達到成長目標之關鍵成功因素，進而了解創新機制之於企業的策略意義，提供企業在策略性創新的實務建議。 研究結果顯示，西雅圖極品咖啡在成長歷程中，能根據外在產業及競爭情勢的變化，以競合關係的策略思維，充分掌握並利用產業變化情勢，共同與互補者建構其策略群組的移動障礙；其以『精品咖啡』的價值定位，不斷累積並深化作為核心資源的品牌資產，使其在轉型之後的多角化經營範疇中，能在不同的產品間產生綜效，並降低競爭對手模仿跟進的效果，最終達到企業持續成長的目標。

Abstract Generally speaking, most enterprise’s practice of innovation always focuses on functional levels, as “manufacturing innovation” or ”product innovation”. These practice are mainly seeking to improve productivity, quality or efficiency, and hard to transform them into sustainable profitability. Recently, however, some entrepreneurs begin to use integral thinking to perform the innovation in strategic level, then establish and maintain different strategic position with its competitors in order to obtain sustainable competitive advantage. In practice, on the basis of buyers’ value, the enterprise can aim at consumers’ unfulfilled needs, then select a set of distinctive activities to provide totally different values from its competitors, which means, “value innovation”.

The case study of my thesis is Barista Coffee, one of the successful coffee chain stores in Taiwan. This research adopts process analysis method and strategic posture analysis to explore the case company’s growth progress in past ten years. Since its inception, Barista Coffee satisfied their target customer through experiential marketing and value innovation, which is based on their unfulfilled needs. Value innovation ensured its channel innovation model a great achievement. Through the progress of value innovation, Barista Coffee improved its brand equity continuously, so that the brand equity became its competitive advantage. After the brand extension, its robust brand equity assured the result of synergy, then made its channel branding innovation extend the case company’s growth space. This research expects to identify key success factors from the growth progress of the Barista Coffee, and provide practical advices of strategic innovation to other enterprises.

The result shows the Barista Coffee has performed exceptional competence to grasp industrial variation, and then used co-opetition strategic thinking to build the mobility barrier of strategy group with the its complementors. Barista Coffee’s value position is grounded on ”the highest grade of coffee”, and the position made the enterprse accumulate and deepen its brand assets, which turned into core competence in the diversified business scope. Its strong brand equity can not only create synergy in different types of barista’s coffee drinks, but also diminish the effect of competitors’ imitation. Therefore, Barista Coffee attained the goal of sustainable growth.