Taiwan is one of the most vibrant societies in the world. The business environment is nowadays known for its economic vitality and healthy business competition mainly from the high degree of entrepreneur, sharp market insights, agile marketing strategy, and rapid adaption to changing business environment. To sum up, Taiwan is equipped with all the critical success factors for global business competition. All these factors help motivate the start-up of small business in Taiwan, and this is particularly true for the food industry as the entry barriers are relatively low in comparison to other industries. In recent years there is a surge of self-branding business and companies in Taiwan largely due to the popularity of online shopping and bulk orders. On the contrary, a significant number of self-branding companies failed to keep their business afloat and eventually had to exit the market. This study use literature reviews based on wholesale and retail food industry, self-branding, as well as critical success and failure factors. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the critical success & failure factors on self-branding for wholesale and retail food industry. First of all, this study uses in-depth interviews with four experienced professionals in self-branding enterprises to define critical success and failure factors for research model. Secondly, this study utilizes content analysis to measure and identify the level of significance and importance and order of priority for critical success and failure factors. The results of this study are as following: 1. There are four critical success factors in self-branding. The most important success factor in self-branding is customer value, followed by innovative marketing strategy and brand trust. The last is price tolerance. 2. There are three failure factors in this study. The business owners¡¦ decision error is the most significant failure factor, followed by brand positioning error, and virulent price competition.

<p>Term: Spring term 2007</p><p>Study objects: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna, ICA Sverige AB</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse how procurement is used as a strategy to achieve better competitive strength, within the retail food industry.</p><p>Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates different procurement organisations, multiple and single sourcing, brand equity, consumer behaviour and involvement, Efficient Consumer Response including supply chain and category management and finally Demand Chain Management.</p><p>Method: For the case studies, three food retail companies have been interviewed: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna and ICA AB. To illustrate how consumer behaviour influences retail food market, several secondary consumer research studies have been analysed.</p><p>Conclusions: The results indicate that the procurement organisation can achieve a better competitive strength by a centralised organisation, which make it possible to improve conditions of terms when ordering higher purchase volumes. The sourcing strategies can improve a company’s power within the supply chain. All companies within the study had a very good knowledge about consumer behaviour. Information technology is a very important tool to achieve enhanced efficiency within the organisation. It also indicates that the procurement organisation by its knowledge in sales and marketing can improve a company’s competitive strength.</p>

Term: Spring term 2007 Study objects: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna, ICA Sverige AB Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse how procurement is used as a strategy to achieve better competitive strength, within the retail food industry. Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates different procurement organisations, multiple and single sourcing, brand equity, consumer behaviour and involvement, Efficient Consumer Response including supply chain and category management and finally Demand Chain Management. Method: For the case studies, three food retail companies have been interviewed: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna and ICA AB. To illustrate how consumer behaviour influences retail food market, several secondary consumer research studies have been analysed. Conclusions: The results indicate that the procurement organisation can achieve a better competitive strength by a centralised organisation, which make it possible to improve conditions of terms when ordering higher purchase volumes. The sourcing strategies can improve a company’s power within the supply chain. All companies within the study had a very good knowledge about consumer behaviour. Information technology is a very important tool to achieve enhanced efficiency within the organisation. It also indicates that the procurement organisation by its knowledge in sales and marketing can improve a company’s competitive strength.