| Summary: | 碩士 === 大同工學院 === 事業經營研究所 === 87 === The personal computer market changes quickly. There are a lot of personal computer companies in our country, so they compete intensely. In the market, most personal computers are made by self-assembly, some are native brand PC, and others are well known foreign brand PC. Recently, many personal computer companies were established and a lot of foreign famous personal computer companies entered the market. They used efficient distribution channels to increase their market share. This is a great threat to our native personal computer companies. According to newspaper reports, win or loss in the industry is determined by efficiency and dominance of distribution channels.
Many personal computer companies tend to diversify. Many manufacturers change their manufacturing processes and create new distribution channels. This causes our country’s traditional “price war” to change gradually into a distribution “channel war.” Because of this, maintaining good relationships between manufacturers and dealers on the distribution channel now poses the greatest challenge for the manufacturers.
The distributing channel is defined as the system that delivers a product from the manufacturer to the consumer. The structure of the distributing channel can be divided into two different types. In the first type the manufacturer provides the product to the dealer but the dealers decide upon the distribution strategies and process. In the second type the manufacturer controls the distribution process and the manufacturing and distribution process are combined. According to the study of Jeuland and Shugan(1983) , the second type affords the greatest profit. However, because of too many suppliers, intense competition, large numbers of similar products, and weak customer loyalty, the relationship between the manufacturer and dealer depends upon pricing, profit, quality, product delivery and service delivery. Therefore the purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the degree of satisfaction between manufacturer and dealer. We have done this by examining the individual case of the distributing channel for the Tatung PC manufacturer.
We established 33 variable factors and measured manufacturer’s association on these factors. For the overall distributing channels, the manufacture has good performances on the time of product delivery, quality, management capability, and product storage. Dissatisfactions and conflicts appeared, however, on the aspects of the degree to which the product was welcomed and the price of the products. There are differences among different distributing channels on the quality of the products, the timing of product delivery, the process for product return, profit , the understanding about the products and the function of the products, and methods of payment.
Between the degrees of satisfaction and distributing channel performance, we have found differences among different distributing channels; dealers usually have higher satisfaction than service stations. On the aspect of conflict, the relationship between performance and conflict differs according to different distributing channels.
Association between different variable factors
(1) The association of distributing channel members’ degree of satisfaction and other variables: Distributing channel efficiency and satisfaction differed significantly in different distributing channels. In the traditional distributing channels, there is a positive relationship between the degree of satisfaction and distributing channel efficiency and there is a negative relationship between the degree of satisfaction and the conflict within the distributing channel. Social interactive dimension and product dimension have higher satisfaction in the overall distributing channels. Comparing the 3 different distributing channels, we have found significant differences in social interactive dimension, product dimension and finance. There was also a significant difference in the overall averages, dealers have a higher degree of satisfaction.
(2) The association of conflict with other variables: Overall, we have found a negative relationship between the conflict of the distributing channel and the degree of satisfaction of the distributing channel. In this study, 10 variable factors were used to assess the level of disagreement between distributing channels and the manufactures. The greatest conflicts, for all 3 different distributing channel, are the method of payment, the price of the product, and the brand of the product. Among these 3 distributing channels, service stations had the greatest conflict in the price of the products, the method of payment, and the product service after sale.
(3) For the overall distributing channels, the dealers have the highest score in proper product maintenance. There are significant differences in volume of sales, and the control of proper product maintenance among the 3 different distributing channels, and the performance of dealers is better than service stations.
Traditionally manufactures have a low level of concern for the satisfaction of the service stations with their interaction with the manufactures. Our finding shows that the manufactures should give a high priority to the level of satisfaction of the service stations with their interaction with the manufactures in order to improve the performance of the service stations.
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