從通路效益看產品配置 - 以蘇格蘭威士忌為例

Abstract

通路，一個介於製造商與消費者的中間媒體，參與了產品或服務從產生到遞送到消費者手中的過程。扮演著資訊傳遞、整合交易、促銷、儲存、配送、風險承擔以及為最終消費者創造價值的角色。 飛機與快速船舶的發明，縮短了地理的疆界，通訊系統與網路的興起，更打破了時間與空間的距離，在這樣的架構下，世界是平的，人與人、國與國之間是沒有距離的。全球化也就變成一個不可擋的趨勢。 然而，對任何企業而言，跨國市場的經營永遠是一項困難的挑戰，最大的困難在於如何取決不同的外國市場的通路配置。在跨國市場的耕耘和掌控上，代理商扮演著極關鍵的角色。品牌為什麼要找代理商合作?第一個原因當然是試探市場的水溫，在進入陌生的市場初期，利用代理商的在地優勢，架設通路，建立品牌知名度，同時也可避免在市場規模未明的進入初期，大量投資固定費用在人員及設備上，造成資金的壓力及擠壓品牌操作的資源。 其次是市場規模的考量和其區域佈局的策略，簡單說就是經濟規模。當市場規模不大或潛力有限，或當資源有限，而品牌又希望擴展其佈局之時，透過代理商做區域的行銷及佈局，就是一個很好的選擇。 本文由代理商的角度出發，透過一個市場主流的威士忌品牌的產品配置、通路成本、通路效益、行銷資源的投入與獲利的比較分析，試圖找出有效率的投入產出模型，並以財務的角度，剖析通路的效益與獲利的組合，並作為新產品企劃的預測與參考。 本文的目的在於建立一個貫通財務與行銷角度的平台，架構出一個客觀且具體的框架，建立成本效益的評估流程，把結果跟多重通路行銷環境中適當的行銷活動做配合，產生可靠的未來預估值，也提供財務及行銷人員對通路投資策略的審慎評估和決策的參考。

Marketing channels, the intermediaries for productions and consumers, involved in the process of making product or service available for use or consumption. Played the role of transmitting marketing information、consolidating transactions、promotion 、storage、movement、risk taking， and creating values for end users. The invention of air planes and all kinds of crafts had shortened the geographic boundary. The implementation of communication system and World Wide Web had broken the distance of time and space. Under this constitution，”The world is flat”, the distance inside people and nations is no longer exist. It makes globalize an unresisting trend. To any firm in the world, doing business in the international markets is always a difficult challenge. It is especially difficult to decide its channel of distribution in various foreign markets. One of the options is to employ the agents to cooperate marketing arrangements. Why do brands need agents? The main reason is to test the market. Having the privilege of domestic market, agents are strong at channel integration and brand building. This saves the brands from investing in the fixed overhead and equipment at the initiate period, releases the cash and brand resources. The second reason is the market scale (or economic scale), and global strategy. When the market is small or the potential is not optimistic, or when the resource is limited, but brand expecting to expend, engaging an agent to do the marketing and channel deployment, is a good option. Taking Scotch Whisky , the main stream of alcoholic drink, as the example, we tried to set forth from an gent’s perspective, by allocating products, evaluating channel efficiency and the input and outcome of marketing resource, to find out the best solution of product and channel allocation, make it an important reference for management. Our ambition is to set up a platform across marketing and finance, to have an objective framework, to clarify the blind point of marketing strategy, and to provide the considerable evaluation tool for both finance and marketing people for marketing strategy.