A STUDY ON THE SINO-FOREIGN JOINT VENTURES IN THE SHANGHAI DEPARTMENT STORE INDUSTRY - A STRATEGIC MARKETING PERSPECTIVE by LAU PUI-YIN & LEE HON-CHEUNG - 劉貝妍 李漢祥 . « MBA PROJECT REPORT „ ., 。 m 秦J • Presented to The Graduate School In Partial Fulfillment, of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION • TWO-YEAR MBA PROGRAMME I THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG I .. May 1995 (t Hf 14 B m j| fif4r APPROVAL Name: Lau Pui-Yin & Lee Hon-Cheung Degree: Master of Business Administration Title of Project: A Study on the Sino-foreign Joint Ventures in the Shanghai Department Store Industry - A Strategic Marketing Perspective f 11'' Prof. Lee Kam-Ho Ln a Date Approved: j ^ j《； Dedicated to our beloved family members iv ABSTRACT From a strategic point of view, the Shanghai department store industry is not attractive at present. The external environment is favourable because of the big size of urban population, steady growth in income of people, huge market potential, . good cultural background, pivotal geographic location, and relatively stable political environment. Nonetheless, the industry is suffering from high intensity of competition, great threat of substitutes and strong bargaining power of buyers. The. effects of competitive forces have outweighed the ones of the favorable external environment. The market potential is huge, but it is still a ''potential''. There is a long road for the market potential to be realized and exploited. In fact, the market is not enlarging very fast, but so many retailers have already rushed into Shanghai. It is believed that the positive effects of market potential have been actually over-emphasized by many publications. in addition, the existing regulations are so incomprehensive that retailers are operating in a volatile and an incomplete regulatory environment. V The overall effect of the above factors is not favorable to the existing foreign-invested department stores. Nevertheless, they should not retreat from the market. Rather, they should prepare sufficient financial resources for them to afford a short term loss. Long term strategies should be formulated for the bright future. Potential new entrants should better wait for several years for expansion and improvement of the retail sector. However, they should not stay and do nothing. More preparation works such as market research should be done proactively in veiw of the promising long term prospects of the industry. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENTS vi LIST OF TABLES ACKNOWLEDGMENT ix Chapter I. INTRODUCTION • 1 Retailing Trend in China 1 Research Objectives 4 II. METHODOLOGY 5 Primary Research 5 Secondary Research 7 III. LITERATURE REVIEW : 8 IV. ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS 13 Political Environment 13 Historical Environment 14 Geographical Environment 16 Socio—cultural Environment 17 Regulatory Environment ‘ 18 Regulations for FIDSs 18 Tax regime for the FIDSs 2〇 Co-operative Joint Ventures Approved by the Municipal Government ‘ 23 ： Demographic Environment 25 Population 25 Working Population 32 Illiteracy Rate 33 Economic Environment 34 Economic Performance 34 Income Level and Living Standard 36 Market Potential 39 Infrastructural Environment 45 A Concluding Comment 43 vii V. INDUSTRY ANALYSIS 49 Supplier 49 Buyer ； 55 Substitute 62 New Entrants 66 Intensity of Rivalry among Existing Competitors 70 VI. INDUSTRY ATTRACTIVENESS AND FUTURE TRENDS 79 VII. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS 85 VIII.FUTURE RESEARCH AREAS 87 BIBLIOGRAPHY 88 viii LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1 POPULATION AND POPULATION GROWTH IN SHANGHA1993 I AND CHINA FROM 198 9 TO 26 TABLE 2 BIRTH RATE, DEATH RATE AND NATURAL INCREASE OF SHANGHAI AND SELECTED REGIONS IN 1992 26 TABLE 3 POPULATION DENSITY IN SHANGHAI AND SELECTED REGIONS IN 1992 27 TABLE 4 HOUSEHOLD SIZE IN SHANGHAI AND SELECTED REGIONS IN 1992 28 TABLE 5 COMPOSITION OF POPULATION IN SHANGHAI AND SELECTED REGIONS IN 1992 3〇 TABLE 6 PERCENTAGE OF BIRTH BY BIRTH ORDER IN SHANGHAI IN 1992 31 TABLE 7 WORKING POPULATION BY INDUSTRIES IN CHINA IN 1993 33 TABLE 8 GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP) OF SHANGHAI AND ITS BREAK-DOWN BY INDUSTRIES IN 1980, 1990, 1992 & 1993 35 TABLE 9 GDP & GDP PER CAPITA OF SHANGHAI AND SELECTED REGIONS IN 1993 ‘ 36 TABLE 10 LIVING EXPENSE BREAK-DOWN OF AN AVERAGE CITY DWELLER IN SHANGHAI IN 1993 37 TABLE 11 OVERALL PRICE AND PRICE INDEX OF CONSUMER GOODS IN CHINA FROM JANUARY, 1994 TO FEBRUARY, 1995 38 TABLE 12 OVERALL PRICE INDEX AND PRICE INDEX OF CONSUMER GOODS OF SHANGHAI AND SELECTED REGIONS IN 1993 39 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to take this opportunity to express our hearty gratitude to the following interviewees for arranging interviews as their valuable information and supports have contributed greatly to our successful completion of this paper. Mr. Lee, Sidney of The Chinese Arts & Crafts (HK) Ltd. Mr. Yung , Sidney of IHD Holdings Ltd. Miss Du, Yuan of The Shanghai Sincere Company Ltd. Mr. Omata of Shanghai Isetan Department Store.、 Mr. Ma, Dennis of Wings Department Store, The Adsale Group Mr. Wu, Zhong Shang of Shanghai No. 1 Department Store. Miss Lee, Rita of Jinj iang Dickson Centre. Miss Leung, Phoebe of Hong Kong Trade Development Council. Mr. Lam, Jackee of The Sincere Department Store (China). ’ Miss Wong, Miranda of Wings Department Store, The Adsale Group Particularly, we would like to pay our special tribute to Prof. Lee, Kam-Hon, our advisor for his prudent guidance and insightful comments that helped us in enriching our research. 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Retailing Trend in rhina Since 1979； following the implementation of the open door policy, the skyrocketing growth of China‘s economy has undoubtedly led to rapid increase in the income of residents in the coastal regions. Comparing 1990 with 1978, the average annual income of urban employees rose from RMB615 to RMB2,140, which was a 2.5 times increase.i In fact, it is believed that people in China are more and more willing to spend their money on non-basic sufficing items. Meanwhile, there are now many more occasions for them to spend money than before. In fact, numerous 1、、A Full view over China's Recent Consumer Market, Part I", Standard China Trade, (August 1992), 38. 2 large foreign department stores have already opened their branches in large coastal cities in the form of joint ventures with the Chinese enterprises.2 On grounds of the above-mentioned, it seems that there are great opportunities for foreign department stores to establish a foothold in China. In the first six months of 1993, retail sales in China totaled RMB96.3 billion, up 24 percent over the same period of 1992.3 Nevertheless, many obstacles are .hindering the development of the department store industry. According to our interviews with several local and mainland department stores practitioners and the secondary information gathered, several problems can be identified, to name a few: low profit margin, severe competition among the local and foreign retailers, the lack of managerial expertise and poor infrastructure, etc. Therefore, the big question is: Is the industry attractive? • Traditionally, department store business has been dominated by state-owned and collectively-owned enterprises in China. in 1992, the State Council has made the first step in the trial liberalization of the 2T〇 name few examples, Yaohan in Beijing, Seibu in Shenzhen,工setan and Sincere in Shanghai, etc. , 3h〇,. David and Leigh, Nancy, 、、Retail Revolution", The China Business -Review, (Jaunuary-February 1994}, 22. 3 retail sector. Foreign invested enterprises can now cooperate with local enterprises to open department stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Dalian, Qingdao and in the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) namely Hainan, Shenzhen, Shantou, Xiamen and Zhuhai.4 Obviously, there are great differences among these cities in terms of economic, demographic and cultural characteristics. Therefore, it will be more realistic and practical to define a geographic scope for our project. Among these cities, we expect" that Shanghai possesses the greatest potential for development in the coining decade. In fact, according to the sales figures in 1992, the first and the second largest state-owned department store, namely Shanghai No. 1 Department store and Shanghai Hualian Commercial Building are both located in Shanghai. As a matter of fact, many foreign business enterprises have already established their department stores in the city, for instances, Lane Crawford, Sincere, Isetan, Dickson Concepts, etc. Since the retail sector of Shanghai is still at its infant stage, we are very interested in conducting an academic -research to diagnose the attractiveness as well as the threats for future development of the aforementioned business. In sum, the scope of our project is confined to the study of 4ibid., 23. 4 department stores owned by Sino—foreign joint ventures in Shanghai. Research Objectives In this paper, we would like to pursue the following objectives:- i) To explore the recent development and the intensity of competition of the department store industry in Shanghai; • ii) To investigate the opportunities and threats in operating the business in the region; iii) To examine the industry attractiveness and forecast the future development. In order to achieve the above objectives, we have divided our analysis into two parts:‘ the Environmental Analysis and the Industry Analysis. Basically, the Five- Force Model proposed by Michael E. Porter^ will be employed in the part of Industry Analysis. 5 Porter, Michael E., 、、How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy," Harvard Business Review. (March-April 1979), 137- 14 5 • 5 CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY Primary Research .. In order to get more first-hand information from the department store joint ventures, we have arranged personal interviews with those retailers who have opened stores in China or who are planning to go into the market. By interviewing with those who are really working in the field, we have obtained more up-dated market information as well as their business strategies.