Research On Mechanism Of Formation And Evolution Of Home Electric Appliance Manufacturer's Channel Competitive Advantage

In the increasingly fierce market competition, some home electric appliance manufacturers achieve the competitive advantage by constructing the integrated channel. However, the basis of persistent superior performance and the final goal of strategic management are the sustainable competitive advantage. Then, how this channel competitive advantage forms and evolves?This paper firstly analyzes the mechanism of formation and evolution of the channel competitive advantage. The channel competitive advantage evolves through time. The manufacturer builds the channel competitive advantage from its adaptation to the extemal environment. However, when the external environment change fundamentally and require the channel pattern to make the corresponding adjustment, the manufacturer's existing channel competitive ability displays the characteristic of path dependence, causing the lag of its channel transformation.The empirical study includes the home electric appliances channel's evolutionary process in China and Japan on the macroscopic level and the typical case on the microscopic level. On the basis of elaborating the evolutionary process of the Japanese electrical appliances, the case study compares the channel pattern of Panasonic Appliance and Sony Corporation as an example to test the above proposition. The research indicated that, Comparing with the quick transformation of Sony Corporation' channel, Panasonic Appliance's channel competitive ability demonstrates a characteristic of path dependence, restricting the steps of the channel transformation and the improvement of the enterprise's performance.As for our country, this paper summarizes the evolutionary process of Chinese home electric appliance channel and analyzes the case of Gree Appliance's channel evolution. The case study shows that, comparing with the quick transformation of other home electric appliance manufacturers, Gree Appliance's channel competitive ability demonstrates a characteristic of path dependence.