Seihaku’s Blogmarketing Bible

Ess Board’s pioneering of the new market field possesses a great value.

Existing Korean manufacturers have established competitive edge by producing cheap imitation products from gathering photos of other products when they visited the international exhibitions. Taking the easy way by just following what others have researched and developed, Korean manufacturers began to focus on producing high quality products inexpensively.

Yet, nightmare begins when China, whose labor and material costs only 1/10 of the cost, starts to imitage Korean Products. Unless the Korean produces a unique, original product, the market becomes flooded with over supply of good due to the overwhelming quantity of Korean and Chinese imitations in a very short period of time. This causes the profit to fall steeply.

If there’s an overview of similar products in a small market like in Korea, producers are forced to lower their prices to make a sale and this in turn lossens the buyer’s desire. A consumer knows well that the price will drop just simply by waiting.

However, a Korean manufacturer thinks no different to a Chinese in thinking that sales increase can be achieved by cutting production cost. A big success in a Korean makret today is a consequence of a creative mind that explores where no one has gone before and to bring that creativity to a level of absolute standard where a consumer craves for that particular design.

Another thing that separates the American market with the Korean market whose intellectual rights is undefined is:

Firstly, the fast paced notion of time and
Secondly, by fortifying added value products such as copyrights, patents and by introducing new genre of designs so that competitors in Korea and China won’t be able to catch up in a given short period of time. Added value products like copyrights, patents and etc. take long time to generate a return on the investment and are expensive. Yet a design of new genre will raise immediate response of the market to shorten the time to generate a profit.

Then what are the similarities of the two core competitive characteristic?
I presume that it may be hard for the general public to fully comprehend its logic. Product have not been produced yet; so one cannot see or touch but only to grasp ins concept by imagining with your head and mind to analyze what’s invisible. It is obvious that a generation of ‘engineer’ CEOs who made their decisions solely on what they will have a difficult time. The situation can often be seen where the fresh ideas that will create added value gets buried or procrastinated with such as ‘timing isn’t right’ or ‘we can’t meet that stardard’. Precisely speaking, it is very difficult a management that persues a safe road of following where others have gone before to come forth with or to accept fresh ideas that will generate added value.

What’s more frustrating is that a Chinese manufacturer’s thoughts are no different from that of a Korean thus we see products with all sorts of similar designs. This can be seen through the market samples. Not one product truly is distinctive.

What should a manufacturer that used to produce ‘Blue Ocean’ (Uncontested market) products do when the market turns to ‘Red Ocean’ (Saturated market) all of a sudden.

1. Obtain all competing products in the market and develop a new product by comparing and analyzing.

2. Come out with a entirely new added value products in terms of design or patents.