Justifying high price with Total Cost of Ownership awerness - possible or not on the Asian market?
Total Cost of OwnershipBuying behaviourCost-drivers Cultural aspectsRelationshipLong-term thinkingManagement of enterprisesFöretagsledningManagementBusiness and Economics
Purpose: The aim with the report is to investigate if the South East Asian customer on the food processing market base their investments on Total Cost of Ownership and if so, which are the cost drivers considered most vital. Moreover, do these cost-drivers diverge from the perception FP Ltd has, and if so, can a Total Cost of Ownership-model help to achieve a mutual understanding? Methodology: First a descriptive approach will be taken, identifying FP Ltd?s employers? perception on how to meet the customer. This will later be compared to our empirical findings of the actual customer behaviour in Thailand and Vietnam. Thorough analyse of the gap between the two parts will give us the outcome whether or not FP Ltd will have any use of presenting a quantitative model justifying their higher price. Conclusions: - Buying decisions on the South East Asian industrial food process market are in general done by the Director or someone close to him, where the decisions tend to be based on feelings. - We have found the time perspective to be long-term oriented. - The importance of relations in South East Asia is evident which we consider to be strongly correlated to the thinking of Total Cost of Ownership. The relationship thinking proves a wider approach of cost analysis. - We have proven that the investment price do not matter to that extent that was initially considered which we believe strengthen the thinking of Total Cost of Ownership.- Finally, even if the decision making style in South East Asia is characterized by being somewhat conservative with the hierarchy of decision makers, we consider the way of taking many circumstances in consideration, to prove a sophisticated way of Total Cost of Ownership thinking.