Task 4:
Aim to sell the products and maximize the profits, Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation (TTFC) has to determine the target market. There are two major types of market including Business- to- Business (B2B) and Business- to- Customer (B2C). The terms B2B and B2C were developed to make a major choice whether they sell to consumers or others businesses that need products or corporate to manufacture or distribute. B2B refers to the potential market being a business and the primary activities are business-to-business sales. In the contrast, the term B2C refers to a business-to-consumer sales situation. | Business to Business (B2B)B2B refers to business model in which trading and exchanging directly between businesses. Transactions with other companies usually occur as manufacturers selling to distributors and wholesalers selling to retailers.Pricing is based on the quantity of order and is often negotiable. | Business to Customer (B2C)B2C is included commercial transactions over the Internet between businesses and customers, in which customers of this type is that individuals purchase. This type applies to any business or organization to sell their products or services to customers for personal needs. | Target customer | Customers of B2B transactions are companies, while B2C customer are individuals. Considering the letter C in B2C is the final consumer (end-user). This also means that C refers to companies, which buy products to use.Overall, B2B transactions are more complex and require greater safety. | | Negotiation and transaction | Sales to businesses (B2B), including factors such as price negotiations, delivery and determine the specifications, the technical specifications of the product. Whereas, sales to consumers (B2C) does not necessarily have to include all such factors. This makes it easier for retailers to buy the products based on individual needs and wants. | | Major products | B2B often focus on the features of the products or the logic of the products in order to make sure that the products will bring the benefits, moreover, saving time, money and resources. | B2C seek to the customers’ needs and wants, so that they would like to point out the results and the benefits of the products | Market | B2B focus on very narrow segments that have a use. Companies concentrate major on specific products with large order quantity. | B2C seek to large segments with a variety of products depending on customers’ needs and wants. | According to the information of Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation official website, TTFC is one of the largest wooden furniture manufacturers and wood processing groups in Vietnam with seven subsidiary companies, more than 1,400 employees and a total equity of VND660 billion (US$34 million). Generally, Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation has a big scale of economy. Even though TTFC run business in both business- to- customer (B2C) and business- to- business (B2B) market, our group focuses on analyzing B2B market. In B2B, Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation sells products and services for target customers, which are companies or organization with the large order quantity. The major products are divided into three types: outdoor furniture, indoor furniture and flooring. Outdoor furniture includes tables, chair, lounges, round or square or rectangular parasols, etc. designed with extendable, foldable and adjustable features, suited for all entertaining, commercial and industrial projects. Indoor furniture are practical ranges of tea tables, chairs, sofa, dining sets, beds, shelves, cabinets, doors, etc. which are beautiful designed in an array of diversified styles. In terms of flooring, there are ranges of unfinished and pre-finished flooring, molding, ceiling and wall panels. (Truong Thanh, accessed November 08 2012). At the moment, TTFC has three types of subsidiary companies: direct subsidiary company, indirect subsidiary company and venture company. According to Truong Thanh official website, there are 11 directed subsidiary companies, 2 indirect subsidiary companies and 2 venture companies. TTFC currently owns 8 factories for wood processing on an area of nearly 40 hectare. In detail, there are 2 factories in Daklak, 1 in Binh Duong, 1 in Ho Chi Minh City, 2 in Phu Yen province and 1 in Binh Duong. Besides, TTFC also has many warehouses to stock appropriately 750 containers of products avoiding unstable condition. (TTFC, accessed November 08 2012) Furthermore, TTFC products are manufactured from a wide range of material sources with Forest Governance Council (FSC) certificates. It is estimated that there is approximately 20% of imported sources. TTFC import mainly teak, eucalyptus, pine, beech, oak, ash, etc. from Africa, South America, New Zealand, EU and US. Whereas, TTFC use local material sources (about 80%) including Acacia, Rubber wood, Keruing, Yellow Balau, Pyinkado, Vietnam Cherry, Pyinma, Nyatah, … coming from state-managed forests and plantations. In the local market, TTFC have officially 10 Furniture shops including 3 shops in HCM City, 2 in Vung Tau – Ba Ria, 1 in Long Xuyen, 1 in Buon Ma thuat, 1 in Danang, 1 in Hai Phong, 1 in Binh Duong. With such high quality products and affordable prices, TTFC is on the way to expand our international distribution network. At the present, TTFC have already existed in more than 30 countries such as the UK, France, Belgium, USA, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, South Africa, etc. In addition, their products are supplied to some leading chains of supermarkets including Carrefour, Metro, Tesco, Cosco and Homebase as well as some well- known retail shops such as Alexander Rose, Alinea, Lapeyre and Hartman.

Figure 1: International distribution network (sources: http://www.truongthanh.com.vn/market.html) The chart shows the percentage of Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation’s distribution network in four international categories including EU, Japan, US and others countries. According to this figure, United State is the country covering the largest percentage of the total exported products (55%). Whereas, there is only 10% of total products distributed to Japan and others countries. In addition, Europe countries cover 25% all over the total products. With nearly 20 years of experience in the wood-processing industry Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation manufactured a wide variety of products. These products are always ensured in terms of both high quality and quantity so that TTFC become famous and achieve 6 international and 9 national awards. TTFC are having many strategic opportunities to develop and expand business relationships with others companies or organizations in Forestry industry in both domestic and international market. On the other hand, many organizations want to get deals with TTFC to corporate with the respect of selling, supplying and manufacturing. Besides that, wage and salary in Vietnam are different across the occupation and contrast between urban and rural areas. According to General Strategic Office, the average wage per person in 2011 is approximately 3.2 million ($150) depending on the types of job, positions, private or state owned enterprise. With the low average wage, Vietnamese people normally demand to buy wood product when they actually need. For example, when people get married or when necessary wood products including beds, chairs, tables or closets are broken, they need the new ones.
Market structure:
There are six major types of market structures including perfect competition, imperfect or monopolistic competition, oligopoly, duopoly and monopoly. From the point of view, Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation’s market is perfect competition. Perfect competition describes markets that there is uncountable number of sellers and buyers, therefore, no individual sellers are able to influence price. In others words, all sellers are price takers to accept the market price. Furthermore, products are homogenous products, which are easy to identify brands in the market. As the result, if dealers sell products with higher prices, consumers might move to the others in order to purchase the similarities. Applying with the case study of Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation, it is estimated that there are 792 companies in the Manufacturing Wooden Products and Furniture industry, while 302 companies are listed as Furniture manufacturer (TTFC, accessed November 09 2012). In addition, Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation was ranked as No.2 of the largest private companies in 2011 reported by Vietnam Report.

Link reference: http://www.truongthanh.com.vn/?m=main&f=intro http://static2.vietstock.vn/data/HOSE/2012/KHAC/VN/TTF_Baocaotaichinh_6T_2012_Soatxet_Hopnhat.pdf http://moj.gov.vn/vbpq/Lists/Vn%20bn%20php%20lut/View_Detail.aspx?ItemID=11602 http://www.vnr500.com.vn/ranking-table-of-industry?c=AF31&locale=en_US&year=2010

Appendix
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YEAR | INTERNATIONAL AWARDS | 2004 | 03 Golden Cups of AFTA Integration Products | 2005 | Badge for Global Quality Management, awarded to Mr. Vo Truong Thanh in Spain with a membership to The Global Trade Leader’s Club. | 2005 | International Trophy for Quality, awarded in Spain | 2005 | Golden Cup for European Quality, awarded in Italy | 2006 | International Star Award, awarded in Geneva, Switzerland | 2007 | International Platinum Star for Quality, awarded in Paris | YEAR | NATIONAL AWARDS | 2004 | Golden Cup for Vietnam Community Work Contribution | 2004-2006 | Best Brand in Vietnam | 2002-2007 | Award for Vietnam Quality (Golden Award in 2005) | 2003-2007 | Golden Star Award for Best Products of Vietnam | 2005-2006 | Golden Cup for Prestige Brand and Products | 2006 | Excellence Business Award for the leading exporter of wooden products | 2006-2008 | Award for Vietnam High Quality Products | 2007 | Award from the Government for the Excellence and Prestige in Export for 3 consecutive years | 2008 | One of 30 first brandnames selected by the Government for Vietnam Value Program |
Achievement of TTFC from 2004 to 2008 (Sources: http://www.truongthanh.com.vn/achivements.html)

Direct subsidiary company | Indirect subsidiary company | Venture Company | * Truong Thanh Corporation (Daklak 1) * Truong Thanh Wood Processing Joint Stock Company (Daklak 2) * Truong Thanh Wood Processing Joint Stock Company (Pacific 2) * Truong Thanh Flooring Industry Company (Binh Duong 3) * Truong Thanh Forestry Company * Truong Thanh Plantation Company * Truong Thanh Wood Industry Company * Truong Thanh Green Company * Truong Thanh Industrial wood Co,. Ltd * Forestry Corporation Wall Dak Nong * Import Export Trade Corporation Wall Dak Nong | * Truong An Industrial Agriculture and Forestry Company * Truong Thanh - Phuoc An Building Materials Company | * Truong Thanh Packaging Company * Truong Thanh OJI Plantation Company |

1. Intro Furniture industry 2. Intro Market B2B 3. Market structure: Xdinh TTFC chiem bao nhieu phan tram market shares? Hoa phat bn? -> Market structure gi? * Freedom of entry and exist: Certification (Chung nhan dc phep hoat dong + Hoat dong thi nhu the nao) / Tax * Nature of the product: * Bn % san pham tu design -> Homogenous * Bn % san pham copy tu nuoc ngoai -> Differentiated * Control over supply/ output: * Control over price: * Barriers to entry: