An exploratory factor analysis for capabilities transformation from design firm to own branding

Abstract

An exploratory factor analysis has been studied for capabilities transformation from design firm to own branding company. Many Taiwan's companies are trying to upgrade from OEM, ODM to OBM with the assistances from design firms or in-house design departments. That is to say, Taiwan design firms act as part of the manufacturing supply-chain. Lots of small design firms in Taiwan also put their efforts to transform to own-branding from their design basis. Sekond Creative Design is one of the small design firms, which want to build their own brands from different industries. A previous study as "unpublished" [1] using participant observation method obtained the results of the capabilities transformation from the design firm to own-branding by a resource-based view. This study has emphasized on finding the key factors, which can help design firms in Taiwan understand their strength and weakness. The questionnaires were distributed to the 133 customers who purchased Sekond Creative Design company's products or visited its branches located in Taipei and Tainan. A LIKERT scale with five points was used to evaluate the degree of preferences for each question. Seven factors were identified using an exploratory factor analysis. The factors, which are important for design firms in Taiwan to transmit the product value to the consumers and to meet their needs, are product design creativity, patent barriers building, product and brand identity, marketing communication, marketing positioning, channel management, quality satisfaction, and sales team management. The survey results also showed positive responses from customers to these factors.