| Policy Tasks for the Stable Growth of Small and Medium Sized Food Manufacturers | |||
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| Author | Lee, Yongsun | ||
| Views | 94024 | Publication Date | 2019.02.26 |
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Background and Purpose of Research Recently, financial difficulty which small sized businesses suffered was reported frequently. The rate of food manufacturers closed against those started for the last five years is higher than the average of total manufacturers. It is estimated that small sized food manufacturers will have a difficulty due to deterioration of financial structure. The purpose of this study is to find policy tasks for stable growth of small and medium sized food manufacturers based on research and analysis of management improvement factors such as cooperation and collaboration by understanding the real condition of management among small and medium sized food manufacturers playing an important role in terms of influence on agriculture, forestry and fisheries, employment and the regional economy. Research Method This study mainly covers small sized food manufacturers that account for 66.7 percent of total workers engaging in food manufacturing and 40.1 percent of sales. This study analyzed the current state of operation according to characteristics of business enterprises and compared productivity according to sizes of small and medium sized food manufacturers by collecting statistical raw data from Statistics Korea, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and Science & Technology Policy Institute. Growth accounting analysis, DEA analysis and regression analysis were conducted to find out growth factors, productivity change and management performance determinants of small and medium sized food manufacturers. 85 small and medium sized food manufacturers were surveyed to find out awareness of management improvement and preference for methods of management improvement such as cooperation and collaboration. An in-depth survey was conducted to analyze cases of management improvement, cooperation and collaboration by visiting five small and medium sized food manufacturers in three types. Main Findings Between 2010 and 2016, the proportion of the number of workers engaging in food manufacturing and that of its sales in manufacturing increased to 8.4% and 6.4% respectively. Nonetheless, budget on the food industry in the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has been reduced, especially budget on strengthening of competitiveness of small and medium sized food manufacturers. On the other hand, budget for the Ministry of SMEs and Startups in charge of small and medium sized businesses policy has increased slightly but cooperation between organizations or supports by ministries and offices are unsatisfactory. Business to business accounts for a great part in a market for small and medium sized food manufacturers. Nonetheless, only 21 percent of food manufacturers do consignment transaction and most food manufacturers do business centering on simple transaction. With the labor force working in small and medium sized food manufacturers, women are more than men and education level is low and sales and production positions lack workforce. Only 40 percent of small sized food manufacturers make facilities investment. Facilities investment is limited to maintenance and expansion of existing facilities. With small sized food manufacturers, innovation activities such as R&D are insufficient, especially process innovation. Only 10 percent or less of food manufacturers have cooperated with other businesses or organizations when doing innovation activities. Recently, real production growth of small and medium sized food manufacturers has been sluggish, which is caused by insufficient capital investment or work force and poor total factor productivity. With small sized food manufacturers, total factor productivity is low. With medium sized food manufacturers, the increase rate of total factor productivity is declining. According to analysis of production efficiency, the productivity gap among business enterprises is increasing. It was found that assets size, capital equipment ratio, degree of cooperation and collaboration, R&D activities and advertising cost have a positive (+) influence on business performance of each food manufacturer (sales per worker) while leverage (debt ratio) and number of the unemployed have a negative (-) influence on business performance of each food manufacturer. In a survey, small sized food manufacturers said that they focus on an increase in sales for business improvement and pointed out excessive competition, depression, sluggish growth, instable transaction and financial risk as factors of instable business. Small sized food manufacturers thought of marketing capability improvement or production capability improvement (facility investment) as important factors of business improvement. 61.2 percent of food manufacturers have had no experience of cooperation and collaboration. Food manufacturers said that they want to collaborate with medium sized businesses and large businesses. 71.7 percent of food manufacturers want cooperation and collaboration and they prefer joint marketing and technical development. Food manufacturers surveyed said that they have a difficulty in finding partners (lack of information) and financing when promoting cooperation and collaboration. Food manufacturers surveyed said that capabilities of production, processing and sale were improved through government’s support. Food manufacturers surveyed want capability of technical development as well as capability of sale to be improved. Agricultural corporation Saessak and general manufacturing corporation GangDong O Cake are an example of improving business through supply chain management (SCM) centering on small sized businesses. Saessak and GangDong O Cake secured high quality ingredients such as oilseed crops and Korean wheat through contract cultivation. Improved business was primarily caused by enhanced processing quality through unification of varieties of ingredients and effort to develop processing technology that can enhance safety and taste of products. Research and development were conducted through active cooperation with colleges and research institutes. Dongnebangne Network and Eoggaedongmu Cooperative which are associations of small sized food manufacturers cooperate with medium and large sized business enterprises. Dongnebangne Network that is an association of raw rice wine breweries established standardized production technique and allied brands with the help of traditional alcoholic beverage manufacturers that are medium sized businesses and traditional alcoholic beverage manufacturers expect to secure a distribution network of traditional alcoholic beverage. Eoggaedongmu Cooperative that was formed centering on bean curd benefited from allied brand development and marketing provided by a large scale distributor. Eoggaedongmu Cooperative has developed through joint purchase of ingredients, joint operation of logistics facilities, delivery, reduction of logistics and management expenses, expansion of market and development of various products. Love & Good Deed Corp. is a good example which shows that comprehensive collaboration led by distribution and meal service can improve ecology of the food industry significantly. In order for small and medium sized food manufacturers to grow stably, it is necessary to build social infrastructure such as alleviation of excessive competition, promotion of cooperation and collaboration among businesses, improvement in ability to cope with the future and strengthening of links of policy support so that individual businesses' capability can be strengthened and total factor productivity can be enhanced. In order for capability of small and medium sized food manufacturers to be strengthened, it is necessary to include secondary process manufacturers in businesses entitled to the credit guarantee for farmers and fishermen and invigorate agrifood cloud funding during founding and at the time of introduction of new business. It is desirable to expand R&BD which promotes research and business development at the same time and supplement a standard which recognizes characteristics of the agrifood field in the agrifood venture business technology evaluation system. It is necessary to provide information on local buyers and overseas market issues through a database and increase an opportunity to talk with prospective buyers online and offline to expand the market. It is advisable to expand an opportunity to seek workers jointly through expositions (exhibitions) and a platform in the field of food to alleviate manpower shortage of small and medium sized businesses. There is a way that gives special treatment to or supports producer organizations to manage business risk and alleviate excessive competition. It is advisable to expand purchase performance guarantee insurance through which small sized food manufacturers can purchase agricultural products by credit and invigorate transaction and use of used machine equipment by building a distribution platform. Cooperation and collaboration between business enterprises make supply chain management (SCM) efficient through vertical and horizontal combination and bring external effect by exchange, learning and accumulation of information and knowledge (knowhow), namely mutual risk sharing. It is advisable to expand agriculture, industry and commerce combining the small and medium sized business promotion project to a network based cooperation and collaboration system and discover various cooperation and collaboration models and support construction of an online/offline platform and cultivation of organizations to promote cooperation (coordinators) to seek partners. It is necessary to focus on improvement and innovation of process control to strengthen small and medium sized food manufacturers’ ability to cope with the future and promote the introduction of smart factories step by step. It is advisable to build a database for supporting business enterprises and provide guidance on policy support projects in order to construct links between ministries and offices. It is desirable to make use of industrial clusters such as specialized industrial complexes of rural areas as the base for consulting, education and smartization and increase one-stop support service centering on agrifood venture founding support centers. Researchers: Lee Yongsun, Park Misung, Han Junghoon Research period: 2018. 1. ~ 2018. 10. E-mail address: yslee@krei.re.kr |
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