A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration. School of Management

Research Studies Project Report (M.B.A.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2001

This research study aims at developing a competitive strategy for jacket category at the Thanglong Garment Company (Thaloga) in Vietnamese market. Like other companies in the textile and garment industry, Thaloga operation depends on orders of customers mostly from foreign customers. The majority of company's production is for export. The company had focused on domestic market in the last three years. The research examines external environment in which Thaloga operates. Opportunities identified are government prefen-ed treatment in tax and soft loans, growing economy with increasing purchasing power, large unexploited domestic market, good customer perception about domestic ready made garment, and favorable weather condition for jacket category. Threats include intensive competition from Chinese goods and increasing competition from existing companies. For company internal environment, it has strong capability in design and production with large production capacity. Weakness includes lack of customer understanding and customer oriented product development. The jacket product category seems to be stuck in the middle with no clear advantage in terms of price and product variety. Three competitive strategies are developed and evaluated, in which cost leadership strategy is recommended to the company to compete in the future.