تجزیه و تحلیل های اقتصادی از نتایج تنوع محصول در ارزیابی محسوس لوازم خانگی بادوام

The current tendency towards product differentiation in many areas of manufacturing is generally considered to be extremely positive. What we have attempted to do here is to verify the real degree of diversification that exists, by means of the measurement of the global performance of the most important household appliances, calculated using technical specifications available in the market. The figures enable us to evaluate the actual degree of diversification, and to calculate the Price/Global Performance ratio, a real measure of the relationship between the global technical performance of a product and its price, in order to get a critical understanding of the technical and economic results of diversification. Furthermore, we have also carried out an analysis of correlation designed to support “empirical” evidence

The current trend in consumer durable manufacturing is towards an ever-increasing diversification of production, designed to ensure greater market shares. This behaviour, which is in part dictated by the specific nature of demand in the industrialised world, could be justified from the commercial point of view in terms of the need companies have to differentiate their production and gain a secure position in already saturated markets. The production of differentiated goods, in fact, would guarantee a company its predominance over potential rivals, especially with regard to its specific product (Beath and Katsoulacos, 1991). As a result, companies are no longer solely interested in the tried-and-tested marketing strategy of creating an “apparent variety” of goods, but also in looking for new production mixes which tend to constitute a “real variety” of products once again considered to be of central importance within the modified competitive framework (Starr, 1982; Clark and Wheelwright, 1993). The production of a greater variety of goods, characterised by increased managerial and operational complexity, thus leads to the development of new productive strategies (Perera et al., 1999).

As we can see from the above examples, this method enables us to make a detailed technical and economic analysis of various consumer durables. As we have repeatedly mentioned, there is clearly an interpretative limitation to this, which we have always taken into account here; such a limitation consists in the availability of product specification figures. Our study has been guided by the conviction that we can demonstrate the applicability of such a method not only at the theoretical level, but also at the assessment and decision-making levels. The use of figures pertaining exclusively to the Italian market may well prevent us for drawing more wide-reaching conclusions, but it does not, nonetheless, detract from their illustrative validity. Besides which, given the considerable difficulty encountered in obtaining technical data and prices, it was hardly possible to extend our study to other countries. Should such detailed figures for other countries be made available, then our analysis of product diversification could take on a more clearly defined, more substantial shape, capable of identifying global trends within the consumer durables industry (which are probably very similar to those seen in the Italian case). The result that appears to emerge (given that only three out of eight important manufacturing sectors do not provide univocal indications) is the increased capacity of manufacturers (perceived as part of one large industrial system) to “lead” the market, since the other party, the consumers, are generally called upon to economically support this diversification of production. Industry's considerable efforts to increase its own levels of flexibility, from the end of the 1980s onwards, have led to the emergence of a consistent degree of real diversification among those models produced by the same manufacturer (and in particular, between bottom- and top-range products). However, this diversification is much more limited than at first would seem to be the case judging by the information furnished by the manufacturers themselves concerning those models covering adjacent market segments, and is in fact virtually non-existent when it comes to different versions of the same model. Nevertheless, the market prices of different products rarely correspond to their real quality, but on the contrary tend to be much higher than actual quality would tend to suggest, both in the case of different versions of the same model and that of different models altogether.