Sajo Group's Long Journey: Re-entering a Mature Market

This case study looked into Sajo Group's re-entrance into the already-mature canned tuna industry. Commonly, re-establishing brand identity that once disappeared from customers' memories is normally considered harder than launching a new brand. Even still, Sajo ambitiously decided to bring back “Sajo's Canned Tuna”.Sajo faced a management crisis from over-expenditure and failure to expand the market after launching Sajo's Canned Tuna. In order to overcome this, Sajo sold its factory and dissolved its sales organization responsible for direct sales of the product. Although many similar companies exited from the mature fishing and seafood industry when the competition became severe, Sajo remained in the business. The company conducted many M&A transactions focusing on what they knew well and in which they maintained strength. Well-managed M&As enabled Sajo to enhance its business through structural integration, thereby functioning as a new stepping stone for the company's leap back into the market.When Sajo decided to end its sales consignment strategy and resume direct sales of Sajo's Canned Tuna, Sajo secured a supply of high-quality, raw tuna, realizing economies of scale, and re-organized their sales network by merging with Sajohaepyo. Sajo also improved its products' competitive quality by obtaining HACCP certification as well as differentiating its marketing and promotion strategies from those of its competitors. Further, Sajo sought to improve its in-store presence percentage, which had dropped to almost 50%, while trying to persuade shop-owners to rearrange displays that were predominantly taken by Dongwon and Ottogi. Sajo also resumed advertising and sales promotions. As a result, Sajo was able to achieve over 200% increase in market share in two years, thereby elevating the company to the number two spot in the industry.Although Sajo had substantially improved the company's sustainability in both the fishing and seafood industry, its competitors, Dongwon's aggressive marketing strategies and Ottogi's strong sales network are sure to continue to be serious threats. It is time for Sajo to plan additional strategies in order to overcome its competitors' attacks.