Manufacturers’ Benefits from their Cooperation with Key Retailers in the Context of Business Models: A Cluster Analysis1

Inter-organizational relationships are considered fundamental in building competitive advantages, with cooperation in the supply chain yielding higher benefits than competition. Cooperation and coopetition between manufacturers and retailers, have been a topic of multiple studies and papers from the perspective of value chain management and relationship marketing. The majority of papers used data from the FMCG market – with few publications focused on the durable consumer goods’ market. Many authors postulate that the relationships between manufacturers and retailers need to be considered taking into account the business model concepts, which can drive the benefits of manufacturer’ cooperation/coopetition with key retailers. In this study, the cooperation between manufacturers and retailers of consumer durable goods is investigated. In particular, joint and individual benefits of cooperation are considered from the perspective of manufacturers and in terms of both manufacturers’ and retailers’ business models. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the structure and benefits of cooperation between the said parties. This study is based on a survey of 613 managers of manufacturers operating in Poland representing various categories of consumer durables. Manufacturers are clustered (hierarchical and nonhierarchical methods) according to the strength of the presence of 15 benefits reached due to their cooperation with key retailers. After a set of ANOVA tests (confirmed with Kruskal-Wallis tests), it was concluded that the established clusters do statistically differ in terms of manufacturer’s business model, but these differences prove to be poor predictors of the overall level of obtained benefits from the perspective of the manufacturer.