臺灣定期航運公司發展策略分析可維持成長率模式之應用

Strategic Analysis of Taiwan Liner Shipping Companies Using the Sustainable Growth Rate Model

成功的公司必須擁有完整的財務以及投資計畫，其成長率也是擬定未來發展策略的重要因素。快速的成長或許能夠獲得更多的市場占有率，但另一方面，也可能會耗盡公司大量的資源，進而導致該公司財務困難甚至破產；反之，緩慢成長代表著公司並未善用資源，造成公司錯過擴大規模的機會和收益。以可維持成長率的觀點來看，過度成長以及緩慢成長都不利於公司未來發展，公司必須於兩者間取一平衡點，而最佳的解決方案是取其合適的成長率作為公司未來的投資計畫及資本預算。近年來，定期航運公司一直處於獲利不佳或虧損的狀況，市場競爭激烈，運價難以提升，貨櫃運輸容量的供給高出需求成長甚多，過剩的運能導致低運價及低報酬。大型的航運公司持續訂造超大型貨櫃船，希望能夠藉由規模經濟來減少它們的單位營運成本；然而大型船的投入可能並不適合每間公司，過度投資，快速成長的公司將可能會產生財務危機乃至破產。有鑑於此，本研究蒐集了臺灣主要的三家航運公司：長榮海運、陽明海運、萬海航運，並應用可維持成長率模式（Higgins, 1977）分析三家公司的發展策略。同時，配合其他財務條件，提出相對應的發展策略，讓公司可以維持持續成長。研究結果顯示可維持成長率模式可以有效的應用在分析公司成長策略，其所提出的方法與研究結果有助於定期航運業在未來擬定發展策略之參考。近年來由於定期航運產業受到船舶大型化之影響，航商在主要航線投入大型貨櫃船營運以降低貨櫃運送之單位固定成本，然而船舶造價影響固定成本中之折舊成本，因此航商在進行船舶投資決策時必須更加謹慎小心。

A successful company must have a comprehensive financial and investment plan, and the market growth rate is also an important information for the company to formulate its future development strategies. Although rapid growth may help a company gain larger market share, on the other hand, the rapid growth may also exhaust most of a company,s resources, which will probably result in financial distress or bankruptcy. With the slow growth, a company may not fully utilize its resources and it will also miss the opportunity to enlarge its scale and benefits. In view of sustainable growth, both excessive growth and slow growth will not lead to a company continuing future development. A company has to balance its strategic plan between rapid and slow growth rates, whereas, the optimal solution is to derive its suitable growth rate to make decisions for future investment and capital budgeting. The growth in container demand did not have a positive impact on freight rates. The container transportation market has been a very competitive market throughout recent years, with freight rates remaining volatile and struggling to rise. Overcapacity leads to low freight rates and low returns with which carriers had to struggle throughout these years. Furthermore, large liner companies ordered extra-large size container ships to reduce their unit-operating cost by achieving economies of scale. Large container ship deployment strategy may not work well for all companies and careless, excessive capital investment may lead the poor companies to move toward bankruptcy. To help liner shipping companies grow in a more effectively way, this paper investigates three major liner companies in Taiwan, Evergreen Marine Corp., Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. and Wan Hai Lines Ltd. and the authors have applied sustainable growth model (Higgins, 1977) to examine the sustainable growth rate (SGR) of these companies and to analyze their development strategies. While coordinating the growth rate with its financial resource condition, this research has proposed suitable development strategies to achieve sustainable growth for each of the three companies. The results show that the SGR model is effective and applicable. The proposed research approach contributes to the liner shipping industry in both academic theory development, regular business operations, and business strategy formulation.