Clusters and competitiveness - PRO INNO Europe

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Figure 16. Main competitiveness reinforcement initiatives carried out in Catalonia as part of the Catalan government’s cluster policy from 2004 onwards Farm machinery in Lleida Knitted fabrics in Anoia Household furniture in La Sénia Terres de l’Ebre Source: Observatory for Industrial Foresight. A proposal for a new cluster policy 20 CLUSTERS AND COMPETITIVENESS: THE CASE OF CATALONIA (1993-2010) Metal Mechanical in Ripollès Cork in Costa Brava Narrow fabrics in Bages Osona Leather tanning in Osona Chimneys in Centelles La Selva Household furniture in La Garriga Textiles in the Maresme Moulds and dies Motorcycles Graphic arts in Barcelonès Kitchen and bathroom taps in Baix Llobregat Lighting Leisure sailing Optics and photonics Technical fabrics Photovoltaic energy Textiles-fashion (branding & retail) Growth strategies in food: • Gourmet foods • Food service Children's products Wellbeing sector Competitiveness reinforcement initiatives in traditional clusters Strategy-centred initiatives Incipient clusters Local innovation and development plan In 2009, after over fifteen years’experience of implementing competitiveness reinforcement initiatives as part of what was, broadly speaking, a cluster policy, the Catalan government decided to remodel this policy in order to improve the benefits received by the companies. The main reasons for this remodelling were the limitations experienced in the current policy, suggestions made by the European Commission, and the implications of changes in the industrial model occurring in the advanced economies over the previous few years. The following limitations stood out from the rest: • The small size of initiatives undertaken, and the generally immaterial results produced, which in turn reduced their visibility • The constant public leadership of the management of the projects, and the difficulty of finding the necessary private leadership to take them over • The insufficient number of the mechanisms dedicated by the administration to implement the policy
• The difficulty of strategic planning for a programme of initiatives aimed at micro-clusters These limitations were indirectly highlighted by the European Commission in 2008 in its document Towards World-Class Clusters in the European Union: Implementing the Broadbased Innovation Strategy, which called for the setting up of competitiveness reinforcement initiatives with the following characteristics: • Large enough to be able to establish international cooperation relations • Run by a professional management team capable of pushing forward complex projects such as those resulting from an industry view incorporating production services At the same time, it should be made clear that the newly-designed 2009 model for competitiveness reinforcement initiatives demonstrated an obvious continuity with work carried out since 1993 in that it still combined analysis with process, i.e., a diagnosis of the competitive position of the businesses involved and the implementation of measures focused on strategic change, as a key element to improve competitiveness in the long term. Inthiscontext,thefirstmajorchangerelatestothedefinitionoftheprojects,astheselection criteria since 2009 have been common strategy or target market, and, furthermore, the geographical scope has been increased to include the whole of Catalonia. This change implies a shift in initiatives, for example from knitwear in Maresme, to companies in the textiles and clothing sector emphasising branding and retail in Catalonia (common strategy criterion). A second example is to initiate projects to increase competitiveness for companies producing a range of goods or services aimed at children, from food, publishing or cosmetics to toys, educational aids or audiovisual learning products (target market criterion), see fig. 33. The second change stems from the first one, and is in the size of the market for competitiveness reinforcement initiatives undertaken by the administration, given that projects, often cross-sectoral, in which companies are grouped together because of their shared strategy or common target market, generally result in a higher combined turnover, as well as a comparatively higher level of employment than that of initiatives based on industrial micro-clusters. An example of this is the previously mentioned project, under the new model, to increase competitiveness in the market for children, which means working with companies with a joint turnover of approximately 3,000 million euros, while former projects, following the earlier scheme, such as those of the cork or leisure boat industrial clusters, involved a turnover of 240 and 150 million euros respectively. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 21
Page 1: Clusters and competitiveness: the c
Page 4 and 5: Hernández Gascón, Joan Miquel Clu
Page 7: Acknowledgements Verymanypeople,com
Page 10 and 11: Index of tables Table 1. The local
Page 12 and 13: Figure 31. Textile distribution tre
Page 14 and 15: The term “cluster” is used to r
Page 16 and 17: The last effect of the new focus, a
Page 18 and 19: Figure 11. Map of the local industr
Page 20 and 21: Figure 14. Joint work scheme of the
Page 24 and 25: Figure 33. The change in project de
Page 26 and 27: Catalonia was a pioneer in the use
Page 28 and 29: Cluster policy, understood as a ser
Page 31 and 32: A little theory: Marshall, Becattin
Page 33 and 34: However, the proliferation of regio
Page 35 and 36: the diversity of clusters themselve
Page 37 and 38: The first step: the competitive adv
Page 39 and 40: political environment which conditi
Page 41 and 42: Figure 2. The clusters of the futur
Page 43: 1. To invest in lasting long-term c
Page 46 and 47: 4.1 Introduction Following the impa
Page 48 and 49: 4.2 First stage: 1993-2004 4.2.1 Me
Page 50 and 51: This working method led the members
Page 52 and 53: 4.2.2 A case study: the leather tan
Page 54 and 55: added to this industry’s strong d
Page 56 and 57: Figure 9. Comparison between the pr
Page 58 and 59: Within this framework, Igualada’s
Page 60 and 61: 4.2.3 Some lessons More than twenty
Page 62 and 63: Finally, and with the aim of transm
Page 64 and 65: the initial stage was selected, eli
Page 66 and 67: Table 1. The local production syste
Page 68 and 69: Table 3. Relative importance of ind
Page 70 and 71: 2. Analysis of the business and str
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It should be noted that, during the
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Table 4. Types of competitiveness r
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Figure 18. Basic data for the kitch
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2. Specialised firms: normally fore
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Figure 22. Main strategic challenge
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Main actions carried out in the kit
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On the one hand, this change in men
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In 2009 the Catalan government’s
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As in most regions or countries tha
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countries in the 1990s. However, th
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For this reason, one of the most re
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total in 2005 was 66.7%; in the Bas
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Table 6.Trends in value added by la
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There was a considerable amount of
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With regard to strategies, the anal
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Table 7. Professional profiles of e
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In terms of the positive results ac
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In 2009, after over fifteen years
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Figure 33. The change in project de
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implementing the subsequent actions
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At the same time, the Directorate G
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Cluster policy, understood as a ser
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entirely to this topic. This centre
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It hasalreadybeenmentionedthatclust
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2. Some rationale for territorial s
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Twomainreasonsjustifythispeculiarro
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of the specific interventions to re
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Sincethesenewpoliciesarestillinthei
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7. References Altobelli, C.andCarna
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Schmitz, H. (1999): “Collective e
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2. Clusters as building blocks of a
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Anumberofempiricalstudieslookatallt
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and othercompaniesthatturnintoaclus
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Thelackofagenerallyaccepteddefiniti
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aswellassupportersofclusterpolicy(a
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3.3 Implementing cluster policy to
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as a way to leverage existing agglo
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Boekholt, Patrice and Shonie McKibb
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Fritsch, Michael and Viktor Slavtch
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Porter, Michael E.: Clusters and Co
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C. Clusters: a strategic tool Anton
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The other characteristic of our pro
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they arenotrepresentedbyotherassoci
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• Gaining insight into a country
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Diez, M. A. (2001): “The Evaluati
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Joan Miquel Hernández Gascón (Val
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