Clusters and competitiveness - PRO INNO Europe

4.2 First stage: 1993-2004
4.2.1 Methodological approach and initiatives carried out
In 1993, at a time of economic and industrial crisis, and while Catalonia was facing the
challenge of a significant opening up of the economy resulting from the creation of the
Single European Market, the then Department of Industry and Energy of the Catalan
government took the decision to embark on an industrial and business policy which,
making use of the information provided by The Competitive Advantages of Catalonia,
aimed to strengthen the competitiveness of the country’s industrial clusters through the
implementation of a process of change inspired by Michael Porter’s work.
The proposed model considered that existing industrial policy dedicated a great deal of
its resources to boosting quality, productivity, innovation, exports, computerization or
design, and managed to improve companies’operative efficiency, but did not, however, aid
them, especially in the case of small and medium enterprises, to reconsider their strategic
decisions in order to successfully face up to the challenges of the future. Improvements
in management are very important, but a bad strategic positioning may cancel out or
reduce any positive effects achieved through gains in operational efficiency, as shown by
the examples of territories with worse infrastructures and lower productivity than others
which, however, win in the market not by doing the same things better, but by doing
different things in a different way. The competitiveness enhancement policy begun in 1993
thus aimed to complement traditional industrial policy with mechanisms to identify future
strategic challenges for companies, to design specific measures to improve their skills and
capabilities, and wished to introduce a culture and process of strategic change in those
sectors where necessitated by changes in environment, market or technology.
The introduction of the concept of strategy as a basic element in strengthening
competitiveness is the central idea of the cluster policy initiated in 1993, which developed
a specific methodology to generate processes of real strategic change. This methodology,
highly innovative at the time, was based on a triple shift: from the sector to the strategic
segment, from cluster to micro-cluster, and from analysis to strategic change (Conejos and
Hernández, 1999).
The shift from sector to strategic segment originated from the recognition that an analysis of
the competitive advantage of an industrial sector defined according to classic parameters is
only capable of identifying general problems and can therefore only offer general solutions.
As a result, it was important to introduce the concept of strategic segment, conceived as
the area where real competition takes place, and where the established companies share
common problems and search for solutions. This shift is important, and, within the new
framework, means no longer referring to textiles, food or paper, but rather to the knitwear,
meat or paper tissue industries.
With the same aim of offering precisely defined measures rather than general
recommendations, the methodology used by the Catalan government shifted in focus from
the cluster to the micro-cluster, understood as a group of related companies and activities
46 CLUSTERS AND COMPETITIVENESS: THE CASE OF CATALONIA (1993-2010)