Clusters and competitiveness - PRO INNO Europe

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Figure 18. Basic data for the kitchen and bathroom tap cluster Source: Observatory for Industrial Foresight. 74 CLUSTERS AND COMPETITIVENESS: THE CASE OF CATALONIA (1993-2010) The kitchen and bathroom tap cluster in Baix Llobregat • Location: Baix Llobregat and Vallès Occidental • Approximately 50 firms • 1,600 employees • Turnover: 260 million euros • 80% of Spain’s production Source: OPI, 2005. The main agents in the cluster were end product companies and suppliers of parts and services, firms selling foreign products (top range products from Italy, Germany and other northern European countries, and lower ranges mostly from China and Eastern Europe), and also some firms that imported foreign products but carried out the final assembly in Catalonia, at the end of the production chain. However, these companies did not have any representative structure at the time (there was only one association, AGRIVAL, which grouped together a portion of the manufacturers and was dedicated, from its offices in Madrid, to matters relating to official standards approval and certification), and neither was there any dedicated training centre or technology transfer centre. The only relation with a technology centre was the one that some firms had with the LGAI (General Laboratory of Trials and Research) for matters of official standards certification (see fig. 19). It should be noted that one of the cluster’s most significant characteristics was the high degree of concentration of production: its largest firm (world leader in the sector of bathroom and kitchen fittings) accounted for almost 50% of the whole turnover; the top five companies accounted for 80% and practically all of them also had production plants in low-cost countries, which led to a constant decline in workload for auxiliary businesses, with the closure of a dozen small firms and the loss of more than 250 jobs in the three years before the initiative was implemented.
Figure 19. The main agents in the kitchen and bathroom tap cluster Suppliers of parts and valves Sedal Suppliers of raw materials brass, nickel Source: Observatory for Industrial Foresight. Importers Grohe, other brands Tap manufacturers Roca, Industrias Ramon Soler, Grifería Tres, Supergrif, Tebisa... Auxiliary firms casting, machining, chrome-plating... Analysis of the competitive situation Association Agrival (Madrid) Distributors warehouses, shops, department stores Designers Certification Centre LGAI New build (50%) Replacement (50%) In 2005, the kitchen and bathroom tap cluster in Baix Llobregat had two apparently contradictory characteristics. On the one hand, it was an expanding business due to the strong growth in its client, the construction sector, which also led to an increasing number of firms in Catalonia selling products from abroad 15 ; on the other hand, offshoring to China and other low-cost countries was causing a big crisis among local suppliers of parts and services, whose workload was steadily decreasing 16 . Moreover, it was also quite evident that there was growing polarisation between premium range products (in which design was important) and the cheapest products (normally imported from China). Therefore, in the strategic segmentation carried out by the Observatory for Industrial Foresight during its analysis of the sector’s competitive situation, basically three kinds of manufacturers were identified: 1. Wide range suppliers: companies with an extensive product catalogue with wideranging qualities and prices and with renowned brands in the market in all segments. In practice there were two companies that worked for the new build sector with a large production output. 15 During the previous four years, imports from China had multiplied by 15 and those from Italy had grown by almost 90%. 16 Although this was not a specifically Catalan phenomenon, the price of copper, the main component of brass, which practically all taps are made from and which can account for up to 20% of the product’s final production cost, had multiplied by 2.5 over the previous four years. Paradoxically, however, this provided Catalan manufacturers with a competitive advantage over low-cost countries (China, among others), as in these countries raw materials represent a much larger proportion of the production cost. THE CATALAN GOVERNMENT’S CLUSTER POLICY 75
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Clusters and competitiveness: the c
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Hernández Gascón, Joan Miquel Clu
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Acknowledgements Verymanypeople,com
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Index of tables Table 1. The local
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Figure 31. Textile distribution tre
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The term “cluster” is used to r
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The last effect of the new focus, a
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Figure 11. Map of the local industr
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Figure 14. Joint work scheme of the
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Figure 16. Main competitiveness rei
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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
Page 72 and 73: It should be noted that, during the
Page 74 and 75: Table 4. Types of competitiveness r
Page 78 and 79: 2. Specialised firms: normally fore
Page 80 and 81: Figure 22. Main strategic challenge
Page 82 and 83: Main actions carried out in the kit
Page 84 and 85: On the one hand, this change in men
Page 86 and 87: In 2009 the Catalan government’s
Page 88 and 89: As in most regions or countries tha
Page 90 and 91: countries in the 1990s. However, th
Page 92 and 93: For this reason, one of the most re
Page 94 and 95: total in 2005 was 66.7%; in the Bas
Page 96 and 97: Table 6.Trends in value added by la
Page 98 and 99: There was a considerable amount of
Page 100 and 101: With regard to strategies, the anal
Page 102 and 103: Table 7. Professional profiles of e
Page 104 and 105: In terms of the positive results ac
Page 106 and 107: In 2009, after over fifteen years
Page 108 and 109: Figure 33. The change in project de
Page 110 and 111: implementing the subsequent actions
Page 112 and 113: At the same time, the Directorate G
Page 114 and 115: Cluster policy, understood as a ser
Page 116 and 117: entirely to this topic. This centre
Page 118 and 119: It hasalreadybeenmentionedthatclust
Page 120 and 121: 2. Some rationale for territorial s
Page 122 and 123: Twomainreasonsjustifythispeculiarro
Page 124 and 125: 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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