Clusters and competitiveness - PRO INNO Europe

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Main actions carried out in the kitchen and bathroom tap cluster 192021 Of particular importance were the initiatives aimed at encouraging strategic change in the cluster’s firms (manufacturers of the end product and auxiliary companies) by redirecting their business towards activities that were more sustainable and had a higher margin. Also important were those initiatives that aimed to improve the key elements for competing more efficiently, such as training company managers, production gains and investment in innovation and development. The process of strategic change for the cluster’s firms, surely the most important of all, was promoted firstly by holding workshops on strategic reflection which presented the problems and challenges facing the sector and also served to create a climate of trust in the group and, secondly, by offering financial support at the same time, via the New Business Opportunities programme described in the previous section, to individual companies taking effective steps towards another way of competing. Both initiatives were considerably successful, as more than half the firms took part in the first strategic reflection workshop held and 17 carried out projects of strategic change 19 , many of them auxiliary firms that wanted to enter new market niches 20 or incorporate more design so as to target more profitable segments 21 . Some actions carried out in the area of internationalization should also be mentioned, such as the participation of some tap manufacturers in a trade delegation of Catalan home products firms (furniture, lighting, home textiles, etc.) to Dubai. Collective actions included the creation of a marketing platform called Grup 7, through which seven auxiliary firms from the cluster, suppliers of parts or complementary services, joined forces to market their products, working with a joint website or sharing the marketing expenses of their joint participation in trade fairs. As is customary in a large number of SMEs in Catalan industry, the management of the tap cluster’s firms had a great deal of practical experience and excellent knowledge of their business, but limited strategic vision for competing in a totally globalised economy. For this reason, the competitiveness reinforcement initiative set up by the Catalan government in 2005 aimed to reinforce the management skills of the sector’s managers by offering them tailor-made training courses, held in collaboration with a business school. It should be noted that, beyond their main aim, these training courses also served to engender a true networking spirit that helped to eradicate suspicion, and to open the eyes of many of the participants to the possibilities of cooperation arising from the initiative they were involved in. 19 ACC1Ó dedicated 700,000 euros over two years to support projects of strategic change presented by firms in the kitchen and bathroom tap cluster. 20 For example, a company producing shower hoses developed a product line for hairdressers. 21 See the case of the Orfesa, Griferias Galindo and Standar Hidráulica companies in the newspaper cuttings accompanying this text. 80 CLUSTERS AND COMPETITIVENESS: THE CASE OF CATALONIA (1993-2010)
Figure 24. Examples of tap cluster firms that carried out strategic change projects and received grants from the New Business Opportunities programme (NON) Source: Observatory for Industrial Foresight. Finally, other actions carried out were the creation of a website or benchmarking trips to identify good practices in similar and more advanced clusters. All these practices also served to create a “cluster feeling”; in other words, they helped companies in the kitchen and bathroom tap sector in Baix Llobregat to realise that they could cooperate in order to compete under better relative conditions. Three years after the initiative started, this feeling was consolidated through the creation of a cluster association promoted by 13 sector firms, both manufacturers and suppliers, which was given the task of improving their competitiveness. It is difficult to be objective when assessing the results achieved by the initiative to strengthen competitiveness of the kitchen and bathroom tap cluster in Baix Llobregat, not only because it is not easy to know what would have happened if it had not been carried out, but also because most of the strategic change projects generated are still being implemented and their results will only be perceived in a few years’time. However, it is possible to state that the operation helped a significant proportion of the cluster’s firms to have a more positive attitude, and to face the crisis resulting from the slump in housing construction with more confidence in the future. THE CATALAN GOVERNMENT’S CLUSTER POLICY 81
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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
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Catalonia was a pioneer in the use
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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 76 and 77: Figure 18. Basic data for the kitch
Page 78 and 79: 2. Specialised firms: normally fore
Page 80 and 81: Figure 22. Main strategic challenge
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
Page 126 and 127: Sincethesenewpoliciesarestillinthei
Page 128 and 129: 7. References Altobelli, C.andCarna
Page 130 and 131: 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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