Case Study: The Spanish Wine Industry
Conclusions
The purpose of this document is to assess the
factors on which business success is based within the wine industry in
Spain. For this analysis, the authors combined the theories of resources
and capabilities and strategic positioning, following previous studies. The basic hypothesis is that both
theories are not contradictory, but coexist within the business reality,
and that both can at least partially explain the defining factors of
business success. Analysis has focused the study on the Spanish wine
sector, a sector characterized by the presence of a large number of
small and medium-sized companies, which faithfully reflects the reality
of businesses in Spain, Europe and the global world. To adapt the study
to the Spanish wine industry, the authors have differentiated between
three types of wineries: individual, cooperative and mercantile, and the
authors evaluate the importance of resources, capabilities and
strategy.
In this document, the authors analyze technological
capabilities and managerial capabilities as two of the resources and
capabilities that business literature identifies as key resources. This
study has evaluated the strategic positioning with the scale developed
by Robinson and Pearce.
The first conclusion that can be
drawn from the results obtained shows that the existence of the synergic
effect of resources and capabilities with strategies, has only been
corroborated in mercantile companies. This effect has not been found in
individual companies (where strategies explain their business
performance), nor in cooperatives (where the resources explain their
business performance). On the other hand, the general values of
significant correlation found between the explanatory strategies of
performance (efficiency, marketing and innovation) with the resources
and capabilities studied (technology and management), prove that
resources and capabilities affect the strategies, or that strategies are chosen depending on the resources
the company controls. These results are in line
with the concept of strategy formation defined by Barney et al.,
considering that the ability to implement the strategy is in itself a
resource capable of providing a sustainable strategic advantage.
The
second conclusion in the field of resources and capabilities is that
technological capabilities are much more important than management
capabilities, although this element has not been proven for individual
companies, where resources and capabilities do not explain their
business performance.
With respect to strategic positioning, the
results present a more complex configuration. For individual companies,
strategy is the key element in the explanation of business success,
first marketing strategy and then efficiency strategy. From the analysis
of Porter's generic strategies, Table 13, individual companies
achieve better business performance with generic cost strategy. However,
in mercantile companies, they are the marketing and innovation
strategies that explain their performance, and from the perspective of
Porter's analysis, mercantile companies achieve better business
performance in a generic differentiation strategy, Table 13.
In
the case of the cooperatives, no strategic positioning directly related
to performance has been detected, however, a control variable has
appeared, the internal competence of the sector, as an explanatory
element for a better performance. This analysis is in line with Porter's
theories on competitive advantage, where he defends that a high
level of competition in a sector is a driver of a better behavior on the
part of the companies.