BUS602: Marketing Management

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.