STRATEGIC PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN THE WINE INDUSTRY:

A MULTIPLE CASE STUDY IN FRANCE.

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Author: ANTONIO SPIGA
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

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2nd August 2015

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this assignment is my own work and contains no material, which has been accepted
for the award of any degree or diploma in any institute, college or university. Moreover, to the
best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by
another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the work. I also understand that
under no circumstances should any part of this assignment be published, including on the
Internet, or publicly displayed without receiving written permission from the University.
Author:

Antonio Spiga

Contact:

antoniospiga@orange.fr

+33 (0)6 28 67 70 35

[Note word count excludes cover page, statement of authorship, acknowledgements, table of
contents, abstract, reference list and appendices.]

ABSTRACT

Globalization and open markets are pushing enterprises to facing levels of competition
unseen before. The wine industry is not making an exception. Academically, there is a lack of
information concerning how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operate in the wine sector
the large majority at least in Europe from a strategic perspective.
This work utilizes the research tool of case study to investigate small medium enterprises
operating in the wine industry located in the Bordeaux region, France. The aim is to better
understand how and why small organizations act strategically within their competitive
environment.
Concerning Strategy and Strategic Management, this work has first isolated some
dimensions/elements which have been considered essentials for a congruent definition of
strategy: value addition, competitive advantage, and long term perspective. Then, Kaplan &
Nortons (1982) Balanced Scorecards (BSC), one among the most used Strategic Performance
Management System (SPMS) worldwide, has been used as a theoretical model, as long as the
theory of the competitive advantage set up by Porter (1982).
As a result of the research this work has highlighted that organizations operating in this
sector do not define formally any strategy. However, as a common pattern, they tend to use some
themes in order to gain some competitive advantage. So, themes such as environmental policies,
customer focus and quality have been recognized as recurrent during the study. From a strategic

perspective, those common themes have been treated as strategic themes, and according to the
BSC model, proposed within a Strategy Map. That way, along with the appropriate use of a set of
key performance indicators (KPIs), the selected themes would be used strategically, namely
linking strategy to operations through understandable cause-effect relationships.
The work puts additional light to strategic performance management of SMEs operating
in the wine sector, which are currently in extreme need of usable tools of development. Also,
from the academic perspective, it opens the path to other useful research questions.