Placing The Keg : How Five Swedish Microbreweries Position Themselves

Abstract: In recent years, microbreweries have become increasingly popular in both Sweden and abroad. These breweries focus on producing beer on a smaller scale, with craftsmanship and high-quality raw material as guiding principles. Today, there are around 50 microbreweries in Sweden with different backgrounds, sizes, locations, and lifespan. Given this increase in microbreweries in Sweden, the need for establishing a sturdy position on this evolving market is becoming increasingly important, and seeing that the  microbreweries in this study consist of less than 13 employees, specialized knowledge of each employee becomes pivotal for the organizations’ survival and competitiveness. Therefore, the need for finding and utilizing organizational capabilities that helps them to establish and sustain a certain positioning strategy increases. In this thesis, we have interviewed and investigated five Swedish microbreweries with the purpose of describing how these microbreweries position themselves and how organizational capabilities facilitate them in reaching their positioning strategy. We investigated the microbreweries by using a qualitative research approach and designed case studies on each, which was based on both primary and secondary data. We interviewed these microbreweries by telephone, using a semi-structured interview form. Each case study was then analyzed using Hooley et al’s (1998) positioning dimensions, Porter’s (1996) positioning bases, and theories concerning organizational capabilities. The study concludes that microbreweries position themselves as a high-quality alternative, and tend to base their positioning strategy upon a needs-based view of positioning. The organizational capabilities that facilitate them in the reaching of their positioning strategies were experience, knowledge, motivation, teamwork, self-criticism, and industrial thinking.