In Search of Maintaining Competitiveness through Industry Analysis- The case of the rubber subcontractors in the automotive industry

Abstract: With the purpose of expanding our understanding on the main causes that make maintaining competitiveness a challenging issue for companies in an industry, a qualitative research is conducted in this thesis based on Porter theoretical framework (i.e. the five competitive forces model); thereby selecting a single case study with a Swedish rubber subcontractor. The findings show that the threat of new entrants, the rivalry among the existing rubber subcontractors, the bargaining power of carmakers, the bargaining power of suppliers and the role of the Swedish government all highly concern and challenge the competitiveness of the case company. However, given the fact that close substitute products to the case company’s product are absent from the market, their threat does not represent any distress for the competitiveness of the company.