Strategic alliances in the internationalisation of portuguese SMEs: Jerónimo Martins case study

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes, Daniel Serra
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/8106
• topic: SME; LE; Internationalisation; Strategic alliances; PME; GE; Internacionalização; Alianças estratégicas

Given the reduction in domestic consumption in recent years, Portuguese enterprises have been forced to find new solutions to diversify their business. One of alternatives lies on marketing their goods and/ or services in external markets. Nevertheless, the internationalisation process depends on several factors. Most strategies imply a high investment or commitment and not all companies are able to assign resources to international expansion, whose business dimension is small and medium (SMEs). In order to become more accessible this approach, these firms can take advantage from successful business partnerships previously set out with other national companies, in Portugal, aiming to grow in markets where they have already operated. The large enterprises (LEs) can provide this opportunity, being highly present in different countries. With the goal of understanding the reasons of domestic companies’ choice for other companies to the supply of a product overseas, a case study was carried out. In this context, managers of SMEs, suppliers of Jerónimo Martins in Portugal and Poland, were interviewed. The outcomes obtained suggest that Jerónimo Martins prefers a SME from home country, since it took place previous trades in country of origin and SME offers a competitive product, in terms of price and quality, and tailored to host market. Generally, these partnerships evolve to highly successful strategic alliances, when they affect the competitiveness of the firms involved and require a long-term commitment of resources, i.e., when companies collaborate actively in several destinies.