In this paper we explore the SMEs emerging business models in the Italian eyewear industry. The Italian eyewear industry has developed spectacularly during the last three decades, achieving a world leadership position with few large firms (i.e. Luxottica) and a myriad of SMEs. In the last fifteen years, globalization and digital technologies have challenged this position, particularly through Chinese competitors. Whereas large firms have been able to successfully compete maintaining their position at the forefront of the industry with international operation and strategies of vertical integration, most of the SMEs have entered an irreversible status of crisis and gone out of business at an unprecedented rate. However, a closer look at the data and fact behind this general picture reveals a more complex situation with several SMEs able to survive and, in some case to thrive, by successfully adapting their business model. Our analysis sheds light on the variety of business models emerging in the eyewear industry both in the case of small and medium-sized eyewear producers and small-part and component suppliers. New business models vary according to the firms’ position in the vertical contracting structure of the industry but share the attempt to generate sustainable diversity. We propose that firms must pursue the creation of difference as the strategy that can lead to competitive advantage and that sustainable advantages must be rooted on business models that are internally consistent sets of choices, repertoires of capabilities and configurations of activities, and externally coherent with the industry value drivers.

Globalization and low-technology industries: the case of Italian eyewear

CAMUFFO, ARNALDO
2011

Abstract

In this paper we explore the SMEs emerging business models in the Italian eyewear industry. The Italian eyewear industry has developed spectacularly during the last three decades, achieving a world leadership position with few large firms (i.e. Luxottica) and a myriad of SMEs. In the last fifteen years, globalization and digital technologies have challenged this position, particularly through Chinese competitors. Whereas large firms have been able to successfully compete maintaining their position at the forefront of the industry with international operation and strategies of vertical integration, most of the SMEs have entered an irreversible status of crisis and gone out of business at an unprecedented rate. However, a closer look at the data and fact behind this general picture reveals a more complex situation with several SMEs able to survive and, in some case to thrive, by successfully adapting their business model. Our analysis sheds light on the variety of business models emerging in the eyewear industry both in the case of small and medium-sized eyewear producers and small-part and component suppliers. New business models vary according to the firms’ position in the vertical contracting structure of the industry but share the attempt to generate sustainable diversity. We propose that firms must pursue the creation of difference as the strategy that can lead to competitive advantage and that sustainable advantages must be rooted on business models that are internally consistent sets of choices, repertoires of capabilities and configurations of activities, and externally coherent with the industry value drivers.
2011
9781848441064
P.L. Robertson, D. Jacobson
Knowledge Transfer and Technology Diffusion
D., Campagnolo; Camuffo, Arnaldo
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11565/3725117
 Attenzione

Attenzione! I dati visualizzati non sono stati sottoposti a validazione da parte dell'ateneo

Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 11
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 10
social impact