Abstract
The various changes that have occurred in the seaport industry have had a continuous and substantial impact on seaport activities and management in recent decades. The highly competitive and rapidly changing environment faced by business has greatly increased the need for strategic planning. Thus, it is relevant and appropriate to apply strategic positioning tools to seaports given how competitive strategies play a key role in the growth and development of this industry. This research aims to analyse the strategic positioning of the leading Iberian Peninsula seaports using the BCG matrix from a static and dynamics perspective for the period between 1997 and 2008. The findings reveal a better positioning of Spanish seaports in relation to total traffic. Furthermore, considering container traffic, the results point to the seaports of Algeciras, Valencia and Barcelona as having attained a remarkable position of leadership. However, according to the time series analysed, the ranking of seaports has not changed significantly.
Highlights
The seaport industry plays an important role in global trade and economic development (Hu & Zhu, 2009)
The analysis is based on five categories of traffic: liquid bulk (LB); dry bulk (DB); containers (CO), ro-ro and conventional cargo (CC)
We considered one ton of conventional cargo to be equal to thirteen of liquid bulks, five of dry bulk, three of containers and one of ro-ro (Haezendonck, 2001)
Summary
The seaport industry plays an important role in global trade and economic development (Hu & Zhu, 2009). There is an apparent lack of research on strategic planning in the seaport context in general, and on Iberian Peninsula seaports in particular This is a major gap in the service driven economies that operate throughout most of the world and represents a great challenge for both researchers and policymakers. Since 1990, the Spanish ports authorities have been facing increased competition due to a set of changes impacting on the industry worldwide (Castillo-Manzano, López-Valpuesta & Pérez, 2008) These changes include ports specializing in specific categories of traffic, trends in route selection, the containerization process and the concentration of companies and business (Bichou & Gray, 2005). The importance of studying Iberian Peninsula seaports, especially the Spanish, in order to identify best practices and to develop a benchmarking approach able to help Portuguese and South African seaports improve their respective positions. This study deploys the BCG (Boston Consulting Group) matrix as a strategic tool and here tailored to the seaport context
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