Influência da adoção do carro flex fuel na estratégia competitiva dos distribuidores de combustíveis / Influence of the adoption of flex fuel vehicles in competitive strategy of fuel distribution industry

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

04/11/2011

RESUMO

The fuel distribution environment has been facing drastic changes in Brazil in the past years. This fact may be affirmed after having carried out an environmental analysis through the employment of a model proposed by Almeida (2010). This analysis also allows one to assert that the environment of fuel distribution has been turning into what D\ aveni (1995) denominates hypercompetitive environment. Moreover, the adoption of flex fuel vehicles has imposed new dynamics within the sector. These dynamics have forced fuel distributors to seek new competitive strategies that are in line with the new environmental reality. The model designed by Zaccarelli and Fischmann (1994) was used in this research with the intention to explore the possible competitive strategies adopted by fuel distributors. This model was chosen due to its higher flexibility and to its deeper alignment with the objective of the present research. In this sense, the general objective of this research is to identify the competitive strategies that fuel distributors adopt in order to face and cope with the new environmental changes that have emerged due to the introduction of flex fuel vehicles. In order to achieve this objective, managers of the four largest organizations in the sector have been interviewed. According to the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), altogether, these organizations (BR Distribuidora, Ipiranga, Shell and Esso/Cosan) are responsible for nearly 70% of the volume of automotive fuel traded in the country. As to the data collection tool employed in this thesis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with those managers; this type of interview was selected because it allows for higher flexibility and even for the possibility to investigate issues that could be relevant to the topic but had not been previously thought of or established according to the guidelines given by Hair et al (2005). The interaction during the interviews also aimed at exploring the managers\ perception of and attitude towards sustainability, a crucial issue within the competitive current context. The results of the present research allow one to conclude that the introduction of flex fuel vehicles has indeed been promoting major changes in the competitive strategies of fuel distributors in Brazil.

ASSUNTO(S)

estratégia competitiva etanol ethanol organizational environment ambiente organizacional competitive strategy

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