Formação de estratégias nas empresas de pequeno e médio porte na indústria de fast food : o caso da QG Grelhados de Goiás

Abstract

One of the major concerns of management today is to explain how organizations acquire and sustain their competitive advantage. This study sets out to understand how QG grelhados , a medium-sized company in the fragmented fast food industry, has built up and maintains a position of competitiv e advantage in a market, where low barriers to new entrants generate significant competition. QG grelhados was chosen for the case study because of its prominent position in Goiás’s fast food sector. As a theoretical basis, two different currents, which rely on competing hypotheses and are being seen as complimentary, were used. They are Porter’s Competitive Strategy, which sees a company's position in the industry as the main determinant for its performance, and the Resource-Based View (RBV), which considers the set of resources and capabilities to be a major source of competitive advantage for a company. This study noted that the company's sustainable competitive advantage comes from both its position in the fast food industry, as well as its set of resources and capabilities acquired throughout its twenty-nine years in the market. The QG lower price in the industry and its capacity in managing the supply chain suggest that QG follows a cost oriented strategy. This strategy is supported by its brand name, by a set of human and strategic resources which continuously indicate new ways to compete in order to achieve higher performance.