The Relationship between Strategy and Competitiveness in Breweries - A Pilot Study

The current competitive environment is characterised by increasing uncertainty and discontinuity and the brewing industry, which is the subject of the article, is no exception. The primary objective of enterprises is to ensure competitiveness based on a sustainable competitive advantage. The choice and implementation of an appropriate strategy is an important step to sustainable success. The aim of this article is to verify the methodology regarding three basic themes of the dissertation: socio-culture environment, strategy and competitiveness. Two breweries of various sizes operating in Czech brewing were the main research sample - a small and medium-sized brewery. Mixed research methods were applied, a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire was conducted with consumers to analyse the external environment. Other primary data was collected at selected breweries through semi-structured interviews and field research, followed by a search of secondary data - brewery documents including the annual accounts. Pilot research has verified that the methods chosen are suitable for determining the strategy used by the analysed breweries. The next step in the long-term horizon is to verify the link between strategy and economic performance/competitiveness.