Dutch Cluster Essay

404 Words2 Pages
The Dutch Flower Cluster, HBS Case Number: 9-711-507 What are the challenges facing the Dutch cluster in 2011? What recommendations would you make to FloraHolland? To the Dutch government? To a major grower? We can say that the bigger challenges the Dutch cluster faced in 2011 were about environment, costs, and a decrease in auction interest. The society is changing and people accord more importance to environment concern. That force the cluster to limit the use of chemical fertilizers and agent, and also reduce its carbon based energy. It could be a difficult endeavour for growers. As the Dutch cluster uses greenhouses for its production, and greenhouses need gas, the cluster is sensitive to the gas price variation. The last few years have seen a significant increase of gas prices that makes the cluster less competitive compare to others, which are not dependant on greenhouses. As we said before there is also the decrease in auction participation. Some independent part of the process stay desire, logistic for example, but the whole process does not arouse much interest. Compare to other clusters that deal with split cost challenge, the Dutch clusters became less competitive due to higher costs. The role of China seems important to underline. China’s cluster is similar to the Dutch cluster, because at the beginning a Dutch company started to develop the market over there, with the same technics and systems. But now its expansion it’s fast and substantial. So it appears that China can both be an opportunity and a threat to the Dutch cluster. If I was asking to give some advice to the cluster players, I would tell to FloraHolland to continue with their auction process, because it’s the way they used to do and it worked before. But to make it possible they need to create a new advantage, a differentiation that would make it better compare to others, and brings
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