Resumen
This manuscript considers sales within an automotive strategic group. Sales within the ?Family Car? segment are examined. The efficient uses of inputs relative to the sales generated as determined by Data Envelopment Analysis are compared. The relative efficiencies are used to identify strategic groups within the market segment and to suggest how resources may be utilized more efficiently. Data Envelopment Analysis, (DEA), is used to compare three inputs and one output for several automobile manufacturers competing for sales in the same market segment. The three inputs used are two aggregate measures of quality and one measure of the dollar volume spent on advertising by the firms. The output measure used is the volume of sales each year over a five-year period. A Kruskal and Wallis rank test is performed to confirm that the data is comparable over the five year time period. Specifically, comparisons are made to establish that no significant changes in quality or advertising expenditures have occurred during the study period. Once it has been established that no significant changes occurred during the study period for the input and output measures for the individual automotive models. Next, firms are compared using the DEA efficiencies and are grouped according to these efficiencies. The efficiency measurements indicate that there are two distinct clusters of companies formed within the market segment. The most efficient cluster is composed of five firms. The least efficient cluster is composed of five firms. An intermediate cluster of two firms exists that is neither extremely efficient nor extremely inefficient in it?s utilization of resources but may be more closely aligned with the efficient firms than with the inefficient group. This stratification into groups within the market segment by efficiency suggests that practitioners might be able to adjust their utilization of resources to compete in a different strategic group. It also suggests that success within a strategic group may be impacted by how firms utilize strategic levers within their control.