Market Potential Analysis of Producer Services : A Study of Jönköping County

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the market potential of producer services in Jönköping County. In relation to the main purpose, the idea is to examine which factors that have a positive impact on the development of a long run qualitative producer service industry in the region. The favourable location of Jönköping County is one of the main factors for why the county has one of the highest densities of manufacturing firms in Sweden. Moreover, the region has comparative advantages in several products, for an example; wood, rubber, machinery and electronically goods. Earlier research and comparisons with other international manufacturing clusters indicates that these areas tend to contain highly developed producer service industries. The thesis gives a case example of how the beneficial, mutual interaction between the manufacturing and producer service industries works in the car industry in Germany. However, to be able to establish a successful and close relationship between the above mentioned industries, the theoretical framework distinguishes several important factors; for instance, education and infrastructure are assumed to be the two most vital ingredienses. Nonetheless, also the firms’ production milieu and technology affects the successful development of a cluster district. Furthermore,when relating the theoretical assumptions to the descriptive statistics, with the intention to elucidate the industrial structure of Jönköping County, one can differentiate three major producer service sectors, namely; “Transport and mail”, “Consulting, marketing, law” and finally “Rentals of premises, labour and machinery”. Nevertheless, several alarming observations can be noticed concerning the wage level, education intensity, productivity and gross profit percentage within the county’s producer service industry; where all these features are below the domestic average. Nevertheless, the empirical analysis indicates that the region has a varying, but yet a positive market potential in the majority of the county’s municipalities. With correct priorities, Jönköping County has good future prospects to reach a high competitive position, but to accomplish this; the education intensity has to be improved.