Identify product platform strategy. Building competitive advantage through product platform : case Butane Industrial Group

The core topic of this thesis is to study the product platform development strategy. We describe platform as a group of properties that are similar in a set of products. These properties are elements, knowledge and production procedure. The main goal of the research is to understand when product platform development is a profitable strategy. Product platform should make a balance between product differentiation, in order to respond to different customers’ needs, and commonality between them, in order to decreases the total costs. The literature review emphasizes the strong advantages of product platform such as growing up the products’ variety with higher quality, decreasing lead time and the total costs. However, when it comes to the real case study, this method might not be the right strategy. In this research, product platform strategy has been discussed through the real case of Butane Industrial Group. The case study focuses on two types of product which are water heater and combi-boiler. The company could implement the product platform strategy with the objectives of gaining profits and reducing the total costs. However, they developed product platform only for the water heater product ranges, considering that this strategy is not profitable for the combi boiler. The case study highlights that is not only about the operation benefits, but the overall gain profit is the fundamental key success factor. The result of the research is that the product platform is the right strategy only if the overall benefits make the economical return higher than the investment. The main challenge is to estimate the required investment and future gain profits to understand when the product platform strategy is applicable.

L'obiettivo di questa tesi è la valutazione degli investimenti necessari e dei futuri profitti per capire quando è possibile sfruttare la strategia di "Product Platform", applicato al caso reale della Butane Industrial Group.