Automotive Independent After Market. Product Category Revenues Variances Analysis and Competitive Positioning 2016-2019

My personal interest on the Automotive Market, which started at my early twenties, and the lack of economic/financial basis I have noticed I had when starting my studies at Politecnico, have been the main reasons that challenged me and made me decide to search a thesis proposal containing both characteristics; and therefore I contacted professor Silvano Guelfi. It was after our first meeting that I started collaborating with the university observatory “IAM Italia”, which gave me the chance of finally developing and working on my final project with him, professor S. Guelfi, his right-hand Paolo Saluto and the rest of the team. The first objective of the thesis is the analysis of the revenues variances, during the time period 2016-2019 of a selection of product categories sold by the Italian Automotive Independent After Market distributors. This market has been an object of study since 2010 by the Market observatory “IAM Italia), which has been set up by the Research Centre Competitive Risk and Enterprise Value (CREV) of the Polytechnic University of Turin. For the variances analysis there are two different models (classic vs. new) that are going to be developed, including a brief description of the theoretical/analytical background and then the results of these models to the aforementioned market segment. The classic model concerns four determinants affecting the revenues variances while the new model will be presenting six. Their respective results will be compared, and the misleading indications of the classic model will be demonstrated. The second objective of the following thesis is related to the competitive positioning of the previous mentioned selection of product categories and the comparison with their respective market trend (benchmark revenues variances analysis). Always considering the same time period as considered for the revenue’s variance analysis, 2016-2019. The reason of the chronology of the aforementioned objectives has nothing to do the importance of the thesis analysis, but with the fact that the variance analysis technique brings out the essential data taken as a tool at the time of developing the mapping of the competitive positioning.