The cluster or economic cluster is a concentration of companies or institutions that are grouped together to be able to carry out a common activity in a certain area or geographic location in order to achieve certain benefits and efficiency.
We can distinguish two types of cluster:
- Vertically integrated: companies are linked by supply chain
- Horizontally Integrated: Organizations share a similar knowledge base and market for products. Technologies are usually used, human resources and natural assets.
Clusters were used as an instrument of industrial policy. A clustering strategy can be more effective as it focuses its objectives on a specific system, in exchange for specific clusters.
Clusters can include from Suppliers from components to machinery, infrastructure distributors, etc. It can even be extended to manufacturers of complementary products and companies that operate in industries related to the skills and technologies of the cluster.
Some clusters include government agencies and other institutions that provide training, education, information, research, and technical support. On the other hand, clusters promote competitiveness, since they try to better focus the needs of customers.
They also create more efficient markets for cluster participants, energized as a result of the productivity that throws. Clusters are also considered centers of innovation due to the rivalry that occurs in some areas, as well as the fluid cooperation among others.
Finally, it is important to say that the influence of the social and cultural aspects of the clusters since they can determine the trust and cooperation existing between the agents that make up the clusters. In the event that there is no trust and cooperation, we will only find a geographic concentration of companies, without greater benefits than those they create themselves.