Factors Influencing the Economic Behavior of the Food, Beverages and Tobacco Industry: A Case Study for Portuguese Enterprises

In today's world, it is increasingly important to conduct economic and financial analyzes of enterprises in all sectors to determine strengths, identify weaknesses and adopt strategies that allow them to be at the highest competitive level. In particular, the food sector plays an essential role in the economy of any country, representing a significant contribution to gross domestic product, total employment, and disposable income of households. In this work, we adopt a methodology for measuring efficiency based on the multidirectional efficiency analysis and other mathematical techniques (the calculation of the normal distribution intersection coefficient (NC value), analysis of clusters and principal components, and model fitting) in order to examine the factors that influence the performance of Portuguese enterprises in the food, beverages and tobacco industry for the period of 2006-2013. The results show a characterization of the financial structure of the sector and diagnosis through indexes that identify the strategic positioning of the enterprises in terms of efficiency scores. In addition, we also show that an analysis of the variables that must be approached differently to obtain better results regarding economic performance. Although there is an increase in credit with the acquisition of long-term debts, there is no evidence that this implies the ability of enterprises to grow faster, which affects profitability.