Four ways to fail – an anthology in eight acts-- Part 2: Profitability of the aluminium value chain

摘要

During the past 20 years the aluminium industry’s value chains have undergone fundamental changes. As a result of globalization, the industry’s logic has changed from vertically integrated, mostly stateowned groups to horizontally networked multinational corporations. Today, two decades later, there are different constellations of mining and metal-processing industries: on the one hand there are the pure mining giants such as Rio Tinto and Glencore and on the other hand there are fully integrated companies like Hydro and Aditya Birla, or companies such as Aleris and Constellium who only produce semis. What has caused this restructuring of the value chain? Which forms of business models have proven to be successful? What differences are perceptible between the well-established Western companies and the emerging companies from the East? What profitability do the business segments generate? This analysis compares alternative business models.