The purpose of this article is to establish how resources and capabilities developed by a set of companies, grouped by economic sub-sectors, can bestow operating efficiency or differentiation on one sub-sector compared with another. This study used factor analysis to determine the independent variables, and then a weighted linear regression to explain the performance of the sub-sector. Among the key findings is that human resources, in terms of investment in education and training, and the development of resources and capabilities such as human capital, have a positive impact on labor productivity and thus on the competitiveness of Colombian sub-sectors. However, in the case of innovation, R & D investment, protection and dissemination of innovation processes, reported negative impacts on productivity, due to the existence of different types of incremental innovations. In conclusion, the contribution of this work is focused on how the resources and capabilities in a subsector can influence the decisions made by companies to improve their performance and boost productivity of their subsectors.