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Essay about Case Analysis B MAN 4720

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Better World Books

1. What are the vision, mission, and values of Better World Books? Critically evaluate them. Are they helpful to the company’s leaders in formulating strategic intent? Why or why not?

According to our text, a vision is a statement about what an organization ultimately wants to accomplish, it captures the companies aspiration. Where as a firm’s mission is a description of what it actually does, what its business is, and why it does it; it can be customer orientated or product orientated. Lastly the values of a firm state the ethical standards and norms that govern the behavior of individuals within the organization.

As the case mentions, “Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives …show more content…

Is this an attractive industry? Why or why not? Which force(s) have the strongest influence?

According to our textbook, Michael Porter developed the highly significant five forces model which identifies five key competitive forces that managers need to consider when analyzing the industry environment and formulating a strategy. They are:
1. Threat of entry
2. Power of suppliers
3. Power of buyers
4. Threat of substitutes
5. Rivalry among existing competitors
The stronger the five forces, the lower the industry’s profit potential and vice versa.

I would have to say after considering these 5 forces that the used book industry is not a very attractive industry as they have issues with all 5 of the forces above. There has been multiple threats of entry as the case states such as e-book readers, and copycat competitors which are also threats of substitutes. The power of suppliers comes into hand when we consider shipping and costs of shipping, where as BWB covers all shipping costs, other companies may not. Power of buyers means the consumers have a choice and control over what they decide to purchase and why for instance a consumer may choose to just buy a kindle and get all e-books at a cheaper price than used books and if ever consumer did this the used book industry would go out of business. Lastly, the rivalry among existing competitors; there has been fierce competition within the used book industry

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