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
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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
Porter’s Five Forces is a framework that consists of five competitive forces, threat of entry, power of supplier and buyer, threat of substitution and competitive rivalry. These forces facilitate the analysis of the task environment of an industry or company (Wheelen and Hunger, 2009).
Barnes & Noble was successful on releasing the NOOK tablets, which responsible for major contribution to the company’s digital book sales. These tablets helped to eliminate the physical copy of book to the customers. This
Porter's Five Forces is a simple but powerful tool that consist of 5 different forces to understand the competitiveness of your business environment, and for identifying your strategy's potential profitability. The five forces are degree of rivalry, threat of entry, threat of substitutions, buyer power, and supplier power. Each force is helpful in their own way to get to know your rivals a lot better and get to know what can happen in your market.
Smiley, a buyer from Carrefour Fashions, entered the store of a rival firm, Boulevard Boutique. The reason for his visit was to find out about the latest lines that Boulevard was carrying. Once Smiley entered the store he was recognized by Maldini, the store manager of Boulevard, who immediately called the store detective and told him to keep an eye on Smiley. Maldini then called the police, notifying them that he had a shoplifter in the store. Smiley never tried to leave, believing that Rocco, the store detective, would not permit him to do so. Once the police took Smiley to the station he explained the situation and was released.
Porter’s 5-Forces Model: A method for examining the competitive environment for a company or industry. It specifies and evaluates threats from new entrants, suppliers, buyers, and substitutes in the arena of competition.
It appears that e-book publishing may have a future (PWC, nd), but many book stores are slow to acknowledge and appreciate that fact.
2-B&N and the book publishers are changing their business models to deal with the Internet and e-book technology by B&N developing its own e-readable devised called Nook. In order to meet demand and supply, they started to be actively in control of its supply chain by developing,
Better World Books (BWB) was founded in 2002 as a B corporation, meaning it targets successful performance in three fundamental areas: financial, social, and environmental endeavors. BWB has grown successfully since its creation as a small, socially motivated firm to one of the larger, more successful corporations of its kind. Despite the impressive and inspiring performance and growth through creative expansions, BWB acknowledges the changing conditions of the used book marketplace and is pleased to outline a brief review of current strategy and recommendations for supporting operations moving forward.
Porter’s Five Competitive Forces Analysis is a framework developed by Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School for study of industry analysis by analyzing five competitive forces which define industry and its business strategy. These five competitive forces determine the competitive advantages, disadvantages and attractiveness or profitability of industry.
Porter’s Five-Forces Model of Industry Competition is the most widely utilized tool to evaluate the competitive environment (Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner, & McNamara, 2014). Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner & McNamara (2014) define Porter’s model
.Amazon’s huge success has not gone without notice by the public or media attention, and has certainly not been missed by the CEO Jeff Bezos. At the BuisinesssInsider event in New York earlier this month he was quoted saying “The book industry is in better shape than it ever has been and it’s due to [ebooks],” (Roberts). This outlook is understandable when you are one of the main beneficiaries of the profits. He is obviously not referring to the bookstores or the libraries of the country. The CEO is now the thirteenth wealthiest men in in America. Bezos firmly believes that thirty dollars is too much to pay for an eBook he believes that the lower the price is set the more readers will buy the book, leading to a bigger profit for everyone involved. This outlook has not been shared by others in the writing and publishing community, this business model may work for some authors and dramatically injure the profits of others. There are now rumors that Amazon wishes to become a publisher of print books as well, however, this brings people to wonder why one of the major forerunners in the electronic book industry would want to digress to print. This strange strategy may be due to the fact that they have realized that print books are not going anywhere, there will always be readers who prefer the print version of a book and they are looking to pick up the slack of eBooks not catering to those buyers.
A company's vision is a "general statement of its intended direction that evokes emotional feelings in organization members." (Dessler, 2003). The mission statement determines the type of business it will be by setting the purpose for the company, and
The Porter Five forces analysis is a structure for business management developed by Michael Porter in 1979. It uses concepts developed in Industrial Organization economics to derive five forces that determine the attractiveness of a market. Porter referred to these forces as the microenvironment, to contrast it with the more general term microenvironment. They consist of those forces close to a company that affect its ability to serve its customers and make a profit. This concept involves a relationship between competitors within an industry, potential competitors, suppliers, buyers and alternative solutions to the problem being addressed. A change in any of the forces normally requires a company to re-assess the marketplace.
Porter's Five Forces can be applied to particular companies, market segments and industries with the step-by-step analysis of market structure and competitive situation. First of all, when implementing this module in organizations, it is necessary to determine the scope of the market to be analyzed. Following, all relevant forces for this market analyzed and key forces are identified (Gerry and Kevan, P.117). Actually some organizational strategy and the longer-term goals are mainly based on or consistent with the key forces. Hence, it is not necessary to analyze all elements of all competitive forces with the same depth. Moreover, the key forces in the competitive environment will vary in different industry. Different forces take on prominence in shaping competition in each industry (Porter,
Porter’s 5 Forces analysis is a commonly used business theory that identifies the 5 competitive forces of an industry. By identifying and analysing these forces you can determine an industries weaknesses and strengths. Porter recognised the 5 forces in most business markets to be internal rivalry, entry, substitutes and compliments, supplier power and buyer power.