The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy By Michael E. Porter

The power of buyers in the industry varies at different levels depending on the field. For pharmaceutical drug companies, which have thousands of patients, customers have lower price sensitivity as they are rarely able to refuse the treatments they need and they have low bargaining leverage due to commonly lack of information as well as knowledge on the drugs. For biotech firms that distribute specialized products to the government and hospitals, their customers actually have more of a bargaining power due to being the sole consumer sources

Bargaining Power of Suppliers: The bargaining power of suppliers in the industry is low. There are numerous suppliers in this industry, and the large department stores have the ability to negotiate for the lowest prices. In addition, the switching costs are low, as the products are not highly differentiated. There are a large volume of purchases in the industry, allowing the department stores to exert even more power over the suppliers.

Bargaining power of supplier: High levels of competition among suppliers act to reduce prices to producers. This is a positive for Ford Motor Company. Standardization of parts allowed Ford to reduce dependency on fixed supplier/vendor which goes into producer’s favor.

Power rests with the suppliers in the form of price and quality of supplies. Suppliers can increase the price or lower the quality of their goods and services. The power of supplier in the Indian airline industry is immense because of the three major inputs from the supplier are all affected by the external environment. These 3 factors and the power of supplier for each component is explained below.

The purpose of the paper is to research and understand how the changes of globalization and technology have impacted the Airline industry. This paper will also apply the industrial organization model and the resource-based model to determine how the Airline industry earn above-average returns. This paper will explain how the Airline industry’s success is through its mission and vision statements with Southwest Airlines as an example. Finally, this paper will evaluate how the importance each category of the stakeholder impacts are to the overall success of the Airline industry.

Suppliers have less power because there are a lot of suppliers and they all willing to accommodate and provide discounts for their customers (economies of scale).

A competitive strategy, or business-level strategy, is the way a business used to successfully enter and penetrate into a market (Eastwood et al, 2006), and also, to succeed in this chosen market against its competitors (Johnson et al, 2014). A company needs to develop and apply appropriate strategy to help the company to generate distinctive competences (David, 2007). Compared with the strategies implemented in other levels of operation, competitive strategy is more focused on the competition against other competitors and strategic choices to better attain market share (Harrison and St. John, 2009). According to

The threat of new entrants is measured by the level of entry barriers, brand reputation and customer loyalty, potential for existing competitors to expand, growth of buyer demand,

Porter (1980) emphasized that suppliers to an industry may be powerful if they are more concentrated than their customers and their customers do not command a significant share of their business because their customers do not represent a potential long-term or major relationship, for example, one-off or small customers versus regular or bulk buyers.

In the article, “The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,” Michael Porter argues that the five forces are an important element for managers and investors in the business industry. Porter stated that it is important to “understand the competitive forces, and their underlying causes” which many companies will use to determine if they will gain profit or not (Porter 80). Companies determine their profitability of the industry through the level of the force that they face. For instance, when the forces are favorable, most companies will be profitable. Porter gives a detail description of the five forces and explains the importance of each force. The five forces are the threats of new entrants, the power of the buyers, the power of the suppliers, the threats of substitute for products or services, and the rivalry among existing competitors. Porter believes that “a company strategist who understands the competition extends well beyond existing rivals will detect wider competitive threats and be better equipped to address them” (Porter 93). In other words, when strategists understand the different forces it will benefit them to make better decisions and to be ready to face the different challenges between competitors. In the article, Porter’s main goal is to present the importance of the five forces to the audience.

Porter (2008) argues that the threat of entry “puts a cap on the profit potential of an industry … [and] incumbents must hold down their prices or boost investment to deter new competitors” (p. 81).

To begin with, Chapter two covers three important aspects of the business world which are competitiveness, strategy, and also productivity. These particular aspects are very important for any company to succeed in the world of business. With that being stated, any type of firm such as a manufacturer or a service provider, they must employ these three aspects because they play an important role in growing revenues. For an organization to even be considered successful, they must have a competitive advantage which leads to a strategy that will meet the company’s goals, while having the knowledge-ability to help produce the goods and services in a cost effective manner. Also, it is known that most organizations have a single state called the Mission Statement. The mission statement basically summarizes these three aspects of a company. One question that the Mission Statement should address is, “What level of business are we in?” This mission statement is categorized as the absolute basis for the organizational goals.

The bargaining power of buyers: Buyers have more control over an industry than one might think. They want lower prices, higher quality, and more services and this makes the competitors play against each other. The profitability suffers as each competitor tries to make their product or service better (Dess, p. 54). McDonald’s has a $1.00 menu as does Burger King and Wendy’s. Each time I go into either of them there is a better item added to the $1.00 menu. For instance, McDonald’s has the scrumptious Double Cheeseburger and Wendy’s has the

Competitive strategy is the moves and methods that the firm has taken and is taking to appeal buyers, improve its market position, and to endure competitive pressures. The strategy is about what a firm’s capability to try to knock off competitors and attain competitive advantage, which can be offensive or defensive. There are three approaches to competitive strategy, which are low-cost leadership strategy where struggling to be the overall low-cost manufacturer in the in industry. Moreover, pursuing to distinguish one’s product offering from competitors (differentiation strategy), and the last one is focus or niche strategy where aiming on thin portion of the market rather than the whole market (Porter, 1998).

Chapter Five describes the five basic competitive strategy options – which of the five to employ is a company’s first and foremost choice in crafting overall strategy and beginning its quest for competitive advantage.