Michael Porter's Five Forces Analysis Of The Irish Banking Industry

Porter’s Five Forces (1980), named after Michael E. Porter, is a critical framework to access the level of risk and degree of potential profitability of each industry in which firms are competing. Specifically, five forces are shown in Figure 1, are includes competition between rivalry, potential of new entrant, threat of substitute products, and pressure on bargaining power of suppliers and customers.

Both potential and existing competitors influence average industry profitability. The threat of new entrants is usually based on the market entry barriers. They can take diverse forms and are used to prevent an influx of firms into an industry whenever profits, adjusted for the cost of capital, rise above zero. In contrast, entry barriers exist whenever it is difficult or not economically feasible for an outsider to replicate the incumbents’ position (Porter, 1980b; Sanderson, 1998) The most common forms of entry barriers, except intrinsic physical or legal obstacles, are as follows:

Threat of New Entrants - The easier it is for new companies to enter the industry, the more cutthroat competition there will be. Factors that can limit the threat of new entrants are known as barriers to entry. Some examples include:

Factors that can limit the threat of new entrants are known as barriers to entry. In this case barriers to entry are low because: there is no government intervention to prevent businesses from entering the industry, resources are abundant, and customers’ switching costs are low as well as fixed costs to start this type of business.

There are various categories of banking; these include retail banking, directly dealing with small businesses and persons. Commercial and Corporate banking which offers services to medium and large businesses (Koch & MacDonald 2010). Private banking, deals with individuals, offering them one on one service. The last category is investment banking. These help clients to raise capital and often invest in financial markets. Most global banking institutions provide all these services combined. With all these institutions in existence within the same localities and offering similar services, there is a need to regulate the industry so as to protect the consumer and provide fair working environment for all banks (Du & Girma, 2011).

Barriers to entry - Sunk cost, technology, economies of scale, limiting pricing and brand loyalty of incumbents can all be barriers

Potential for new entrants - The primary prevention to entrance are higher barriers within industry with the threats of new entrants as competitors (Porter, 1998).

Threat of New Entry: Overall there is not a great barrier to new entry but because of the stiff competition at the top new entrants have had struggles.

Threat to new entrants: There is no barrier to entry in this industry but it might be difficult for newcomers to compete against existing well establishing companies.

Barriers to Entry: The entry barriers in the market are relatively low, making it easy to access. However, as the market is saturated it could be unlikely for new companies to decide to start new enterprises in this field.

The banking industry is highly competitive. The financial services industry has beenaround for hundreds of years and just about everyone who needs banking servicesalready has them. Because of this, banks must attempt to lure clients away fromcompetitor banks. They do this by offering lower financing, preferred rates andinvestment services. The banking sector is in a race to see who can offer both the

Barriers to Entry. In general, a monopoly by one company possesses the power to create barriers to entry for competing companies in a

Australia has a strong, profitable, sophisticated and well regulated banking sector which is welcoming of new entrants and increasingly engaged in regional and global markets.

Porter five forces analysis is a tool which is used to analyze level of competition within an industry and its strategic management. Porter’s 5 forces determine the competitive intensity of an Industry and the industry’s profitability. If the intensity of competition is high then profitability is drawn down. Across different industries the levels of profitability differ.

Barriers to entry- there can either be high barriers to entry which makes the market unattractive and hard for new entrants or there can be low barriers to enter which make it easy for new entrants in the market.