Strategic Positioning / Five Forces

It is recommended that Rhand Credit Union Co-operative Society Limited use this model to find a position in the financial services industry where it can defend itself against competitive forces or it can influence its competitors in its favour as well as identify key success factor (KSFs) in the industry.

I am going the review the Article "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy" written by Micheal E. Porter. This article was published in Harvard business Review in year 2008.

Brand positioning is essential to the success of any firm because it delivers a perception into the consumer’s minds which differentiates them from their competitors. Microsoft began to grow their brand over 20 years ago with Bill Gate’s an underlying vision of “a computer on every desk and in every home”. This resulted in Microsoft developing into a huge multinational company with personal computing at the forefront of their business. Microsoft dominated this industry for many years which is reflected in the high brand recognition of Microsoft products worldwide.

Strategic alliance is an agreement between two or more organizations to cooperate in a detailed business activity, so that each get benefited from the strengths of one an other, and gains competitive advantage. The formation of strategic alliances has been seen as a comeback to globalization and increasing doubt and difficulty in the business environment. Strategic alliances occupy the sharing of knowledge and expertise between partners as well as the reduction of risk and costs in areas such as relationships with suppliers and the development of new products and technologies. strategic alliance is sometimes equated with a joint venture, but an alliance may involve competitors, and generally has a shorter life span. Strategic partnership is a closely related concept. This article analyzes definition of strategic alliance, its benefits, types, process of formation, and provides a few cases studies of strategic alliances. This paper tries to synthesize the scope and role of marketing functions in the determination of effectiveness of strategic alliances. Several propositions from a marketing perspective about the analysis of alliance process are formulated. On the basis of the propositions, a framework is developed for future research

There are many definitions of leadership. The Collins English dictionary defines leadership as “the leader(s) of a party or group.” Yet true leadership is much more than that. A leader can be the chief executive officer of an organization, or a first year employee who leads his or her team to success behind the scenes. A leader might lead through official authority and power, yet just as often great leaders lead through inspiration, persuasion and personal connections. Teaching others to be a leader is a daunting task

To identify multiple approaches to solve a problem and to skillfully convert relevant information to later on contribute to deeper understanding are two goals for myself to acquire as a future music teacher. In the Problem Solving Rubric, the milestone for Identifying Strategies is to “identify multiple approaches for solving the problem that apply within a specific context.” This skill is important to have, especially as an educator. All students don’t learn the same way, and each have their own tempo on how they learn and absorb information. Having the ability to identify problems in multiple ways can add to my flexibility as a teacher; knowing how to present knowledge to another student in a different way when a first strategy wasn’t successful.

Strategic Frame is a proprietary to communications practice and researches that pay close attention to the publics deeply help worldview and widely help assumptions. Strategic frame recognize that there is more than one way to tell a story. Strategic frame taps into decades of research on how communicate and how people think. The result is an empirically-driven communications process that makes academic research interesting, usable to help people solve social problems, and understandable. In 1970’s media framing has been receiving attention. This constructed employer’s to understand communication as a wide range of disciplines that includes economics, speeches, political science, sociology, organizational behavioral, and psychology. Strategic frame involves the technique by communications professionals, retort, and social advocates in fields such as public advertisers and relations. Strategic frame goals are to focus audience attention on particular portions of aspects and message

8. Threat of New Entrants: “There are a number of low-cost carriers (LCCs) in the domestic market and the Company competes with LCCs over a very large part of its network.”

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.

The British telephone industry changes fast according to the way telephone services are offered. In our days, were cross selling is in growth and it is a commodity the companies to be involved in various activities, in order to secure their profitability, it is expected that even more companies will try to enter the market by offering alternative services, coming especially from the sector of new technology.

There are various schools of strategy that have been vigorously debated on and after a consolidated effort; three schools of strategy were produced. They are the planning school, the positional school, and the resource based school of strategy (Ritson, 2013). All these strategies will be described with examples to buttress each.

The threat of new entrants refers to the threat posed by new competitors within an industry. If it is easy for new firms to enter the industry barriers to entry are low and the threat of new entrants is high. A profitable industry attracts more competitors. Economies of scale, learning curve effects and other macro factors impact the nature of an industry 's

 In general, manager’s look at competition has been too narrow. There is a broad set of competitors that need to be looked at, which are described in “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy” by Michael E. Porter. The model explains that there are several other forces in the competition for profits that the strategist should be aware of when forming a stagey. Those forces determine the profitability of the industry and are the most important to look at when you are forming a strategy. These five forces are are the “industry structure” model which contain: New Entrants, Suppliers, Buyers, Substitutes, and Existing Competitors.

Michael E. Porter, associate professor published the article titled “How Competitive Forces shape Strategy” in Harvard Business Review in 1979. This article is retitled as “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy” and published in Harvard Business Review in 2008. Michael E. Porter developed the model of Five Competitive Forces which is defined as “Competitive Strategy – Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors”. It has become a main device for analyzing an organizations structure in strategic practices.

Intermediaries such as Carphone warehouse or network stores such as Orange also have other handsets readily available, which makes it difficult for Nokia to have a direct impact on the selling of their handsets2. Hence, bargaining power of buyers is high.