The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

Five Forces to examine the attractiveness of the industry structure we will first look at

Managers generally consider the rivalry among competitors as a major source for deriving strategy. As explained by the Michael Porter it is a narrow view of competition. A set of other parameters should be evaluated, mentioned in article as five competitive forces, along with industry

The Five Forces Model as defined by Dr. Michael Porter of Harvard University uses five different strategic factors to explain Competitive Rivalry a company or industry faces. The fiver forces that comprise the model are Bargaining Power of Suppliers, Bargaining Power of Buyers, Threat of Substitute Products, Potential Entrants and Completive Rivalry (Porter, 2008). The intent of this analysis is to rank-order each of these five factors from the standpoint of their influence on Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) and their competitive position in the retailing industry. Each of the five forces are rank-ordered in terms of their importance to Target.

Porter’s Five Forces is defined as threats of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, power of buyers, the threat of substitutes and rivalry among existing competitors. New entrants into the industry aim to gain market share from rivals, so the intensity of competition may require to make changes on current strategy of marketing to maintain existing market share. The bargaining

According to Porter’s competitive forces model, exist five major forces, which managers should analyze, and strategies developed for the company to increase their competitive edge. They are the threat of entry of new competitors and of substitute products or services, the bargaining power of suppliers and customers (buyers), and the rivalry among existing firms in the industry.

As we begin to strategically plan for our business, it is important for us to take a deep dive into our competitive environment to understand where we are strong competitively and where we are weak competitively. An analysis of the forces driving industry competition using M.E. Porter’s Five Forces Model will assist us in determining where the power lies in a business situation as we begin to plan. We must understand how they work in our industry and how they affect our particular situation. Whatever the collective strength of these forces is, our job as the strategists of the organization is to

A company needs to create a series of programs to differentiate their product from those from its competitors and to appropriately price the product to achieve the maximum demand, in order to set up the dynamics of its competitive strategy (David, 2007). The competitive strategy of a company is also expected to offer better products or services to its customers, at a reasonable cost. Due to the mass influence of the external environmental on the customers’ preference, it is vital for the company to develop an available competitive strategy to be able to solve a series of problems, and ultimately to improve the company’s performance. Those problems include: how to differentiate its products or service from competitors, how to create market segments to maximize demands, and how to offer a wider range of products or services to better meet the customers’ needs at more acceptable costs (David, 2007).

Existing Competitors. Rivalry among competitors within an industry use price discounting, new products, marketing, and other techniques to be competitive. Profitability of an industry suffers from high rivalry. The intensity with which companies compete and the basis on which they compete determine to which degree rivalry brings down an industry’s profitability (Porter, 2008). Pure competition is considered by economists as a competition with a high

To remain competitive a company must consider who their biggest competitors are while considering its own size and position in the industry. The company should develop a strategic advantage over their competitors’

 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.

All of the companies that fall into one sector are categorized further into industries where they are grouped only with companies with which they share very similar business activities.

The competitive environment : competition from the industry can impact a company’s strategy and operation. For example if a competitor release a new or similar product that threaten to steal market share, an organization must be ready to change in order to retain its

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.

In the case of PepsiCo, analyzing the non-alcoholic beverage industry using Porter’s Five Force Analysis allows for assessment and adjustment to the strategic plans implemented to sustain competitive advantage. Porter’s Five Forces model helps outline the competitiveness of the current market through analysis of the industry rivalry between companies, supplier power, buyer power, threat of substitution, and the threat of new entries (Strategic Planning Tools, 2009). All of these forces affect not only a company but an industry. To begin, competitive rivalry within an industry analyzes the current competition within that market. When a market is competitive it “encourages companies to innovate, utilize production capacity, reduce costs and

Porter’s Five Forces model is used to evaluate the degree of rivalry between competitors in a given industry through assessing the four forces that lead to this outcome. These forces are the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of buyers, and the threat of substitute products.