The Wheelchair Market Through M. Porter 's The Five Forces That Shape Competitive Strategy

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

Caterpillar’s main industry of machinery has many barriers to entry which makes it difficult for new organisations to enter the market. It is a mature and highly competitive industry with few dominant competitors who have cemented their position over the decades. Furthermore, these corporations have sustained a competitive advantage over any new entrant that tries to enter into the industry.

Decision Making. Company S can motivate scooter dealerships as intermediaries by involving them in the decision making process. Company S is the producer, so the company should include the dealership in any decision regarding how the product is distributed to their stores, or to the customers. An advantage is the dealership feels a strong sense of ownership in the sales results or responsibility to the company. Another advantage would be that Company S would have a closer involvement with consumer preferences or needs, allowing the company to make better decisions and possibly save money. A disadvantage for Company S would be the exposure to the competition. Company S would be revealing confidential information to dealerships that have previous ties with the competition. There are documents to help protect Company S from a dealership leaking information to the competition, but that does not mean it won’t happen; and once the information is out, it cannot be undone.

Bargaining Power of Buyers: The bargaining power of buyers is high in the department store retail industry. The volume of buyers is high, and buyers are very price sensitive in this industry. The products are not highly differentiated, and there are numerous stores that offer the same, or similar, products, giving buyers the opportunity to search for the lowest prices and information. The industry has substitutes available in the form of specialty, differentiated products and stores. This increases the power of buyers,

Bargaining power of buyers is medium-high because of the low switching costs and wider spectrum of similar products selling at competitive prices due to the influence of developing countries

A manufacturer of durable medical equipment would have to do what any product manufacturer would do. His distribution channels would depend on:

1. The average return on sales (ROS) in the US wheelchair industry is between 1-2% in 1993. What are the most important structural conditions that make the industry unattractive?

While bargaining power of buyers is ranked the least important of the five factors for Mondavi’s strategy, its importance should not be understated. One of the Wine is typically sold to wholesalers who then distribute to retail outlets. With the decreasing number of wholesalers and the consolidation of retailers, buyers negotiating power is increasing. It is difficult for companies like Mondavi to make consistent profits and maintain market share if they cannot keep products on retailers’ shelves.

Bargaining power of buyers: Businesses and individuals all fall under the customer's category for this industry. Big customers do get volume discounts and can negotiate prices with sales representatives. However smaller customers have to take what is being offered to them. The only say they have is that they can switch between the players, but due to intense competition, the prices offered are generally the same across the service band.

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).

The bargaining power of suppliers for this industry is Low to Medium. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft respectively, are the world’s largest players in the video game industry (Euromonitor, 2014). With their sizes, these companies create bidding wars between suppliers for their business lowering the power that suppliers hold. The ability for suppliers to bargain simply on technology is weak, however the price is another matter. For example, the Xbox One costs $471 with a retail price of $499, giving it little room for profit

As the information technology is constantly developing and there are permanent changes in industrial robotics, new functional solutions and higher possibilities of the industrial robots applications are expected in the foreseeable future (Karabegovic, 2013). The extended rivalry model, developed by Porter, will be applied to the robotics industry to determine how attractive this industry is. By evaluating the strength of individual forces (potential entrants, rivals, substitutes, buyers, and suppliers), it is possible to determine the degree to which forces of globalization influence the structure of the robotic industry.

The market greatly depends on how powerful buyers are in terms of their willingness to pay certain prices. The following determines the bargaining power of buyers

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

The Guillermo Furniture Company has realized that their business strategy is no longer sustainable. The external environment has changed significantly and the company is facing pressure from oversees firms that have automated much of their furniture production and manufacturing. Despite the fact that Guillermo Furniture has access to relatively inexpensive Mexican labor, the company is still struggling to be competitive in the market due to foreign competition. Therefore, Guillermo has identified various alternative strategies that it wishes to consider in order to reinvent its business and become more competitive. It is recommended that Guillermo invest in new equipment that can modernize its manufacturing capabilities. An investment in a computerized lathe shows a worthwhile return on the company's investment and will also position them for future growth.