Porters Five Forces of Competition Essay Example for Free

Porters Five Forces of Competition Essay Porter’s Lesson: Michael E. Porter’s article, the five competitive forces that shape strategy, is an article that dissects the true underlying factors of competition and industrial structure. Throughout the context of the article, Porter thoroughly explains how competition and profitability does not only derive from production of goods and services or the level of sophistication of a firm. Instead, he claims that in order for an industry to be truly competitive and profitable, the industry as a whole must hold a solid structure. Porter educates the audience by introducing the five key forces of strategy that will essentially lead to a firm’s prevalence of competitiveness. He labels these forces as direct competition, customers, suppliers, potential entrants, and substitute products. Porter claims that each of these forces of competition plays their roles within any competitive and even temporarily non-competitive industry. Porter’s main lesson for his audience is that in order for an individual firm or an industry to succeed, it must strategically know how to react to any shift within the industry, whether its competitiveness, supply and demand, economical issues, potential entrants, or even natural issues. Porter also strives to explain how a company could or could not earn a return on investment based on the intensity of the competition within the industry. All in all, Porter explicitly explains each of the five forces that shape an industries competition with a breakdown of different factors for each force, as well as real life examples that make the topic very clear for the audience to understand his lesson. Analysis of the Lesson: Of the five forces, Porter clearly educated the reader about the importance of potential entrants and their threat to an industry. I felt that one of Porter’s greater lessons in this matter was when he described the seven major sources of entry barriers, and how an incumbent can strategize to react to the competitiveness of the industry if a desired entrant were to exist. One aspect that really sparked my interest was when Porter went about explaining the entrant’s hesitancy of entering into an industry based on the level of retaliation from the existing firms within the market. On the other hand, it was also interesting to know that the entrant could also alarm the incumbents, when the entrant has a large amount of capital to invest as they enter from another market which they succeeded in. Another force that Porter dissected is what most people would think of in reaction to the term competition, and that is direct competition of one firm and another, or for the lack of a better word, rivalry. Porter made a statement, and that was, â€Å"The degree to which rivalry drives down an industry’s profit potential depends, first, on the intensity with which companies compete and, second, on the basis on which they compete.† As Porter discussed the different factors that affect the intensity of a rivalry, he noted that intense rivalry tends to destruct profitability if the battle between two firms is focusing solely on price because at that point, price competition is simply transferring profits directly from an industry to its customers, which will ultimately result in the degradation of an industry. I couldn’t agree more with Porter about the fact that when it comes to rivalry between multiple firms, the industry can find an advantage when each competitor aims to serve the needs of different customer segments, by focusing on a variety of price, products, services, features, or brand identities. Most people would think of a rivalry in terms of competition, and not necessarily take the time to think of other factors that are just as important when it comes to an industry’s competitiveness. Many are so focused on what goes on within their own market that they forget to acknowledge the outside forces until it slaps a firm across the face. Porter used an example of the photographic industry as he explained the importance of substitute products. Here he argued that long time competitors such as Kodak Fuji, two large photographic film companies, were in a position to lose profitability if they didn’t focus on outside forces, such as the entry of digital cameras. Although they are not as profitable as before, both companies made large investments, along with large amounts of research and development, and both prevailed in continuing to be somewhat profitable and slightly competitive in their industry rather than falling off all together. After reading that example, I instantly thought of different firms that didn’t focus on innovating at times where substitute products came into play, and those companies are no longer around. A few examples of companies that fell or are bound to fall are Blockbuster, Circuit City, Best Buy, K-Mart, and Sears. Once Porter ended his presentation of the five forces of competition and profitability, he continued to approach his final lesson, and that is the value created if a strategist accurately analyzes the five forces of competition within an industry. He enlightened the audience that if a strategist understands the competition within the industry, he will not only prevail beyond existing rivals, but could also uncover new opportunities such as differences in customers, suppliers, substitutes, potential entrants, and rivals that can become the basis for distinct strategies leading to superior performance. The only minor detail I felt that should have been added to this section on value is the possibility of losing value based on time devoted towards each force. Porter most definitely stated the facts when explaining the potential for new opportunities if understanding the industry as a whole. One thing he didn’t explain is what could also happen if a strategist possibly focuses on one aspect for too long, or fails to devote enough time to one competitive force versus another. I would imagine that this could possibly cause problems to arise rather than opportunity if a firm were to not manage its strategic time wisely. My Takeaways: I am fortunate that I am currently involved in a family business that allows me to relate to so many aspects of this article. My family currently owns and operates a five-store, soon to be six, supermarket chain in several parts of southern California. Like many other businesses, the everyday operation of a supermarket is exposed to countless aspects of business and its overall environment. I myself am within the world of supermarkets six out of the seven days in the week, and I can most definitely admit that this article completely enhanced my understanding of the terms competition and profitability. The amount of connections I could make with topics in this article to my everyday work is countless. For this paper, I’ll simply discuss what stood out most. First, I’ll have to give my takeaway on price competition and bargaining power. Item prices throughout the stores are what I’d consider to be the bullets in a gunfight between two competing supermarkets. There was a topic I discussed in my analysis that stated, â€Å"Firms that solely focus on price competition ultimately gives industry profitability to the customer.† In the supermarket industry, buyers constantly negotiate with suppliers for the lowest costs to provide customers with the most aggressive prices. This also relates to the section on buying power that Porter touches on. Here I learned, any store can simply raise prices or drop prices at store level, but the company that will prevail is that who is dominant in getting the lowest cost from the supplier, resulting in more aggressive margins verse the competitor. If both you and your competitor have the same price on one item, allow the competitor to give its profit to the customers by you being the one to pay less for the supply. The second factor that I can relate to which I will discuss is threat of new entrants and retaliation. If someone pulls up a map of supermarkets in a specific area, they will find seven to ten different supermarkets in a five mile radius. Competition from one company to another usually occurs within each region. At times, successful independent supermarket chains will raise awareness of other supermarket chains in a specific region by preparing to open a new store or buying out a current store that is not profitable. This is when the incumbents will do everything in their power to keep their customers from going to the new store that is most likely going to enter with highly aggressive pricing. At this time, you will see incumbent’s prices dropping, promotions increasing, advertisements become incredibly aggressive, prizes being given out, and any other form of retaliation a company can perform to keep its market share. As stated before, the connections are countless, and I could truthfully admit that I could write a twenty page paper on all the topics I can relate to in this article. I discussed a few relations above, but I must also state that this does not limit what I took away from Porter’s article that I can apply to my family’s business today. All in all, it was a highly educational read and a great tool for any business who seeks to increase competitiveness and profitability, let alone a great tool for any individual who plans to one day be a successful businessman.

The Benefits of the Atkins Diet Essay -- Health Nutrition Diet Exercis

The Benefits of the Atkins Diet The Atkins diet has been attacked in recent years and been accused of being a fad diet that does not successfully cause weight loss and is the causes of health problems. The most criticized area of the Atkins diet is the seemingly unlimited amount of fat and meat that is allowed within the diet. This unconventional method of weight loss is the center of the animosity towards the Atkins diet. Though this diet may not be the best method of weight loss for all dieters, it is beneficial and extremely efficient for others. The Atkins diet is the best choice for dieters looking to lose a few superficial pounds quickly because dieters on the Atkins diet lose more weight within 3-6 months and do not experience the heart disease characteristics that some accuse it of. The method of the Atkins diet is to restrict carbohydrate intake, while allowing the consumption of foods that are high in protein and fat. This method has been controversial because it contradicts the conventional food pyramid, which promotes the consumption of foods with less fat and the largest proportion of food being carbohydrates like whole wheat. The food pyramid promoters do not agree with Dr. Atkins’ promotion of foods high in protein and fat. In fact, most believe that he allows an unlimited amount of protein and fat in his diet; but this is not true. The Atkins diet is supposed to contain 70% fat, 25% protein, and 5% carbohydrates (though most deviate from the fat and protein limits). Therefore in the first phase of the diet where the dieter is supposed to consume no more than 20 grams of carbohydrates, they are to also consume no more than 100 grams of protein and 280 grams of fat. So, the Atkins diet does not... ...energy source in the absence of the carbohydrates. The Atkins diet successfully loses more weight compared to low-fat diets due to its weight loss method. As I have proven, the Atkins diet can be beneficial; especially to the short-term dieter. This diet loses more weight within the first 3-6 months compared to the conventional low-fat diet; which is perfect for the dieter that wants to lose those extra few pounds before an event. Although many believe that the Atkins diet allows an unlimited amount of fat and protein, there is a limit as to how much of each the dieter is supposed to consume. And even though this limit of fats and protein is much higher than the suggested amount for the low-fat diet, it has been proven that the Atkins diet is not detrimental but beneficial to the wellbeing of the dieter’s heart and circulatory system.

Hyperion Financial Management: Performance Tuning Guide

For comprehensive tuning information for the PM System, please refer to the [email  protected] Hyperfine PM, Fusion Edition Performance and Tuning Guide. Top of Document This document is written for people who monitor performance and tune the components in an PM/BI environment. It is assumed that readers know server administration and hardware performance tuning fundamentals, web servers, java application servers and database. Introduction to Oracle Hyperfine PM System Performance To maximize Oracle Hyperfine PM System performance, you need to monitor, analyze, and tune all the components.This guide describes the tools that you can use to monitor performance and the techniques for optimizing the performance of Oracle Hyperfine PM System components, for example Financial Management, Sybase, Reporting and Analysis and Planning. Performance Terminology This guide uses the following performance terms: Scalability The system's ability to perform within specification under increasing use r load, data load and hardware expansion. Latency The time between the issuing of a request and the time when the work actually begins on the request. Think time The time a real user pauses to think between actions.Resource utilization A consumption metric, for example, the percent of CPU usage. Response time A time metric, for example round-trip time it takes the server to deliver a Web page. Throughput A rate metric (requests per unit of time), for example, requests per second, bits per second. For example, if an application can handle 20 customer quests simultaneously and each request takes one second to process, this site has a potential throughput of 20 requests per second. Understanding Key Performance Drivers To optimize your deployment, you must understand the elements that influence performance and scalability.A factor that dictates performance is called a key performance driver. Knowing how the drivers behave in combination further enhances your ability to deploy Oracle Hy perfine PM system optimally, based on the unique requirements of each deployment. Hardware Capacity – Factors such as number of servers, quantity and speed of processors, available RAM, network speed etc. Technical Platforms Tuning – Fine tuning other third party software required for installing and running Oracle Hyperfine PM products; for example: relational databases, Java application servers, Web servers, Server / Client Operating System and browsers.Business Application Design – Application design is an important factor in system performance I. E. Structure, size, and use of product features in designing applications' databases, reports, Web data entry forms, calculations and consolidations. Business Process usage – Activities carried out by users in the normal flow of your business cycle. Business process usage has three components: User activity-?Activities available to users for data load or data entry, database processing (consolidations, copy, c lear, and so on), and reporting and analysis. Rate of user activity – A number of transactions executed by one user per one hour.User concurrency-?Number of users for each activity being carried out simultaneously. Tuning Recommendations for Financial Management Performance tuning Oracle Hyperfine Financial Management is a complex and iterative process. To ghetto started, this document includes recommendations to help you optimize your Oracle Hyperfine HEM system reference. Note: tuning has to be done for a particular production workload. Tuning can be conducted when workload is generated by load generation tools like Oracle Application Testing Suite (TATS) or Load Runner by HP.This document touches on several areas that provide a quick start for performance tuning Financial Management, including: Tune Operating Systems parameters Tune HTTP Server parameters Tune HTTP Server Compression / Caching 4 Tune Oracle Database Parameters Hyper-Threading / SMS Considerations Note: whi le the list in each of the above stated section is a useful tool in tarring your performance tuning, it is not meant to be comprehensive list of areas to tune. You must monitor and track specific performance issues within your implementation to understand where tuning can improve performance.Top Of Document Diagnosing Performance Problems When a performance issue arises, it is critical to first determine the cause prior to taking any corrective action. Oracle does not recommend changing performance-related parameter settings or taking other actions until an extensive analysis of the problem has been performed. Using Monitoring Tools Oracle strongly recommends using monitoring tools to collect performance ATA as part of the diagnostic process. Monitoring the WFM application server, web servers, database server(s) and network layers provide useful performance data.The recommended tool to monitor the WFM application process performance on the Windows server side is Microsoft Performanc e monitoring. Steps for configuring Performance Monitor to gather the counters specific for HEM application can be found here: HTTPS://support. Us. Oracle. Com/pop/faces/secure/km/ Documentation's. JSP? Id=953294. 1 Performance counters to monitor include: Us beseem Counter Guidance Memory Memory: Free System â€Å"Warning† when Free System Page Table Entries is Page Table Entries less than 8,000 â€Å"Critical† when Free System page Table Entries is less than 5,000.On WFM systems if you enable KGB without proper tuning as per recommendations stated in section â€Å"Tune Windows /KGB†, you will notice 5000 PET as initial value after the reboot. Memory: Available Should be no lower than 20% to 25% of Installed Maybes physical memory. In these cases, carefully monitor Paging activity. Memory: Page This counter should be below 1,000 at all times. Reads/sec Processor processor: % processor Total processor utilization should be lower than about Time Total to 80%. Pro cessor: % Processor Each processor instance should be lower than about 5 Disk 70% to 80% utilization.

Organizational Issues Representing The Devil Wears s ...

Organizational Issues Represented in Film The Devil Wears Prada is a film released in 2006, starring Anne Hathaway as Andrea â€Å"Andy† Sachs, a young college graduate who applies to work at the prestigious fashion magazine, Runway to work for an iconic but ruthless editor in chief, Miranda Priestly, portrayed by Meryl Streep. Miranda is extremely demanding and unreasonable to work for. She employs harsh mannerisms, is highly critical, and condescending, creating a hostile environment that has every employee on edge with her mere presence. The lengths to which they go to, tells us she is a force to be reckoned with and she is in essence, â€Å"the devil who wears Prada.† It isn’t long before her excessive demands begin to take a toll on Andrea’s personal life, as she struggles to meet the unreasonable expectations of her new employer such as securing an unpublished copy of the unreleased Harry Potter book. Miranda possesses great power, status and influence yet Andrea detects her unhappiness. Mir anda’s deep-rooted unhappiness stems from many factors, such as her marriage ending, missing out on time with her twin daughters and implies she works so hard because the success of the corporation depends on her. Although it would appear on the surface, as if Miranda is trying to be challenge Andy, she is testing her abilities, as she sees herself in Andy. She also affords her opportunities when Andrea is able to come through for her, though never lets down her overpowering demeanor.Show MoreRelatedTheories of Organizational Behavior10512 Words   |  43 PagesThese are the issues that Organization theory answers. As we all know, Organizational theory, encompasses the systematic study and careful application of knowledge about how people act within organizations. It encompasses the study of organizations from multiple viewpoints, methods, and levels of analysis. 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