I am going to conduct a 5-forces analysis of the industry "Fresh Connections" is involved in, that is to say the fresh food industry. These forces help us to analyse everything from the intensity of competition to the profitability and attractiveness of the industry. We are going to use this model to better understand the industry in which "Fresh Connections" operates. So, the five forces are rivalry, buyer power, supplier power, barriers to entry and threat of substitutes.
1) The rivalry among competing sellers
First and foremost, competitive rivalry describes the intensity of competition between existing firms in an industry. In the fresh food industry, the intensity of rivalry is influenced by different characteristics. Price constitutes an important point. Firms in this industry can raise on lower prices to gain a temporary advantage. Prices are heterogeneous because they depend on sales volume. Big companies can reduce their prices by this way. An other factor is experience: buyers are reassured when a firm is involved in the business for many years. Brand identification tends to reduce rivalry. However, there are high levels of product differentiation which is associated with low levels of rivalry. Indeed, fresh food industry is characterized by a lot of diversity. We can find many recipes available in different sizes and volumes, for every taste and budget, and Fresh Connections is in this case. There are also specialized products, for example low-fat meals and nutritional health products. Quality plays an important role in this industry too. People who appreciate a product will buy it again easily.
Moreover, the industry is quite innovative because old products are constantly improved and new products are regularly a...
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...elastic since customers have more alternatives. The producers of fresh foods compete with companies that produce frozen foods and with large supermarket chains which sell food in big volumes for restaurateurs. They are also in head-on competition with fast-foods and groceries which sell ingredients to make the recipe at home and with farmers who do direct sale. If we consider that fresh food is just a mean to feed people, every food product is a substitute. If the price of fresh foods rises substantially, a customer is likely to switch over to products like frozen foods because they are similar or he will prefer to go to a fast-food because they provide more services. These substitutes are available everywhere. They provide good quality, are nutritional and safety and their prices are competitive. Besides, it is very easy to compare prices among products and services.
Competitive rivalry examines how intense the competition currently is in the marketplace, which is determined by the number of existing competitors and what each is capable of doing. (Arline, 2015).
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 power of suppliers is one of the threats on the industry where price changes or product quality by suppliers can impact the profitability. Therefore, it is important for the companies to keep alternate suppliers or a contract to ensure prices, quality and quantity of the product so to avoid the company's supply from falling behind. The power of buyers can force the companies to lower the prices and offer different type products and service. Buyer can threaten the company with the competitors which may cause a negative impact on the bottom line to the companies. Thus, it is important to create a loyalty market share to avoid this threat. The threat of substitutes increases when another industry offers a similar product or services to customers within the same industry with a lower price. In this case, the industry profitability sinks since the product is available at a better price. This threat forces most competitors to price match or better performance. Rivalry among existing competitors ...
Degree of Rivalry - Very High to Intense – Multiple competitors, high strategic stakes, innovation often easily imitated, and low switching costs for consumers
More new products need to be introduced and research needs to be done to find out which products will be most popular and profitable.
The 5-Force Industry Analysis first introduced by Michel Porter, Harvard Business School professor, a quarter-century ago. This theory examines the suppliers, buyers, product substitutes, existing firms’ rivalry and new entrants in a firm’s product market.
According to McConnell, Brue, and Flynn (2015), elasticity is an important concept that helps answer many economic and business questions (p. 135). It increases the understanding of consumer markets by explaining to some degree how changes in price and income affect supply and demand. In addition, elasticity allows supply and demand to be analyzed with greater accuracy. Businesses use elasticity to decide how to price products and services which helps them to be more competitive. The information that is gathered about how consumers respond to prices can also help to reduce uncertainty and risk. Price elasticity measures how sensitive a thing is in relation to price. The following is a brief examination of price elasticity of supply and demand.
Price Elasticity is the measure in responsiveness of consumers to changes in the price of a product or service. The evaluation and consideration of this measure is a useful tool in firms making decisions about pricing and production, and in governments making decisions about revenue and regulation. “Price Elasticity is impacted by measurable factors that allow managers to understand demand and pricing for their product or service; including the availability of substitutes, the consumer budgets for the product or service, and the time period for demand adjustments.” The proper consideration of Price Elasticity allows managers to set pricing such that the effect on Total Revenue is predictable and adjustments to production are timely. The concept of Price Elasticity is employed in the management of commercial firms and government.
Specifically, it analyzes the major factors within a specific industry. The user can define the “industry” as broadly or as narrowly as is most appropriate for each business. The “five forces” are competition, threat of new entry, suppliers, buyers, and substitutes. Overall, it provides an idea of how attractive an industry is for new entrants or can provide an idea of where a particular business sits within the landscape of that industry. It is important for Casa San Ysidro to understand where they fit within the competitive landscape and what forces could affect their position in years to
The food processing Industry is an extremely competitive environment. Consumers have wide variety of choices, which makes it extremely important for the producers to be responsive to quick shifts in consumption patterns. Some of the main competitors in this industry are Campbell’s Soup, PepsiCo, Interstate Bakery, General Mills, and Kraft.
As strategy consultants of McCormick & Associates, we use Porters Five Forces Model as a framework when making a qualitative evaluation of a firm's strategic position (Appendix 1.2). These five forces determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market. These forces affect the ability of a company to serve its customers and make a profit. A change in any of the forces normally requires a company to re-assess the market place.
Porter’s competitive forces model includes five forces that need to be analysed. These forces include the intensity of rivalry from traditional competitors, threat of new market entrants, threat of substitute products and services, bargaining power of customers and bargaining power of suppliers (Laudon & Laudon, 2007). See diagram below;
Until the introduction of a “sixth force” in the mid-nineties, the “Porter’s Five Forces Model” as it was originally developed by Michael E. Porter in 1979 explained how “five competitive forces” determine industry attractiveness. Porter opined that in the fight to sustain long-term profitability, a firm must be strategic towards competition, and beyond competition, keep tabs on a broader set of competitive forces; customers who can drive prices down, suppliers who exercise some level of power, new entrants who might come in to compete for profits and substitute products and services that essentially place constraints on the profitability and growth on any industry. With the extension of this model, the sixth force (as shown in exhibit 1) included showed the impact of complimentary products and services on the attractiveness and overall profitability of an industry. In general, the Six Forces model proposes that the underlying structural drivers of any industry determine the performance of the players.
Examination of the eight factors of rivalry intensity shows a number of competitors with many of them producing very similar product lines.
Porter’s five forces is a framework for analyzing an industry and business strategy development. It looks at forces that determine the competitive intensity of an industry and hence the overall attractiveness of that industry. The configuration of the five forces differs by industry. Understanding the competitive forces and their underlying causes reveals the roots of an industry’s current profitability while providing a framework for anticipating and influencing competition over time.
The Porter five forces model (see Appendix 1) as an external analysis tool was established by Michael E. Porter and firstly announced in his book “Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors” in 1980 . The main idea of the Porter five forces concept is that the attractiveness of a market depends on the characteristic of the five competitive forces that have an impact on a company (see Appendix 2).