Industry Analysis Assignment

Competitive (External) Positioning of eFirms

The purpose of this assignment is to determine the nature of the external environment for a potential e-Commerce firm. Teams will choose a single industry and/or niche industry they wish to explore and next decide whether they wish to specialize in dot.coms ('clicks', pure plays, cyber- or virtual firms) only or traditional firms that have a Web presence ('clicks and bricks') only.  The point is to narrow the investigation enough so that the team may be able to come up with a strategic plan that could be meaningful. 

Analyze the industry of a potential e-Commerce firm. 

Section 1. Industry Choice. Define the industry or industry segment you have selected. On what basis is this a definite industry or segment?  See overheads for topic discussion #4 for criteria.

Section 2. Key Players. Who are the key competitors (supplementors) in this industry? If there is readily available information on the degree of fragmentation in the industry (market shares), then please include that. Who are the complementors, if any, that you can find handy information about?

Section 3. Five Forces Analysis. Which of the five forces are critical in this industry? Discuss the issues raised by Grant (2002) on page 73, Figure 3.3. Also discuss any of the issues that are critiques of the Five Forces Model, such as whether the firm has a co-dependency with a supplier, complementor or even supplementor (competitor).  Again, see overheads for topic discussion #4 for guidance.

Section 4. Analysis of Demand. What is the demand in the industry and how do firms compete for that demand? This analysis should start with a table similar to that of Grant (2002), p. 98, Table 3.5.

Section 5. Conclusion. What is the bottom line? How hard will it be to compete in this segment? Any speculations on the atomic business models (or hybrids) that might work?

Deliverable: 4-5 page white paper with the sections above in it. Worth 15% of your grade (plus 5% for oral). Oral presentations in class will be part of the overall grade.