Competition
Competition is the rivalry between companies selling similar products and services with the goal of achieving revenue, profit, and market share growth.
Market competition motivates companies to increase sales volume by utilizing the four components of the marketing mix, also referred to as the four P’s. (Price, Place, Promotion and Product)
Case
The consumption of traditional beer has been declining year on year. In contrast, consumers have started to drink more beverages(from 0.8 glasses per day to 1.2 glasses per day).
You work for the Heineken brewery, and you have to find out what competition the traditional beer has.
Five Forces of Porter
Michael Porter is an American academic known for his theories on economics, business strategy, and social causes. He created multiple marketing models. One of them is ‘The Five Forces Model’.
Porter’s Five Forces is a framework for analyzing a company’s competitive environment. The number and power of a company’s competitive rivals, potential new market entrants, suppliers, customers, and substitute products influence a company’s profitability.
Porter’s five forces are: (Click for details)
The first of the five forces refers to the number of competitors and their ability to undercut a company. The larger the number of competitors, along with the number of equivalent products and services they offer, the lesser the power of a company. Suppliers and buyers seek out a company’s competition if they are able to offer a better deal or lower prices. Conversely, when competitive rivalry is low, a company has greater power to charge higher prices and set the terms of deals to achieve higher sales and profits.
A company’s power is also affected by the force of new entrants into its market. The less time and money it costs for a competitor to enter a company’s market and be an effective competitor, the more an established company’s position could be significantly weakened. An industry with strong barriers to entry is ideal for existing companies within that industry since the company would be able to charge higher prices and negotiate better terms.
The next factor in the five forces model addresses how easily suppliers can drive up the cost of inputs. It is affected by the number of suppliers of key inputs of a good or service, how unique these inputs are, and how much it would cost a company to switch to another supplier. The fewer suppliers to an industry, the more a company would depend on a supplier. As a result, the supplier has more power and can drive up input costs and push for other advantages in trade. On the other hand, when there are many suppliers or low switching costs between rival suppliers, a company can keep its input costs lower and enhance its profits.
The ability that customers have to drive prices lower or their level of power is one of the five forces. It is affected by how many buyers or customers a company has, how significant each customer is, and how much it would cost a company to find new customers or markets for its output. A smaller and more powerful client base means that each customer has more power to negotiate for lower prices and better deals. A company that has many, smaller, independent customers will have an easier time charging higher prices to increase profitability.
The last of the five forces focuses on substitutes. Substitute goods or services that can be used in place of a company’s products or services pose a threat. Companies that produce goods or services for which there are no close substitutes will have more power to increase prices and lock in favorable terms. When close substitutes are available, customers will have the option to forgo buying a company’s product, and a company’s power can be weakened.
When looking at the airline industry in the United States, we see that the industry is extremely competitive because of a number of reasons which include the entry of low cost carriers, the tight regulation of the industry wherein safety become paramount leading to high fixed costs and high barriers to exit, and the fact that the industry is very stagnant in terms of growth at the moment. The switching costs for customers are also very low and many players in the industry are similar in size (see graph below) leading to extra fierce competition between those firms. Taken altogether, it can be said that rivalry among existing competitors in the airline industry is high.
The threat of new entrants in the airline industry can be considered as low to medium. It takes quite some upfront investments to start an airline company (e.g. purchasing aircrafts). Moreover, new entrants need licenses, insurances, distribution channels and other qualifications that are not easy to obtain when you are new to the industry (e.g. access to flight routes). Furthermore, it can be expected that existing players have built up a large base of experience over the years to cut costs and increase service levels. A new entrant is likely to not have this kind of expertise, therefore creating a competitive disadvantage right from the start. However, due to the liberalization of market access and the availability of leasing options and external finance from banks, investors, and aircraft manufacturers, new doors are opening for potential entrants. Even though it doesn’t sound very attractive for companies to enter the airline industry, it is NOT impossible. Many low-cost carriers like Southwest Airlines, RyanAir and EasyJet have succesfully entered the industry over the years by introducing innovative cost-cutting business models, thereby shaking up original players like American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and KLM.
The bargaining power of suppliers in the airline industry can be considered very high. When looking at the major inputs that airline companies need, we see that they are especially dependent on fuel and aircrafts. These inputs however are very much affected by the external environment over which the airline companies themselves have little control. The price of aviation fuel is subject to the fluctuations in the global market for oil, which can change wildly because of geopolitical and other factors. In terms of aircrafts for example, only two major suppliers exist: Boeing and Airbus. Boeing and Airbus therefore have substantial bargaining power on the prices they charge.
Bargaining power of buyers in the airline industry is high. Customers are able to check prices of different airline companies fast through the many online price comparisons websites such as Skyscanner and Expedia. In addition, there aren’t any switching costs involved in the process. Customers nowadays are likely to fly with different carriers to and from their destination if that would lower the costs. Brand loyalty therefore doesn’t seem to be that high. Some airline companies are trying to change this with frequent flyer programs aimed at rewarding customers that come back to them from time to time.
In terms of the airline industry, it can be said that the general need of its customers is traveling. It may be clear that there are many alternatives for traveling besides going by airplane. Depending on the urgency and distance, customers could take the train or go by car. Especially in Asia, more and more people make use of highspeed trains such as Bullet Trains and Maglev Trains. Furthermore, the airline industry might get some serious future competition from Elon Musk’s Hyperloop concept in which passengers will be traveling in capsules through a vacuum tube reaching speed limits of 1200 km/h. Taken this altogether, the threat of substitutes in the airline industry can be considered at least medium to high.
Summary: Competition
Competition arises whenever at least two parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one’s gain is the other’s loss.
Porter’s Five Forces analysis is a framework that helps analyzing the level of competition within a certain industry. It is especially useful when starting a new business or when entering a new industry sector. According to this framework, competitiveness does not only come from competitors. Rather, the state of competition in an industry depends on five basic forces: threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitute products or services, and existing industry rivalry.
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