Porter's five-forces

In business, your ability to make a good profit is dependent on your position within the market. As an example, do you have competitors offering similar products; is it easy for people to enter a market when they see you are making a profit? Can customers bully you into lowering your prices? If you don't think about your position in the market, it is very easy to spend a great amount of time and yet still struggle to stay ahead.

This is where a tool like Porters Five forces can be used in your business. The tool was created to help us understand who has the most power in a market situation and was developed by Michael Porter in reaction to the SWOT analysis, which he considered un-rigorous and ad hoc. The tool can also illuminate whether a product or service is likely to be profitable in a given market. Much like the SWOT analysis presented previously, this tool helps to illuminate market dynamics which provide a robust foundation to your organizations VoC initiative...