Porter's Five Forces Model

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While some people see equity investing as a technical exercise that involves interpreting price charts and others see it as a purely quantitative process that involves estimating the value of the company based upon its share price near-term earnings potential compared to competitors, I take the view that making successful long-term investments necessitates an understanding of the companies’ underlying competitive positions. I also believe that optimum the framework for such an analysis is that set out by Harvard Business School Professor Michael E. Porter in his 1979 article “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy“. Porter used the article to introduce his now-famous “five-forces” that can be used to determine whether or not a company has a sustainable competitive advantage. The forces are: (1) the threat of entry; (2) the power of suppliers; (3) the power of buyers; (4) the threat of substitute products or services; and (5) jockeying for position among current competitors. We will take each in turn. Threat of Entry Also known as barriers to entry, this concept involves the analysis of how easy it is for new competitors to enter the industry and consequently compete-away the profits currently earned by existing competitors within the industry. Porter lists the following barriers to entry: • Economies of scale. These can occur in manufacturing (eg Siemens, ABB, GE), marketing (eg. Vodafone, ABInBev), purchasing, financial (larger companies tend to benefit from a lower cost of capital) and managerial (larger companies can hire more specialised workers). • Product differentiation. This can be seen most clearly in the branded consumer goods industry (eg. Coca-Cola, LVMH) but it also occurs in any industry where the end product is both essential and relatively technologically unique (eg. pharmaceuticals, defence hardware). By selling a branded differentiated product,
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