Marketing
First part:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cloroxs-new-ceo-is-racing-to-keep-wipes-on-store-shelves-11601041820?mod=hp_featst_pos4
Submit a one page report on the strategic elements she has implemented.
Second part:
Read the article ‘ Porter’s five forces” and answer the following questions: (Article is attached)
- What are the five forces that Porter explains? Give an example for each.
- With the help of an example, explain why rivalry is destructive to profitability if it gravitates to prices.
Awareness of the fi ve forces can help a company understand the structure of its
industry and stake out a position that is more profi table and less vulnerable to attack.
78 Harvard Business Review | January 2008 | hbr.org
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P
et
er
C
ro
w
th
er
Editor’s Note: In 1979, Harvard Business Review
published “How Competitive Forces Shape Strat-
egy” by a young economist and associate professor,
Michael E. Porter. It was his fi rst HBR article, and it
started a revolution in the strategy fi eld. In subsequent
decades, Porter has brought his signature economic
rigor to the study of competitive strategy for corpora-
tions, regions, nations, and, more recently, health care
and philanthropy. “Porter’s fi ve forces” have shaped a
generation of academic research and business practice.
With prodding and assistance from Harvard Business
School Professor Jan Rivkin and longtime colleague
Joan Magretta, Porter here reaffi rms, updates, and
extends the classic work. He also addresses common
misunderstandings, provides practical guidance for
users of the framework, and offers a deeper view of
its implications for strategy today.
THE FIVE
COMPETITIVE
FORCES THAT
by Michael E. Porter
hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 79
SHAPE
IN ESSENCE, the job of the strategist is to under-
STRATEGYSTRATEGY
stand and cope with competition. Often, however,
managers defi ne competition too narrowly, as if
it occurred only among today’s direct competi-
tors. Yet competition for profi ts goes beyond es-
tablished industry rivals to include four other
competitive forces as well: customers, suppliers,
potential entrants, and substitute products. The
extended rivalry that results from all fi ve forces
defi nes an industry’s structure and shapes the
nature of competitive interaction within an
industry.
As different from one another as industries
might appear on the surface, the underlying driv-
ers of profi tability are the same. The global auto
industry, for instance, appears to have nothing
in common with the worldwide market for art
masterpieces or the heavily regulated health-care
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LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY | The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy
80 Harvard Business Review | January 2008 | hbr.org
delivery industry in Europe. But to under-
stand industry competition and profi tabil-
ity in each of those three cases, one must
analyze the industry’s underlying struc-
ture in terms of the fi ve forces. (See the ex-
hibit “The Five Forces That Shape Industry
Competition.”)
If the forces are intense, as they are in
such industries as airlines, textiles, and ho-
tels, almost no company earns attractive re-
turns on investment. If the forces are benign,
as they are in industries such as software,
soft drinks, and toiletries, many companies
are profi table. Industry structure drives
competition and profi tability, not whether
an industry produces a product or service, is
emerging or mature, high tech or low tech,
regulated or unregulated. While a myriad
of factors can affect industry profi tability
in the short run – including the weather
and the business cycle – industry structure,
manifested in the competitive forces, sets
industry profi tability in the medium and
long run. (See the exhibit “Differences in
Industry Profi tability.”)
Understanding the competitive forces, and their under-
lying causes, reveals the roots of an industry’s current profi t-
ability while providing a framework for anticipating and
infl uencing competition (and profi tability) over time. A
healthy industry structure should be as much a competitive
concern to strategists as their company’s own position. Un-
derstanding industry structure is also essential to effective
strategic positioning. As we will see, defending against the
competitive forces and shaping them in a company’s favor
are crucial to strategy.
Forces That Shape Competition
The confi guration of the fi ve forces differs by industry. In
the market for commercial aircraft, fi erce rivalry between
dominant producers Airbus and Boeing and the bargain-
ing power of the airlines that place huge orders for aircraft
are strong, while the threat of entry, the threat of substi-
tutes, and the power of suppliers are more benign. In the
movie theater industry, the proliferation of substitute forms
of entertainment and the power of the movie producers
and distributors who supply movies, the critical input, are
important.
The strongest competitive force or forces determine the
profi tability of an industry and become the most important
to strategy formulation. The most salient force, however, is
not always obvious.
For example, even though rivalry is often fi erce in com-
modity industries, it may not be the factor limiting profi t-
ability. Low returns in the photographic fi lm industry, for
instance, are the result of a superior substitute product – as
Kodak and Fuji, the world’s leading producers of photo-
graphic fi lm, learned with the advent of digital photography.
In such a situation, coping with the substitute product be-
comes the number one strategic priority.
Industry structure grows out of a set of economic and
technical characteristics that determine the strength of
each competitive force. We will examine these drivers in the
pages that follow, taking the perspective of an incumbent,
or a company already present in the industry. The analysis
can be readily extended to understand the challenges facing
a potential entrant.
THREAT OF ENTRY. New entrants to an industry bring
new capacity and a desire to gain market share that puts
pressure on prices, costs, and the rate of investment nec-
essary to compete. Particularly when new entrants are
diversifying from other markets, they can leverage exist-
ing capabilities and cash fl ows to shake up competition, as
Pepsi did when it entered the bottled water industry, Micro-
soft did when it began to offer internet browsers, and Apple
did when it entered the music distribution business.
Michael E. Porter is the Bishop William Lawrence University Pro-
fessor at Harvard University, based at Harvard Business School in
Boston. He is a six-time McKinsey Award winner, including for his
most recent HBR article, “Strategy and Society,” coauthored with
Mark R. Kramer (December 2006).
The Five Forces That Shape Industry Competition
Bargaining
Power of
Suppliers
Threat
of New
Entrants
Bargaining
Power of
Buyers
Threat of
Substitute
Products or
Services
Rivalry
Among
Existing
Competitors
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hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 81
The threat of entry, therefore, puts a cap on the profi t po-
tential of an industry. When the threat is high, incumbents
must hold down their prices or boost investment to deter
new competitors. In specialty coffee retailing, for example,
relatively low entry barriers mean that Starbucks must in-
vest aggressively in modernizing stores and menus.
The threat of entry in an industry depends on the height
of entry barriers that are present and on the reaction en-
trants can expect from incumbents. If entry barriers are low
and newcomers expect little retaliation from the entrenched
competitors, the threat of entry is high and industry profi t-
ability is moderated. It is the threat of entry, not whether
entry actually occurs, that holds down profi tability.
Barriers to entry. Entry barriers are advantages that incum-
bents have relative to new entrants. There are seven major
sources:
1. Supply-side economies of scale. These economies arise
when fi rms that produce at larger volumes enjoy lower costs
per unit because they can spread fi xed costs over more units,
employ more effi cient technology, or command better terms
from suppliers. Supply-side scale economies deter entry by
forcing the aspiring entrant either to come into the industry
on a large scale, which requires dislodging entrenched com-
petitors, or to accept a cost disadvantage.
Scale economies can be found in virtually every activity
in the value chain; which ones are most important varies
by industry.1 In microprocessors, incumbents such as Intel
are protected by scale economies in research, chip fabrica-
tion, and consumer marketing. For lawn care companies like
Scotts Miracle-Gro, the most important scale economies are
found in the supply chain and media advertising. In small-
package delivery, economies of scale arise in national logisti-
cal systems and information technology.
2. Demand-side benefi ts of scale. These benefi ts, also known
as network effects, arise in industries where a buyer’s willing-
ness to pay for a company’s product increases with the num-
ber of other buyers who also patronize the company. Buyers
may trust larger companies more for a crucial product: Re-
call the old adage that no one ever got fi red for buying from
IBM (when it was the dominant computer maker). Buyers
may also value being in a “network” with a larger number of
fellow customers. For instance, online auction participants
are attracted to eBay because it offers the most potential
trading partners. Demand-side benefi ts of scale discourage
entry by limiting the willingness of customers to buy from a
newcomer and by reducing the price the newcomer can com-
mand until it builds up a large base of customers.
3. Customer switching costs. Switching costs are fi xed costs
that buyers face when they change suppliers. Such costs may
arise because a buyer who switches vendors must, for ex-
ample, alter product specifi cations, retrain employees to use
a new product, or modify processes or information systems.
The larger the switching costs, the harder it will be for an en-
trant to gain customers. Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
software is an example of a product with very high switching
costs. Once a company has installed SAP’s ERP system, for ex-
ample, the costs of moving to a new vendor are astronomical
because of embedded data, the fact that internal processes
have been adapted to SAP, major retraining needs, and the
mission-critical nature of the applications.
4. Capital requirements. The need to invest large fi nan-
cial resources in order to compete can deter new entrants.
Capital may be necessary not only for fi xed facilities but also
to extend customer credit, build inventories, and fund start-
up losses. The barrier is particularly great if the capital is
required for unrecoverable and therefore harder-to-fi nance
expenditures, such as up-front advertising or research and
development. While major corporations have the fi nancial
resources to invade almost any industry, the huge capital
requirements in certain fi elds limit the pool of likely en-
trants. Conversely, in such fi elds as tax preparation services
or short-haul trucking, capital requirements are minimal
and potential entrants plentiful.
It is important not to overstate the degree to which capital
requirements alone deter entry. If industry returns are at-
tractive and are expected to remain so, and if capital markets
are effi cient, investors will provide entrants with the funds
they need. For aspiring air carriers, for instance, fi nancing
is available to purchase expensive aircraft because of their
high resale value, one reason why there have been numer-
ous new airlines in almost every region.
5. Incumbency advantages independent of size. No matter
what their size, incumbents may have cost or quality advan-
tages not available to potential rivals. These advantages can
stem from such sources as proprietary technology, preferen-
tial access to the best raw material sources, preemption of
the most favorable geographic locations, established brand
identities, or cumulative experience that has allowed incum-
Industry structure drives competition and profi tability,
not whether an industry is emerging or mature, high tech or
low tech, regulated or unregulated.
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82 Harvard Business Review | January 2008 | hbr.org
bents to learn how to produce more effi ciently. Entrants try
to bypass such advantages. Upstart discounters such as Tar-
get and Wal-Mart, for example, have located stores in free-
standing sites rather than regional shopping centers where
established department stores were well entrenched.
6. Unequal access to distribution channels. The new en-
trant must, of course, secure distribution of its product or
service. A new food item, for example, must displace others
from the supermarket shelf via price breaks, promotions,
intense selling efforts, or some other means. The more lim-
ited the wholesale or retail channels are and the more that
existing competitors have tied them up, the tougher entry
into an industry will be. Sometimes access to distribution
is so high a barrier that new entrants must bypass distribu-
tion channels altogether or create their own. Thus, upstart
low-cost airlines have avoided distribution through travel
agents (who tend to favor established higher-fare carriers)
and have encouraged passengers to book their own fl ights
on the internet.
7. Restrictive government policy. Government policy can
hinder or aid new entry directly, as well as amplify (or nul-
lify) the other entry barriers. Government directly limits or
even forecloses entry into industries through, for instance,
licensing requirements and restrictions on foreign invest-
ment. Regulated industries like liquor retailing, taxi services,
and airlines are visible examples. Government policy can
heighten other entry barriers through such means as ex-
pansive patenting rules that protect proprietary technol-
ogy from imitation or environmental or safety regulations
that raise scale economies facing newcomers. Of course,
government policies may also make entry easier – directly
through subsidies, for instance, or indirectly by funding ba-
sic research and making it available to all fi rms, new and old,
reducing scale economies.
Entry barriers should be assessed relative to the capa-
bilities of potential entrants, which may be start-ups, foreign
fi rms, or companies in related industries. And, as some of
our examples illustrate, the strategist must be mindful of the
creative ways newcomers might fi nd to circumvent appar-
ent barriers.
Expected retaliation. How potential entrants believe in-
cumbents may react will also infl uence their decision to
enter or stay out of an industry. If reaction is vigorous and
protracted enough, the profi t potential of participating in
the industry can fall below the cost of capital. Incumbents
often use public statements and responses to one entrant
to send a message to other prospective entrants about their
commitment to defending market share.
Newcomers are likely to fear expected retaliation if:
Incumbents have previously responded vigorously to
new entrants.
Incumbents possess substantial resources to fi ght back,
including excess cash and unused borrowing power, avail-
•
•
able productive capacity, or clout with distribution channels
and customers.
Incumbents seem likely to cut prices because they are
committed to retaining market share at all costs or because
the industry has high fi xed costs, which create a strong mo-
tivation to drop prices to fi ll excess capacity.
Industry growth is slow so newcomers can gain volume
only by taking it from incumbents.
An analysis of barriers to entry and expected retaliation is
obviously crucial for any company contemplating entry into
a new industry. The challenge is to fi nd ways to surmount
the entry barriers without nullifying, through heavy invest-
ment, the profi tability of participating in the industry.
THE POWER OF SUPPLIERS. Powerful suppliers capture
more of the value for themselves by charging higher prices,
limiting quality or services, or shifting costs to industry par-
ticipants. Powerful suppliers, including suppliers of labor,
can squeeze profi tability out of an industry that is unable
to pass on cost increases in its own prices. Microsoft, for in-
stance, has contributed to the erosion of profi tability among
personal computer makers by raising prices on operating
systems. PC makers, competing fi ercely for customers who
can easily switch among them, have limited freedom to raise
their prices accordingly.
Companies depend on a wide range of different supplier
groups for inputs. A supplier group is powerful if:
It is more concentrated than the industry it sells to.
Microsoft’s near monopoly in operating systems, coupled
with the fragmentation of PC assemblers, exemplifi es this
situation.
The supplier group does not depend heavily on the in-
dustry for its revenues. Suppliers serving many industries
will not hesitate to extract maximum profi ts from each one.
If a particular industry accounts for a large portion of a sup-
plier group’s volume or profi t, however, suppliers will want
to protect the industry through reasonable pricing and as-
sist in activities such as R&D and lobbying.
Industry participants face switching costs in changing
suppliers. For example, shifting suppliers is diffi cult if com-
panies have invested heavily in specialized ancillary equip-
•
•
•
•
•
Differences in Industry Profi tability
The average return on invested capital varies markedly from
industry to industry. Between 1992 and 2006, for example,
average return on invested capital in U.S. industries ranged as
low as zero or even negative to more than 50%. At the high
end are industries like soft drinks and prepackaged software,
which have been almost six times more profi table than the
airline industry over the period.
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hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 83
ment or in learning how to operate a supplier’s equipment
(as with Bloomberg terminals used by fi nancial profession-
als). Or fi rms may have located their production lines adja-
cent to a supplier’s manufacturing facilities (as in the case
of some beverage companies and container manufacturers).
When switching costs are high, industry participants fi nd it
hard to play suppliers off against one another. (Note that
suppliers may have switching costs as well. This limits their
power.)
Suppliers offer products that are differentiated. Phar-
maceutical companies that offer patented drugs with dis-
tinctive medical benefi ts have more power over hospitals,
health maintenance organizations, and other drug buyers,
for example, than drug companies offering me-too or ge-
neric products.
There is no substitute for what the supplier group pro-
vides. Pilots’ unions, for example, exercise considerable sup-
plier power over airlines partly because there is no good
alternative to a well-trained pilot in the cockpit.
The supplier group can credibly threaten to integrate for-
ward into the industry. In that case, if industry participants
make too much money relative to suppliers, they will induce
suppliers to enter the market.
•
•
•
THE POWER OF BUYERS. Powerful customers – the fl ip
side of powerful suppliers – can capture more value by forc-
ing down prices, demanding better quality or more service
(thereby driving up costs), and generally playing industry
participants off against one another, all at the expense of
industry profi tability. Buyers are powerful if they have nego-
tiating leverage relative to industry participants, especially
if they are price sensitive, using their clout primarily to pres-
sure price reductions.
As with suppliers, there may be distinct groups of custom-
ers who differ in bargaining power. A customer group has
negotiating leverage if:
There are few buyers, or each one purchases in volumes
that are large relative to the size of a single vendor. Large-
volume buyers are particularly powerful in industries with
high fi xed costs, such as telecommunications equipment, off-
shore drilling, and bulk chemicals. High fi xed costs and low
marginal costs amplify the pressure on rivals to keep capac-
ity fi lled through discounting.
The industry’s products are standardized or undifferenti-
ated. If buyers believe they can always fi nd an equivalent
product, they tend to play one vendor against another.
Buyers face few switching costs in changing vendors.
•
•
•
Profi tability of Selected U.S. Industries
Average ROIC, 1992–2006
N
um
be
r
of
In
du
st
rie
s
ROIC
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
4
0
50
30
20
10
0
10th percentile
7.0%
25th
percentile
10.9%
Median:
14.3%
75th percentile
18.6%
90th percentile
25.3%
or higheror lower
Average Return on Invested Capital
in U.S. Industries, 1992–2006
Security Brokers and Dealers
Soft Drinks
Prepackaged Software
Pharmaceuticals
Perfume, Cosmetics, Toiletries
Advertising Agencies
Distilled Spirits
Semiconductors
Medical Instruments
Men’s and Boys’ Clothing
Tires
Household Appliances
Malt Beverages
Child Day Care Services
Household Furniture
Drug Stores
Grocery Stores
Iron and Steel Foundries
Cookies and Crackers
Mobile Homes
Wine and Brandy
Bakery Products
Engines and Turbines
Book Publishing
Laboratory Equipment
Oil and Gas Machinery
Soft Drink Bottling
Knitting Mills
Hotels
Catalog, Mail-Order Houses
Airlines
Return on invested capital (ROIC) is the appropriate measure
of profi tability for strategy formulation, not to mention for equity
investors. Return on sales or the growth rate of profi ts fail to
account for the capital required to compete in the industry. Here,
we utilize earnings before interest and taxes divided by average
invested capital less excess cash as the measure of ROIC. This
measure controls for idiosyncratic differences in capital structure
and tax rates across companies and industries.
Source: Standard & Poor’s, Compustat, and author’s calculations
Average industry
ROIC in the U.S.
14.9%
40.9%
37.6%
37.6%
31.7%
28.6%
27.3%
26.4%
21.3%
21.0%
19.5%
19.5%
19.2%
19.0%
17.6%
17.0%
16.5%
16.0%
15.6%
15.4%
15.0%
13.9%
13.8%
13.7%
13.4%
13.4%
12.6%
11.7%
10.5%
10.4%
5.9%
5.9%
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84 Harvard Business Review | January 2008 | hbr.org
Buyers can credibly threaten to integrate backward and
produce the industry’s product themselves if vendors are
too profi table. Producers of soft drinks and beer have long
controlled the power of packaging manufacturers by threat-
ening to make, and at times actually making, packaging ma-
terials themselves.
A buyer group is price sensitive if:
The product it purchases from the industry represents
a signifi cant fraction of its cost structure or procurement
budget. Here buyers are likely to shop around and bargain
hard, as consumers do for home mortgages. Where the prod-
uct sold by an industry is a small fraction of buyers’ costs or
expenditures, buyers are usually less price sensitive.
The buyer group earns low profi ts, is strapped for cash,
or is otherwise under pressure to trim its purchasing costs.
Highly profi table or cash-rich customers, in contrast, are gen-
erally less price sensitive (that is, of course, if the item does
not represent a large fraction of their costs).
The quality of buyers’ products or services is little af-
fected by the industry’s product. Where quality is very much
affected by the industry’s product, buyers are generally less
price sensitive. When purchasing or renting production qual-
ity cameras, for instance, makers of major motion pictures
opt for highly reliable equipment with the latest features.
They pay limited attention to price.
The industry’s product has little effect on the buyer’s
other costs. Here, buyers focus on price. Conversely, where
an industry’s product or service can pay for itself many times
over by improving performance or reducing labor, material,
or other costs, buyers are usually more interested in quality
than in price. Examples include products and services like tax
accounting or well logging (which measures below-ground
conditions of oil wells) that can save or even make the buyer
money. Similarly, buyers tend not to be price sensitive in ser-
vices such as investment banking, where poor performance
can be costly and embarrassing.
Most sources of buyer power apply equally to consum-
ers and to business-to-business customers. Like industrial
customers, consumers tend to be more price sensitive if they
are purchasing products that are undifferentiated, expensive
relative to their incomes, and of a sort where product perfor-
mance has limited consequences. The major difference with
consumers is that their needs can be more intangible and
harder to quantify.
Intermediate customers, or customers who purchase the
product but are not the end user (such as assemblers or distri-
bution channels), can be analyzed the same way as other buy-
ers, with one important addition. Intermediate customers
gain signifi cant bargaining power when they can infl uence
the purchasing decisions of customers downstream. Con-
sumer electronics retailers, jewelry retailers, and agricultural-
equipment distributors are examples of distribution chan-
nels that exert a strong infl uence on end customers.
•
•
•
•
•
Producers often attempt to diminish channel clout
through exclusive arrangements with particular distributors
or retailers or by marketing directly to end users. Compo-
nent manufacturers seek to develop power over assemblers
by creating preferences for their components with down-
stream customers. Such is the case with bicycle parts and
with sweeteners. DuPont has created enormous clout by
advertising its Stainmaster brand of carpet fi bers not only
to the carpet manufacturers that actually buy them but
also to downstream consumers. Many consumers request
Stainmaster carpet even though DuPont is not a carpet
manufacturer.
THE THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES. A substitute performs
the same or a similar function as an industry’s product by a
different means. Videoconferencing is a substitute for travel.
Plastic is a substitute for aluminum. E-mail is a substitute
for express mail. Sometimes, the threat of substitution is
downstream or indirect, when a substitute replaces a buyer
industry’s product. For example, lawn-care products and ser-
vices are threatened when multifamily homes in urban areas
substitute for single-family homes in the suburbs. Software
sold to agents is threatened when airline and travel websites
substitute for travel agents.
Substitutes are always present, but they are easy to over-
look because they may appear to be very different from the
industry’s product: To someone searching for a Father’s Day
gift, neckties and power tools may be substitutes. It is a sub-
stitute to do without, to purchase a used product rather than
a new one, or to do it yourself (bring the service or product
in-house).
When the threat of substitutes is high, industry profi tabil-
ity suffers. Substitute products or services limit an industry’s
profi t potential by placing a ceiling on prices. If an industry
does not distance itself from substitutes through product
performance, marketing, or other means, it will suffer in
terms of profi tability – and often growth potential.
Substitutes not only limit profi ts in normal times, they
also reduce the bonanza an industry can reap in good times.
In emerging economies, for example, the surge in demand
for wired telephone lines has been capped as many con-
sumers opt to make a mobile telephone their fi rst and only
phone line.
The threat of a substitute is high if:
It offers an attractive price-performance trade-off to the
industry’s product. The better the relative value of the sub-
stitute, the tighter is the lid on an industry’s profi t poten-
tial. For example, conventional providers of long-distance
telephone service have suffered from the advent of inex-
pensive internet-based phone services such as Vonage and
Skype. Similarly, video rental outlets are struggling with the
emergence of cable and satellite video-on-demand services,
online video rental services such as Netfl ix, and the rise of
internet video sites like Google’s YouTube.
•
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hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 85
The buyer’s cost of switching to the substitute is low.
Switching from a proprietary, branded drug to a generic
drug usually involves minimal costs, for example, which is
why the shift to generics (and the fall in prices) is so substan-
tial and rapid.
Strategists should be particularly alert to changes in other
industries that may make them attractive substitutes when
they were not before. Improvements in plastic materials, for
example, allowed them to substitute for steel in many au-
tomobile components. In this way, technological changes
or competitive discontinuities in seemingly unrelated busi-
nesses can have major impacts on industry profi tability. Of
course the substitution threat can also shift in favor of an
industry, which bodes well for its future profi tability and
growth potential.
RIVALRY AMONG EXISTING COMPETITORS. Rivalry
among existing competitors takes many familiar forms, in-
cluding price discounting, new product introductions, ad-
vertising campaigns, and service improvements. High rivalry
limits the profi tability of an industry. The degree to which ri-
valry drives down an industry’s profi t potential depends, fi rst,
on the intensity with which companies compete and, second,
on the basis on which they compete.
The intensity of rivalry is greatest if:
Competitors are numerous or are roughly equal in size
and power. In such situations, rivals fi nd it hard to avoid
poaching business. Without an industry leader, practices de-
sirable for the industry as a whole go unenforced.
Industry growth is slow. Slow growth precipitates fi ghts
for market share.
Exit barriers are high. Exit barriers, the fl ip side of entry
barriers, arise because of such things as highly specialized
assets or management’s devotion to a particular business.
These barriers keep companies in the market even though
they may be earning low or negative returns. Excess capacity
remains in use, and the profi tability of healthy competitors
suffers as the sick ones hang on.
Rivals are highly committed to the business and have
aspirations for leadership, especially if they have goals that
go beyond economic performance in the particular industry.
High commitment to a business arises for a variety of reasons.
For example, state-owned competitors may have goals that
include employment or prestige. Units of larger companies
•
•
•
•
•
may participate in an industry for image reasons or to offer
a full line. Clashes of personality and ego have sometimes
exaggerated rivalry to the detriment of profi tability in fi elds
such as the media and high technology.
Firms cannot read each other’s signals well because of
lack of familiarity with one another, diverse approaches to
competing, or differing goals.
The strength of rivalry refl ects not just the intensity of
competition but also the basis of competition. The dimen-
sions on which competition takes place, and whether rivals
converge to compete on the same dimensions, have a major
infl uence on profi tability.
Rivalry is especially destructive to profi tability if it gravi-
tates solely to price because price competition transfers prof-
its directly from an industry to its customers. Price cuts are
usually easy for competitors to see and match, making suc-
cessive rounds of retaliation likely. Sustained price competi-
tion also trains customers to pay less attention to product
features and service.
Price competition is most liable to occur if:
Products or services of rivals are nearly identical and
there are few switching costs for buyers. This encourages
competitors to cut prices to win new customers. Years of air-
line price wars refl ect these circumstances in that industry.
Fixed costs are high and marginal costs are low. This
creates intense pressure for competitors to cut prices below
their average costs, even close to their marginal costs, to steal
incremental customers while still making some contribution
to covering fi xed costs. Many basic-materials businesses, such
as paper and aluminum, suffer from this problem, especially
if demand is not growing. So do delivery companies with
fi xed networks of routes that must be served regardless of
volume.
Capacity must be expanded in large increments to be
effi cient. The need for large capacity expansions, as in the
polyvinyl chloride business, disrupts the industry’s supply-
demand balance and often leads to long and recurring peri-
ods of overcapacity and price cutting.
The product is perishable. Perishability creates a strong
temptation to cut prices and sell a product while it still has
value. More products and services are perishable than is
commonly thought. Just as tomatoes are perishable because
they rot, models of computers are perishable because they
•
•
•
•
•
Rivalry is especially destructive to profi tability if it gravitates
solely to price because price competition transfers profi ts directly
from an industry to its customers.
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soon become obsolete, and information may be perishable
if it diffuses rapidly or becomes outdated, thereby losing its
value. Services such as hotel accommodations are perishable
in the sense that unused capacity can never be recovered.
Competition on dimensions other than price – on product
features, support services, delivery time, or brand image, for
instance – is less likely to erode profi tability because it im-
proves customer value and can support higher prices. Also,
rivalry focused on such dimensions can improve value rela-
tive to substitutes or raise the barriers facing new entrants.
While nonprice rivalry sometimes escalates to levels that
undermine industry profi tability, this is less likely to occur
than it is with price rivalry.
As important as the dimensions of rivalry is whether ri-
vals compete on the same dimensions. When all or many
competitors aim to meet the same needs or compete on the
same attributes, the result is zero-sum competition. Here,
one fi rm’s gain is often another’s loss, driving down profi t-
ability. While price competition runs a stronger risk than
nonprice competition of becoming zero sum, this may not
happen if companies take care to segment their markets,
targeting their low-price offerings to different customers.
Rivalry can be positive sum, or actually increase the aver-
age profi tability of an industry, when each competitor aims
to serve the needs of different customer segments, with dif-
ferent mixes of price, products, services, features, or brand
identities. Such competition can not only support higher av-
erage profi tability but also expand the industry, as the needs
of more customer groups are better met. The opportunity
for positive-sum competition will be greater in industries
serving diverse customer groups. With a clear understand-
ing of the structural underpinnings of rivalry, strategists can
sometimes take steps to shift the nature of competition in
a more positive direction.
Factors, Not Forces
Industry structure, as manifested in the strength of the fi ve
competitive forces, determines the industry’s long-run profi t
potential because it determines how the economic value
created by the industry is divided – how much is retained
by companies in the industry versus bargained away by cus-
tomers and suppliers, limited by substitutes, or constrained
by potential new entrants. By considering all fi ve forces, a
strategist keeps overall structure in mind instead of gravitat-
ing to any one element. In addition, the strategist’s atten-
tion remains focused on structural conditions rather than
on fl eeting factors.
It is especially important to avoid the common pitfall of
mistaking certain visible attributes of an industry for its un-
derlying structure. Consider the following:
Industry growth rate. A common mistake is to assume
that fast-growing industries are always attractive. Growth
does tend to mute rivalry, because an expanding pie offers
opportunities for all competitors. But fast growth can put
suppliers in a powerful position, and high growth with low
entry barriers will draw in entrants. Even without new en-
trants, a high growth rate will not guarantee profi tability if
customers are powerful or substitutes are attractive. Indeed,
some fast-growth businesses, such as personal computers,
have been among the least profi table industries in recent
years. A narrow focus on growth is one of the major causes
of bad strategy decisions.
Technology and innovation. Advanced technology or in-
novations are not by themselves enough to make an indus-
try structurally attractive (or unattractive). Mundane, low-
technology industries with price-insensitive buyers, high
switching costs, or high entry barriers arising from scale
economies are often far more profi table than sexy indus-
tries, such as software and internet technologies, that attract
competitors.2
Government. Government is not best understood as a
sixth force because government involvement is neither in-
herently good nor bad for industry profi tability. The best
way to understand the infl uence of government on competi-
tion is to analyze how specifi c government policies affect the
fi ve competitive forces. For instance, patents raise barriers
to entry, boosting industry profi t potential. Conversely, gov-
ernment policies favoring unions may raise supplier power
and diminish profi t potential. Bankruptcy rules that allow
failing companies to reorganize rather than exit can lead to
excess capacity and intense rivalry. Government operates at
multiple levels and through many different policies, each of
which will affect structure in different ways.
Complementary products and services. Complements
are products or services used together with an industry’s
product. Complements arise when the customer benefi t
of two products combined is greater than the sum of each
product’s value in isolation. Computer hardware and soft-
ware, for instance, are valuable together and worthless when
separated.
In recent years, strategy researchers have highlighted the
role of complements, especially in high-technology indus-
tries where they are most obvious.3 By no means, however,
do complements appear only there. The value of a car, for ex-
ample, is greater when the driver also has access to gasoline
stations, roadside assistance, and auto insurance.
Complements can be important when they affect the
overall demand for an industry’s product. However, like
government policy, complements are not a sixth force de-
termining industry profi tability since the presence of strong
complements is not necessarily bad (or good) for industry
profi tability. Complements affect profi tability through the
way they infl uence the fi ve forces.
The strategist must trace the positive or negative infl uence
of complements on all fi ve forces to ascertain their impact on
profi tability. The presence of complements can raise or lower
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barriers to entry. In application software, for example, barri-
ers to entry were lowered when producers of complemen-
tary operating system software, notably Microsoft, provided
tool sets making it easier to write applications. Conversely,
the need to attract producers of complements can raise bar-
riers to entry, as it does in video game hardware.
The presence of complements can also affect the threat
of substitutes. For instance, the need for appropriate fueling
stations makes it diffi cult for cars using alternative fuels to
substitute for conventional vehicles. But complements can
also make substitution easier. For example, Apple’s iTunes
hastened the substitution from CDs to digital music.
Complements can factor into industry rivalry either posi-
tively (as when they raise switching costs) or negatively (as
when they neutralize product differentiation). Similar analy-
ses can be done for buyer and supplier power. Sometimes
companies compete by altering conditions in complemen-
tary industries in their favor, such as when videocassette-
recorder producer JVC persuaded movie studios to favor
its standard in issuing prerecorded tapes even though ri-
val Sony’s standard was probably superior from a technical
standpoint.
Identifying complements is part of the analyst’s work. As
with government policies or important technologies, the
strategic signifi cance of complements will be best under-
stood through the lens of the fi ve forces.
Changes in Industry Structure
So far, we have discussed the competitive forces at a single
point in time. Industry structure proves to be relatively sta-
ble, and industry profi tability differences are remarkably
persistent over time in practice. However, industry structure
is constantly undergoing modest adjustment – and occasion-
ally it can change abruptly.
Shifts in structure may emanate from outside an industry
or from within. They can boost the industry’s profi t potential
or reduce it. They may be caused by changes in technology,
changes in customer needs, or other events. The fi ve com-
petitive forces provide a framework for identifying the most
important industry developments and for anticipating their
impact on industry attractiveness.
Shifting threat of new entry. Changes to any of the seven
barriers described above can raise or lower the threat of new
entry. The expiration of a patent, for instance, may unleash
new entrants. On the day that Merck’s patents for the cho-
lesterol reducer Zocor expired, three pharmaceutical mak-
ers entered the market for the drug. Conversely, the prolif-
eration of products in the ice cream industry has gradually
fi lled up the limited freezer space in grocery stores, making
it harder for new ice cream makers to gain access to distribu-
tion in North America and Europe.
Strategic decisions of leading competitors often have a
major impact on the threat of entry. Starting in the 1970s, for
Industry Analysis in Practice
Good industry analysis looks rigorously at the
structural underpinnings of profi tability. A fi rst
step is to understand the appropriate time
horizon. One of the essential tasks in industry
analysis is to distinguish temporary or cyclical changes
from structural changes. A good guideline for the
appropriate time horizon is the full business cycle for
the particular industry. For most industries, a three-
to-fi ve-year horizon is appropriate, although in some
industries with long lead times, such as mining, the
appropriate horizon might be a decade or more. It is
average profi tability over this period, not profi tability in
any particular year, that should be the focus of analysis.
The point of industry analysis is not to declare
the industry attractive or unattractive but to
understand the underpinnings of competition
and the root causes of profi tability. As much as
possible, analysts should look at industry structure
quantitatively, rather than be satisfi ed with lists of
qualitative factors. Many elements of the fi ve forces
can be quantifi ed: the percentage of the buyer’s
total cost accounted for by the industry’s product (to
understand buyer price sensitivity); the percentage of
industry sales required to fi ll a plant or operate a logis-
tical network of effi cient scale (to help assess barriers
to entry); the buyer’s switching cost (determining the
inducement an entrant or rival must offer customers).
The strength of the competitive forces affects
prices, costs, and the investment required to
compete; thus the forces are directly tied to
the income statements and balance sheets of
industry participants. Industry structure defi nes
the gap between revenues and costs. For example,
intense rivalry drives down prices or elevates the costs
of marketing, R&D, or customer service, reducing
margins. How much? Strong suppliers drive up input
costs. How much? Buyer power lowers prices or
elevates the costs of meeting buyers’ demands, such
as the requirement to hold more inventory or provide
fi nancing. How much? Low barriers to entry or close
substitutes limit the level of sustainable prices. How
much? It is these economic relationships that sharpen
the strategist’s understanding of industry competition.
Finally, good industry analysis does not just list
pluses and minuses but sees an industry in over-
all, systemic terms. Which forces are underpinning
(or constraining) today’s profi tability? How might shifts
in one competitive force trigger reactions in others?
Answering such questions is often the source of true
strategic insights.
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example, retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Toys “R” Us
began to adopt new procurement, distribution, and inven-
tory control technologies with large fi xed costs, including
automated distribution centers, bar coding, and point-of-sale
terminals. These investments increased the economies of
scale and made it more diffi cult for small retailers to enter
the business (and for existing small players to survive).
Changing supplier or buyer power. As the factors under-
lying the power of suppliers and buyers change with time,
their clout rises or declines. In the global appliance industry,
for instance, competitors including Electrolux, General Elec-
tric, and Whirlpool have been squeezed by the consolidation
of retail channels (the decline of appliance specialty stores,
for instance, and the rise of big-box retailers like Best Buy
and Home Depot in the United States). Another example is
travel agents, who depend on airlines as a key supplier. When
the internet allowed airlines to sell tickets directly to cus-
tomers, this signifi cantly increased their power to bargain
down agents’ commissions.
Shifting threat of substitution. The most common reason
substitutes become more or less threatening over time is
that advances in technology create new substitutes or shift
price-performance comparisons in one direction or the other.
The earliest microwave ovens, for example, were large and
priced above $2,000, making them poor substitutes for con-
ventional ovens. With technological advances, they became
serious substitutes. Flash computer memory has improved
enough recently to become a meaningful substitute for low-
capacity hard-disk drives. Trends in the availability or per-
formance of complementary producers also shift the threat
of substitutes.
New bases of rivalry. Rivalry often intensifi es naturally
over time. As an industry matures, growth slows. Competi-
tors become more alike as industry conventions emerge,
technology diffuses, and consumer tastes converge. Industry
profi tability falls, and weaker competitors are driven from
the business. This story has played out in industry after in-
dustry; televisions, snowmobiles, and telecommunications
equipment are just a few examples.
A trend toward intensifying price competition and other
forms of rivalry, however, is by no means inevitable. For ex-
ample, there has been enormous competitive activity in the
U.S. casino industry in recent decades, but most of it has
been positive-sum competition directed toward new niches
and geographic segments (such as riverboats, trophy proper-
ties, Native American reservations, international expansion,
and novel customer groups like families). Head-to-head ri-
valry that lowers prices or boosts the payouts to winners has
been limited.
The nature of rivalry in an industry is altered by mergers
and acquisitions that introduce new capabilities and ways of
competing. Or, technological innovation can reshape rivalry.
In the retail brokerage industry, the advent of the internet
lowered marginal costs and reduced differentiation, trigger-
ing far more intense competition on commissions and fees
than in the past.
In some industries, companies turn to mergers and con-
solidation not to improve cost and quality but to attempt to
stop intense competition. Eliminating rivals is a risky strat-
egy, however. The fi ve competitive forces tell us that a profi t
windfall from removing today’s competitors often attracts
new competitors and backlash from customers and suppli-
ers. In New York banking, for example, the 1980s and 1990s
saw escalating consolidations of commercial and savings
banks, including Manufacturers Hanover, Chemical, Chase,
and Dime Savings. But today the retail-banking landscape
of Manhattan is as diverse as ever, as new entrants such as
Wachovia, Bank of America, and Washington Mutual have
entered the market.
Implications for Strategy
Understanding the forces that shape industry competition
is the starting point for developing strategy. Every company
should already know what the average profi tability of its
industry is and how that has been changing over time. The
fi ve forces reveal why industry profi tability is what it is. Only
then can a company incorporate industry conditions into
strategy.
The forces reveal the most signifi cant aspects of the com-
petitive environment. They also provide a baseline for sizing
up a company’s strengths and weaknesses: Where does the
company stand versus buyers, suppliers, entrants, rivals, and
substitutes? Most importantly, an understanding of industry
structure guides managers toward fruitful possibilities for
strategic action, which may include any or all of the follow-
ing: positioning the company to better cope with the current
competitive forces; anticipating and exploiting shifts in the
forces; and shaping the balance of forces to create a new in-
Eliminating rivals is a risky strategy. A profi t windfall from
removing today’s competitors often attracts new competitors and
backlash from customers and suppliers.
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hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 89
dustry structure that is more favorable to the company. The
best strategies exploit more than one of these possibilities.
Positioning the company. Strategy can be viewed as build-
ing defenses against the competitive forces or fi nding a posi-
tion in the industry where the forces are weakest. Consider,
for instance, the position of Paccar in the market for heavy
trucks. The heavy-truck industry is structurally challenging.
Many buyers operate large fl eets or are large leasing com-
panies, with both the leverage and the motivation to drive
down the price of one of their largest purchases. Most trucks
are built to regulated standards and offer similar features, so
price competition is rampant. Capital intensity causes rivalry
to be fi erce, especially during the recurring cyclical down-
turns. Unions exercise considerable supplier power. Though
there are few direct substitutes for an 18-wheeler, truck buy-
ers face important substitutes for their services, such as cargo
delivery by rail.
In this setting, Paccar, a Bellevue, Washington–based com-
pany with about 20% of the North American heavy-truck
market, has chosen to focus on one group of customers:
owner-operators – drivers who own their trucks and contract
directly with shippers or serve as subcontractors to larger
trucking companies. Such small operators have limited clout
as truck buyers. They are also less price sensitive because of
their strong emotional ties to and economic dependence on
the product. They take great pride in their trucks, in which
they spend most of their time.
Paccar has invested heavily to develop an array of fea-
tures with owner-operators in mind: luxurious sleeper cabins,
plush leather seats, noise-insulated cabins, sleek exterior styl-
ing, and so on. At the company’s extensive network of dealers,
prospective buyers use software to select among thousands
of options to put their personal signature on their trucks.
These customized trucks are built to order, not to stock, and
delivered in six to eight weeks. Paccar’s trucks also have aero-
dynamic designs that reduce fuel consumption, and they
maintain their resale value better than other trucks. Paccar’s
roadside assistance program and IT-supported system for dis-
tributing spare parts reduce the time a truck is out of service.
All these are crucial considerations for an owner-operator.
Customers pay Paccar a 10% premium, and its Kenworth and
Peterbilt brands are considered status symbols at truck stops.
Paccar illustrates the principles of positioning a company
within a given industry structure. The fi rm has found a por-
tion of its industry where the competitive forces are weaker –
where it can avoid buyer power and price-based rivalry. And it
has tailored every single part of the value chain to cope well
with the forces in its segment. As a result, Paccar has been
profi table for 68 years straight and has earned a long-run
return on equity above 20%.
In addition to revealing positioning opportunities within
an existing industry, the fi ve forces framework allows com-
panies to rigorously analyze entry and exit. Both depend on
answering the diffi cult question: “What is the potential of
this business?” Exit is indicated when industry structure is
poor or declining and the company has no prospect of a su-
perior positioning. In considering entry into a new industry,
creative strategists can use the framework to spot an indus-
try with a good future before this good future is refl ected in
the prices of acquisition candidates. Five forces analysis may
also reveal industries that are not necessarily attractive for
the average entrant but in which a company has good reason
to believe it can surmount entry barriers at lower cost than
most fi rms or has a unique ability to cope with the industry’s
competitive forces.
Exploiting industry change. Industry changes bring the
opportunity to spot and claim promising new strategic posi-
tions if the strategist has a sophisticated understanding of
the competitive forces and their underpinnings. Consider,
for instance, the evolution of the music industry during the
past decade. With the advent of the internet and the digital
distribution of music, some analysts predicted the birth of
thousands of music labels (that is, record companies that
develop artists and bring their music to market). This, the
analysts argued, would break a pattern that had held since
Edison invented the phonograph: Between three and six
major record companies had always dominated the industry.
The internet would, they predicted, remove distribution as
a barrier to entry, unleashing a fl ood of new players into the
music industry.
A careful analysis, however, would have revealed that
physical distribution was not the crucial barrier to entry.
Rather, entry was barred by other benefi ts that large music
labels enjoyed. Large labels could pool the risks of develop-
ing new artists over many bets, cushioning the impact of
inevitable failures. Even more important, they had advan-
tages in breaking through the clutter and getting their new
artists heard. To do so, they could promise radio stations and
record stores access to well-known artists in exchange for
promotion of new artists. New labels would fi nd this nearly
impossible to match. The major labels stayed the course, and
new music labels have been rare.
Using the fi ve forces framework, creative strategists may be
able to spot an industry with a good future before this good future
is refl ected in the prices of acquisition candidates.
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This is not to say that the music industry is structurally
unchanged by digital distribution. Unauthorized download-
ing created an illegal but potent substitute. The labels tried
for years to develop technical platforms for digital distribu-
tion themselves, but major companies hesitated to sell their
music through a platform owned by a rival. Into this vacuum
stepped Apple with its iTunes music store, launched in 2003
to support its iPod music player. By permitting the creation
of a powerful new gatekeeper, the major labels allowed in-
dustry structure to shift against them. The number of major
record companies has actually declined – from six in 1997 to
four today – as companies struggled to cope with the digital
phenomenon.
When industry structure is in fl ux, new and promising
competitive positions may appear. Structural changes open
up new needs and new ways to serve existing needs. Estab-
lished leaders may overlook these or be constrained by past
strategies from pursuing them. Smaller competitors in the
industry can capitalize on such changes, or the void may well
be fi lled by new entrants.
Shaping industry structure. When a company exploits
structural change, it is recognizing, and reacting to, the in-
evitable. However, companies also have the ability to shape
industry structure. A fi rm can lead its industry toward new
ways of competing that alter the fi ve forces for the better.
In reshaping structure, a company wants its competitors
to follow so that the entire industry will be transformed.
While many industry participants may benefi t in the process,
the innovator can benefi t most if it can shift competition in
directions where it can excel.
An industry’s structure can be reshaped in two ways: by re-
dividing profi tability in favor of incumbents or by expanding
the overall profi t pool. Redividing the industry pie aims to
increase the share of profi ts to industry competitors instead
of to suppliers, buyers, substitutes, and keeping out potential
entrants. Expanding the profi t pool involves increasing the
overall pool of economic value generated by the industry in
which rivals, buyers, and suppliers can all share.
Redividing profi tability. To capture more profi ts for indus-
try rivals, the starting point is to determine which force or
forces are currently constraining industry profi tability and
address them. A company can potentially infl uence all of the
competitive forces. The strategist’s goal here is to reduce the
share of profi ts that leak to suppliers, buyers, and substitutes
or are sacrifi ced to deter entrants.
To neutralize supplier power, for example, a fi rm can stan-
dardize specifi cations for parts to make it easier to switch
among suppliers. It can cultivate additional vendors, or alter
technology to avoid a powerful supplier group altogether.
To counter customer power, companies may expand services
that raise buyers’ switching costs or fi nd alternative means
of reaching customers to neutralize powerful channels. To
temper profi t-eroding price rivalry, companies can invest
more heavily in unique products, as pharmaceutical fi rms
have done, or expand support services to customers. To scare
off entrants, incumbents can elevate the fi xed cost of com-
peting – for instance, by escalating their R&D or marketing
expenditures. To limit the threat of substitutes, companies
can offer better value through new features or wider product
accessibility. When soft-drink producers introduced vending
machines and convenience store channels, for example, they
dramatically improved the availability of soft drinks relative
to other beverages.
Sysco, the largest food-service distributor in North Amer-
ica, offers a revealing example of how an industry leader
can change the structure of an industry for the better. Food-
service distributors purchase food and related items from
farmers and food processors. They then warehouse and de-
liver these items to restaurants, hospitals, employer cafete-
rias, schools, and other food-service institutions. Given low
barriers to entry, the food-service distribution industry has
historically been highly fragmented, with numerous local
competitors. While rivals try to cultivate customer relation-
ships, buyers are price sensitive because food represents a
large share of their costs. Buyers can also choose the substi-
tute approaches of purchasing directly from manufacturers
or using retail sources, avoiding distributors altogether. Sup-
pliers wield bargaining power: They are often large com-
panies with strong brand names that food preparers and
consumers recognize. Average profi tability in the industry
has been modest.
Sysco recognized that, given its size and national reach, it
might change this state of affairs. It led the move to intro-
duce private-label distributor brands with specifi cations tai-
lored to the food-service market, moderating supplier power.
Sysco emphasized value-added services to buyers such as
Faced with pressures to gain market share or enamored with
innovation for its own sake, managers can spark new kinds of
competition that no incumbent can win.
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hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 91
credit, menu planning, and inventory management to shift
the basis of competition away from just price. These moves,
together with stepped-up investments in information tech-
nology and regional distribution centers, substantially raised
the bar for new entrants while making the substitutes less
attractive. Not surprisingly, the industry has been consolidat-
ing, and industry profi tability appears to be rising.
Industry leaders have a special responsibility for improv-
ing industry structure. Doing so often requires resources that
only large players possess. Moreover, an improved industry
structure is a public good because it benefi ts every fi rm in
the industry, not just the company that initiated the im-
provement. Often, it is more in the interests of an industry
leader than any other participant to invest for the common
good because leaders will usually benefi t the most. Indeed,
improving the industry may be a leader’s most profi table
strategic opportunity, in part because attempts to gain fur-
ther market share can trigger strong reactions from rivals,
customers, and even suppliers.
There is a dark side to shaping industry structure that is
equally important to understand. Ill-advised changes in com-
petitive positioning and operating practices can undermine
industry structure. Faced with pressures to gain market share
or enamored with innovation for its own sake, managers may
Defi ning the industry in which competi-
tion actually takes place is important
for good industry analysis, not to
mention for developing strategy and
setting business unit boundaries. Many
strategy errors emanate from mistak-
ing the relevant industry, defi ning it too
broadly or too narrowly. Defi ning the
industry too broadly obscures differ-
ences among products, customers, or
geographic regions that are important
to competition, strategic positioning,
and profi tability. Defi ning the industry
too narrowly overlooks commonalities
and linkages across related products or
geographic markets that are crucial to
competitive advantage. Also, strate-
gists must be sensitive to the possibil-
ity that industry boundaries can shift.
The boundaries of an industry con-
sist of two primary dimensions. First is
the scope of products or services. For
example, is motor oil used in cars part
of the same industry as motor oil used
in heavy trucks and stationary engines,
or are these different industries? The
second dimension is geographic scope.
Most industries are present in many
parts of the world. However, is com-
petition contained within each state,
or is it national? Does competition take
place within regions such as Europe
or North America, or is there a single
global industry?
The fi ve forces are the basic tool to
resolve these questions. If industry
structure for two products is the same
or very similar (that is, if they have the
same buyers, suppliers, barriers to en-
try, and so forth), then the products are
best treated as being part of the same
industry. If industry structure differs
markedly, however, the two products
may be best understood as separate
industries.
In lubricants, the oil used in cars is
similar or even identical to the oil used
in trucks, but the similarity largely ends
there. Automotive motor oil is sold to
fragmented, generally unsophisticated
customers through numerous and of-
ten powerful channels, using extensive
advertising. Products are packaged in
small containers and logistical costs are
high, necessitating local production.
Truck and power generation lubricants
are sold to entirely different buyers in
entirely different ways using a separate
supply chain. Industry structure (buyer
power, barriers to entry, and so forth)
is substantially different. Automotive
oil is thus a distinct industry from oil
for truck and stationary engine uses.
Industry profi tability will differ in these
two cases, and a lubricant company
will need a separate strategy for com-
peting in each area.
Differences in the fi ve competi-
tive forces also reveal the geographic
scope of competition. If an industry
has a similar structure in every country
(rivals, buyers, and so on), the pre-
sumption is that competition is global,
and the fi ve forces analyzed from a
global perspective will set average
profi tability. A single global strategy is
needed. If an industry has quite differ-
ent structures in different geographic
regions, however, each region may
well be a distinct industry. Otherwise,
competition would have leveled the dif-
ferences. The fi ve forces analyzed for
each region will set profi tability there.
The extent of differences in the fi ve
forces for related products or across
geographic areas is a matter of degree,
making industry defi nition often a mat-
ter of judgment. A rule of thumb is that
where the differences in any one force
are large, and where the differences
involve more than one force, distinct
industries may well be present.
Fortunately, however, even if indus-
try boundaries are drawn incorrectly,
careful fi ve forces analysis should
reveal important competitive threats.
A closely related product omitted from
the industry defi nition will show up as a
substitute, for example, or competitors
overlooked as rivals will be recognized
as potential entrants. At the same
time, the fi ve forces analysis should
reveal major differences within overly
broad industries that will indicate the
need to adjust industry boundaries or
strategies.
Defi ning the
Relevant Industry
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LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY | The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy
92 Harvard Business Review | January 2008 | hbr.org
trigger new kinds of competition that no incumbent can win.
When taking actions to improve their own company’s com-
petitive advantage, then, strategists should ask whether they
are setting in motion dynamics that will undermine industry
structure in the long run. In the early days of the personal
computer industry, for instance, IBM tried to make up for
its late entry by offering an open architecture that would
set industry standards and attract complementary makers
of application software and peripherals. In the process, it
ceded ownership of the critical components of the PC – the
operating system and the microprocessor – to Microsoft and
Intel. By standardizing PCs, it encouraged price-based rivalry
and shifted power to suppliers. Consequently, IBM became
the temporarily dominant fi rm in an industry with an endur-
ingly unattractive structure.
Expanding the profi t pool. When overall demand grows,
the industry’s quality level rises, intrinsic costs are reduced,
or waste is eliminated, the pie expands. The total pool of
value available to competitors, suppliers, and buyers grows.
The total profi t pool expands, for example, when channels
become more competitive or when an industry discovers
latent buyers for its product that are not currently being
served. When soft-drink producers rationalized their inde-
pendent bottler networks to make them more effi cient and
effective, both the soft-drink companies and the bottlers
benefi ted. Overall value can also expand when fi rms work
collaboratively with suppliers to improve coordination and
limit unnecessary costs incurred in the supply chain. This
lowers the inherent cost structure of the industry, allowing
higher profi t, greater demand through lower prices, or both.
Or, agreeing on quality standards can bring up industrywide
quality and service levels, and hence prices, benefi ting rivals,
suppliers, and customers.
Expanding the overall profi t pool creates win-win oppor-
tunities for multiple industry participants. It can also reduce
the risk of destructive rivalry that arises when incumbents
attempt to shift bargaining power or capture more mar-
ket share. However, expanding the pie does not reduce the
importance of industry structure. How the expanded pie
is divided will ultimately be determined by the fi ve forces.
The most successful companies are those that expand the
industry profi t pool in ways that allow them to share dispro-
portionately in the benefi ts.
Defi ning the industry. The fi ve competitive forces also
hold the key to defi ning the relevant industry (or industries)
in which a company competes. Drawing industry boundaries
correctly, around the arena in which competition actually
takes place, will clarify the causes of profi tability and the ap-
propriate unit for setting strategy. A company needs a sepa-
rate strategy for each distinct industry. Mistakes in industry
defi nition made by competitors present opportunities for
staking out superior strategic positions. (See the sidebar
“Defi ning the Relevant Industry.”)
Typical Steps in Industry Analysis
Defi ne the relevant industry:
■ What products are in it? Which ones are part of
another distinct industry?
■ What is the geographic scope of competition?
Identify the participants and segment them into
groups, if appropriate:
Who are
■ the buyers and buyer groups?
■ the suppliers and supplier groups?
■ the competitors?
■ the substitutes?
■ the potential entrants?
Assess the underlying drivers of each competitive
force to determine which forces are strong and which
are weak and why.
Determine overall industry structure, and test the
analysis for consistency:
■ Why is the level of profi tability what it is?
■ Which are the controlling forces for profi tability?
■ Is the industry analysis consistent with actual
long-run profi tability?
■ Are more-profi table players better positioned in
relation to the fi ve forces?
Analyze recent and likely future changes in each
force, both positive and negative.
Identify aspects of industry structure that might be
infl uenced by competitors, by new entrants, or by
your company.
Common Pitfalls
In conducting the analysis avoid the following com-
mon mistakes:
■ Defi ning the industry too broadly or too narrowly.
■ Making lists instead of engaging in rigorous
analysis.
■ Paying equal attention to all of the forces rather than
digging deeply into the most important ones.
■ Confusing effect (price sensitivity) with cause
(buyer economics).
■ Using static analysis that ignores industry trends.
■ Confusing cyclical or transient changes with true
structural changes.
■ Using the framework to declare an industry attractive
or unattractive rather than using it to guide strategic
choices.
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hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 93
Competition and Value
The competitive forces reveal the drivers of industry compe-
tition. A company strategist who understands that competi-
tion extends well beyond existing rivals will detect wider
competitive threats and be better equipped to address them.
At the same time, thinking comprehensively about an in-
dustry’s structure can uncover opportunities: differences in
customers, suppliers, substitutes, potential entrants, and ri-
vals that can become the basis for distinct strategies yielding
superior performance. In a world of more open competition
and relentless change, it is more important than ever to
think structurally about competition.
Understanding industry structure is equally important
for investors as for managers. The fi ve competitive forces
reveal whether an industry is truly attractive, and they help
investors anticipate positive or negative shifts in industry
structure before they are obvious. The fi ve forces distinguish
short-term blips from structural changes and allow investors
to take advantage of undue pessimism or optimism. Those
companies whose strategies have industry-transforming
potential become far clearer. This deeper thinking about
competition is a more powerful way to achieve genuine
investment success than the fi nancial projections and trend
extrapolation that dominate today’s investment analysis.
If both executives and investors looked at competition
this way, capital markets would be a far more effective force
for company success and economic prosperity. Executives
and investors would both be focused on the same funda-
mentals that drive sustained profi tability. The conversation
between investors and executives would focus on the struc-
tural, not the transient. Imagine the improvement in com-
pany performance – and in the economy as a whole – if all
the energy expended in “pleasing the Street” were redirected
toward the factors that create true economic value.
1. For a discussion of the value chain framework, see Michael E. Porter, Com-
petitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance (The Free
Press, 1998).
2. For a discussion of how internet technology improves the attractiveness of
some industries while eroding the profi tability of others, see Michael E. Porter,
“Strategy and the Internet” (HBR, March 2001).
3. See, for instance, Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff, Co-opetition
(Currency Doubleday, 1996).
Reprint R0801E
To order, see page 139.
“Do you have to barge into my offi ce every day and talk about work?”
P.
C
. V
ey
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