Discussion 1 Case Study With Discussion: Options for Growth in a Competitive Ecosystem—Apple
Observers often consider the competitive ecosystem of the smartphone and mobile electronics industry to be a “red ocean” industry. Many rivals engage in direct competition with each other, with increasingly less room to differentiate one product from the others. In such industries, consumers often have the power to drive prices down as rival firms have few other ways to compete. Increased competition leads to thinner profit margins as rivals drop prices further and further.
Yet, even in these conditions, some innovative companies find a strategy to exploit opportunities for growth that rivals cannot easily imitate. For example, in the airline industry, Southwest Airlines and Virgin Airlines have found room to grow, even in the fiercely competitive “red ocean” ecosystem of the airlines industry. This week, you examine a case study of Apple, Inc., which both established a “blue ocean” space in the smartphone industry, and has found room to grow in what is becoming an increasingly global and competitive space.
The essence of the five-force, competitive analysis is to examine whether one might find it attractive or not to compete in a given industry, and where, specifically, there might be “dominant positions” within an industry, and to identify the forces that shape the potential to make money in an industry, given a particular “competitive position.” That is, how will you win? (How will you create unique value?)
Comment on what you learned from their analyses that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook and how you will use it to do so.
Offer constructive ideas for how your peer might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
Provide your observations about your peers’ comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote. (Note: Exemplary responses should provide a synthesis of multiple peers’ insights, findings, and analyses.)
