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Explore the implementation of Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategies in the Social Network environment and provide ONE (1) example to support your Justifications for EACH of the strategy. Provide at least ONE (1) reference to support each Justification. (Chapter 2) 3. Explore TWO (2) ways on how enterprise can use Social Network to “listen” to their customers. Provide at least ONE (1) reference to support each justification. (Chapter 5) Marking Scheme use this diagram as Page 2 of your assignment report.
Student 1 Full Name and ID: Student 2 Full Name and ID: Student 3 Full Name and ID: Student 4 Full Name and ID: Description Marks Allocated Marks Awarded 1. 0. New Entrant, Buyer, Supplier, Substitutes & Rivalry Explanation – Example 1 XX=5 – Reference 2. 0 Low Cost Leadership, Product Differentiation & Focused Strategy. 3 13=9 1 13=3 3. 0 ways 3 12=6 1 12=2 4. 0 Features 5. 1 Justifications 5. 2 Counteract 3 6. 0 Mankind Illustration 15 Document Format & Quality 5 Language & Clarity Plagiarism Penalty Deduction (>25% similarity) (25) Total Answer: 1.
Porter five forces models is used for depicting the existing competition and the predicting the prospects of new competitors. The model is extensively implemented by the firms to anticipate the competition of new entrants and develop competitive tragedies for enhancing the growth and development of their businesses. The can be described as follows: Threat of new entrants: Social networking environment has relatively low barrier of entry due to high capital requirements for entering the industry.
Lack of experienced talent and little economies of scale have limited the threat of new entrants in the social network environment. For example, there are still few networking sites like Faceable, Twitter, hi, tumbler, G+ etc (Houseman, 2011). Threat of Substitutes: The threat of substitutes business is relatively high in social Edie industry as there are more alternative options developed which can serve as a substitute of social media like mobile phone APS etc (Shoehorning, 2009. ).
Power of buyer: Power of buyer is relatively high in the industry due to more experienced and educated buyers and low switching cost in the industry. For example, people have wide options to switch for using any social media network due to no cost of changing the network (Hill and Jones, 2009). Power of supplier: Power of supplier is also relatively high in the social media industry. Supply is an issue in the social outworking industry as the experienced players in the industry find it relatively easy to find out suppliers and without experience players find it difficult to find out suppliers.
For example, Faceable does not have problem of suppliers while a new entrant G+ may found it difficult to gain the trust of suppliers (Roy, 2011 . ). Threat of rivalry: Threat of rivalry in the social media is also relatively high due to large number of existing competitors in the industry which competes for relatively similar customer base. FRR example, there exists large competition among Faceable and Twitter (Houseman, 2011). Answer: 2 Michael porter has identified three basic strategies for gaining success and outperforms the competitors.
The implementation of these three competitive strategies in social networking environment can be described as follows: Low cost leadership strategy: Low cost leadership strategy is adopted by the firms to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors by selling the products at comparatively lower prices than the competitors. Firms try to achieve a cost low cost materials. In social media industry, the networking sites are ranked in accordance with some key words and these key words have price tags.
The advertisers put their advertisements of products and services on the social media networking sites and they pay to the company when someone clicks on the advertisements (Porter, 2008). Product differentiation strategy: Businesses need to continually differentiate their products and services from the competitors for gaining a competitive advantage and attracting the customers mind. Differentiation is essential for grabbing the attention of customers for buying a particular product and service offered by the firm.
In social media industry, networking websites continually ray to differentiate their services offered to the consumers from their competitors for creating their unique brand image in the customers mind. For example, Faceable try to implement new features in accordance with the needs and requirements of the customers to attract the customers mind (Gunter, 2004). Customer Focused Strategy: Customer focused strategy strongly emphasizes on customer’s needs and requirements before implementing any strategic decisions for the growth and development of the firm.
Customer focused business think about implementing competitive strategies that aims to gain customer satisfaction and achieve customer loyalty. In social media industry, the strategy plays an important role for attracting the minds of customers and achieving customer satisfaction. All the social media networking websites like Faceable, Twitter aims to make customer experience better so that they are attracted towards the use of social media.
People in different locations can share their experiences and personal data through the use of social media at any instant of time and thus are attracted towards using more and more. Social networking websites use is continually on increase nowadays which is attributed to the customer focused strategy implemented by the social media outworking websites (Valiant and Arbors, 2013). Answer: 3. The introduction of social media has hanged the way people connect and share information with each other.
Business are therefore increasingly adopting social media marketing strategy in order to reach large number of customer groups in a very short span of time. Social media websites like Faceable and Twitter have made it relatively easier for the customers and businesses to connect with each other. Enterprises can easily understand the needs and requirements of the customer’s trough the use of social networking websites (Hammond, 2011). Thus, online social media offers a low coat way for the enterprises to reach and influence a wide customer base.
Enterprise can use social media platforms for listening to the customers through: Creating profile of the various customer groups by segregating them on the basis of their needs and requirements and designing the products and services to them appropriate to their demands. Reviewing the customer experiences about the product and services offered by them and continuously making changes in the products offered by them to the customers by understanding their needs.