Select one of the following industries: personal computers, airlines, or automobiles. For this industry, evaluate the strength of each of Porter's five forces as well as complementors

To evaluate the strength of each force, it is important to refer to relevant characteristics. The list below shows these:

Threat of new entrants-you can look at the barriers to entry for the industry, as indicated by economies of scale, product differentiation, capital requirements, and switching costs, as well as other types of cost disadvantages to new entrants, such as proprietary products, favorable access to raw materials, government subsidies, and favorable government policies.

Bargaining power of buyers-identify buyers who are large or in concentrated buyer industries, standard or undifferentiated products, few buyer switching costs, buyer with low profits, buyer has a credible threat of backwards integration, or the buyer views the firm's products or services as undifferentiated.

Bargaining power of suppliers-it is often a challenge to find suppliers, but to the extent you can, look for suppliers that are large and concentrated (few in number), suppliers with few substitutes, suppliers that view the firm's industry as a minor proportion of its sales, suppliers that provide an important input, suppliers with differentiated products, and suppliers that pose a credible threat of forward integration.

Threat of substitute products and services-identify substitutes that are a) outside the industry, and b) that are an economical and feasible alternative for buyers.

Intensity of rivalry-identify rivals within the industry and evaluate each rival's product offerings for being lower priced or of higher quality than the firm's offerings.