Team Industry Study: (Intercontinental) Porter's 5 forces is my part.

Your task is to take an objective look at the current state of the industry of your choice and formulate sensible and founded expectations about the future. You have many useful tools to accomplish this task, including

(a) Porter's 5 forces,

(b) the life cycle and the nature of any innovations that you see in the industry,

(c) are there any network effects playing a role,

(d) competitive interactions and whether the firms are occupying stable positions or trying to radically reposition themselves,

(e) are there any ongoing mergers & acquisitions or new entry in the industry or on the supplier or customer sides, and what seems to be driving these,

(f) are there any corporate strategy issues, such as some or most of the players being subsidiaries of diversified firms or firms integrating vertically and what benefits (or drawbacks?) does this confer in the competitive sense,

(g) is the industry undergoing globalization and, again, what seems to be driving it,(e) are there any major organizational or ethical issues facing the industry or some of the important players in it?. You can use (a) through (e) to tell us what is likely to happen with the industry over the next 5-10 years.

Keep in mind that you want to include only the essence and the most interesting aspects of your analysis, especially in your presentation, because the time is limited. There is no reason to belabor each of the 5 forces, especially those that end up not mattering much in your final picture of the industry. Your report can go in more detail but should still be succinct and clear, targeting roughly 5-6 pages of double-spaced text. You have a large toolkit at your disposal and your task is to pick the right ones and apply them to generate insight. For example, if there are no significant corporate issues going on (part d above), skip them. If they are central to the future of the industry, devote almost your entire analysis to it while downplaying the others that don't matter.

Once done with your paper, step back and write a half-page executive summary of your main points. Put this executive summary at the front end of your write-upand you are done!

Individual Firm Analysis

Here, every individual team member gets to play the role of a consultant, entrepreneur, or CEO. You want to take a look at your firm of choice and evaluate its strategy, resources, and performance. What is your firm really good at, where could they improve, how do you like their competitive position, and where do you think they should go given their strengths, weaknesses and the industry picture your group has painted? Are you optimistic about their future?

Keep in mind that a frequent pitfall is to rely too much on SWOT analysis, especially if presented as 4 separate lists that don't really engage each other. Note that the book presents this analysis as a 2x2 matrix in which, for example, strengths are considered in the context of the opportunities you have identified etc. Your report should be succinct and clear, again, targeting roughly 5-6 pages of double-spaced text.At the end, step back and summarize your main points in an executive summary which should, again, go right below the title of your paper.

You should also go over a slide, maximum two, in your team's presentation, giving us the very essence of your analysis.