Marketing Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Marketing - Assignment Example This would be followed by a few recommendations for the company, which would mark the end of the discussion Industry Environment Porter Five Forces Model presents a good framework to explore the environmental and industry forces, which are affecting the marketing of the company. First, the rivalry against the existing competitors within the industry is high (Armstrong, Harker, Kotler & Brennan, pp. 19-22, 2009). Despite the fact that more than 500 independent bookshops have closed as of 2009 due to their inability to compete with the big bookstores, the barriers of borders are coming down and thus exposing companies like Waterstones, with the help of internet and others, to competition on an international level. Furthermore, currently, there are three big players in the market namely Waterstone’s, Amazon, and WH Smith; however, the problem here is that none of them has a considerable lead and in the absence of huge differences in size, these competitors would fuel the rivalry to greatest limits. Rivalry decreases when competitors are aiming for different market segments or different niches in the industry; however, it appears that all of the major competitors are trying to appeal to all of digital and traditional segments of the market, thus, intensifying the rivalry (Armstrong, Harker, Kotler & Brennan, pp. 19-22, 2009). ... tailers here is that they cannot achieve a high degree of differentiation for the books they sell since the product remains the same (Kotler & Armstrong, pp. 41-48, 2008). Due to low degree of differentiation, the competition rests on the price alone thus forcing the customer to look for better bargains. As mentioned in the case that UK booksellers are having the lowest profit margins because of excessive discounting to appeal to the customer as compared to the book retailers in Ireland, USA, Finland, Holland, and Ireland. The supplier power in the industry remains moderate. Four major companies namely Hachette Livre, Bertelsmann, Pearson, and HarperCollins hold more than 50 percent of the market share in the publishing industry. Many authors cannot get their books published, sold, or promoted if they do not have any association with big publishers. Furthermore, they also pose a strong threat for forward integration in the market. However, there power is moderate because they depend highly on these high street retailers for promotions and shelf space for both new and old authors and books. Furthermore, with well-established players in the industry, they have lesser options to get good bargains (Peter & Donnelly, pp. 122-123, 2010). The threat of substitutes is high due to the illegal and pirated books that are easily accessible on the internet through various websites. Furthermore, these substitutes cost way less than the original books; in many cases, these are free, thus increasing their attractiveness to great limits. Lastly, the threat of new entrants also remains moderately high. This is true because not only setting up a bookshop is relatively easy but also because lately many supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury and others have jumped into the industry with