Написать эссе: Strategic Analysis of your organisation’s external environment

Написать эссе: Strategic Analysis of your organisation’s external environment

The model of pure competition implies that risk-adjusted rates of return should be constant across firms and industries. However, numerous economic studies have affirmed that different industries can sustain different levels of profitability; part of this difference is explained by industry structure.
Michael Porter provided a framework that models an industry as being influenced by five forces. The strategic business manager seeking to develop an edge over rival firms can use this model to better understand the industry context in which the firm operates.
I. Rivalry
In the traditional economic model, competition among rival firms drives profits to zero. But competition is not perfect and firms are not unsophisticated passive price takers. Rather, firms strive for a competitive advantage over their rivals. The intensity of rivalry among firms varies across industries, and strategic analysts are interested in these differences. In the domain of complex business support rivalry only increases the quality of service and this lead to profit and satisfied clients.
II. Threat of Substitutes
In Porter's model, substitute products refer to products in other industries. To the economist, a threat of substitutes exists when a product's demand is affected by the price change of a substitute product. A product's price elasticity is affected by substitute products - as more substitutes become available, the demand becomes more elastic since customers have more alternatives. A close substitute product constrains the ability of firms in an industry to raise prices. In the business support domain substitutes are not a serious threat because legal and accounting outsourcing cannot be replaced by other services.
III. Buyer Power
The power of buyers is the impact that customers have on a producing industry. In general, when buyer power is strong, the relationship to the producing industry is near to what an economist terms a monopsony - a market in which there are many suppliers and one buyer. Under such market conditions, the buyer sets the price. In reality few monopsonies exist in complex business support and no in Central Russia, but sometimes there is some asymmetry between a producing industry and buyers in province.
IV. Supplier Power
A producing industry requires raw materials - labor, components, and other supplies. This requirement leads to buyer-supplier relationships between the industry and the firms that provide it the raw materials used to create products. Suppliers, if powerful, can exert an influence on the producing industry. In non-manufacturing business material is human brains and so suppliers are educational institutions. Lawrent Company hires only highly skilled specialists.
V. Barriers to Entry / Threat of Entry
It is not only incumbent rivals that pose a threat to firms in an industry; the possibility that new firms may enter the industry also affects competition. In theory, any firm should be able to enter and exit a market, and if free entry and exit exists, then profits always should be nominal. In reality, however, industries possess characteristics that protect the high profit levels of firms in the market and inhibit additional rivals from entering the market. These are barriers to entry.
Lawrent Company is prestige enough (it is in the first dicker of the business consulting companies in its area) has been operating in the market for 11 years, it means that the company itself can appear a barrier to entry for other firms. But the thread of entry is actual because the demand for business support is high and on the other hand the amount of specialists is also increasing. To stay on a high position and prevent decrease of clients Lawrent Company constantly works with staff, people visit professional seminars and have retraining. To protect staff outflow the company provides good motivation and bonus policy, it has good personal development programmes.
Competitor Analysis is an important part of the strategic planning process.
Some businesses think it is best to get on with their own plans and ignore the competition. Others become obsessed with tracking the actions of competitors (often using underhand or illegal methods). Many businesses are happy simply to track the competition, copying their moves and reacting to changes.
Competitor analysis has several important roles in strategic planning:
• To help management understand their competitive advantages/disadvantages relative to competitors
• To generate understanding of competitors’ past, present (and most importantly) future strategies
• To provide an informed basis to develop strategies to achieve competitive advantage in the future
• To help forecast the returns that may be made from future investments (e.g. how will competitors respond to a new product or pricing strategy?)
According to local survey and web search, Lawrent company is on the sixth position in the list of prestige Russian companies which specialize on the complex business support.
1. “Audit BT” render services of audition and consultation and a full range of business support services. Their strong point nowadays is anticrisis proposals. Offices are in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
2. “A-Consalting” main service is management consulting and staff development. Company works in many regions in central Russia. A little different specific so the company may supplement not rival.
3. Group of companies “Business Consulting” offer legal, audit, bookkeeping, staff management services. Wider range makes them stronger in the niche.
4. “The Moscow Independent Bar Viur” (Collegium of Attorney) has more specific services in legal practice but also positions itself as complex business support.
5. Group of companies “Avesta Business Consulting” is a holding company created for complex business support including legal and bookkeeping services. They use European management system and this is one of their strong points. The company is one of the leaders in Moscow, has offices in Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhniy Novgorod.
6. Lawrent Company proposes a full list of services for complex business support in Russia and abroad. They measured up to European level of business. Another difference from its rivals is help in getting bank credit. Lawrent Company works without intermediaries, it has direct contacts with all partners.
The last but not least point in strategy analysis is trend analysis. Trend analysis tries to predict a trend like a bull market run and ride that trend until data suggests a trend reversal (e.g. bull to bear market). Trend analysis is helpful because moving with trends, and not against them, will lead to profit for an investor.
An aspect of technical analysis that tries to predict the future movement of a stock based on past data. Trend analysis is based on the idea that what has happened in the past gives traders an idea of what will happen in the future. 
There are three main types of trends: short-, intermediate- and long-term.
The main trend in the sphere of juristic and audit consulting is creating such companies that support one’s business and its documentation. Crisis economic situation in 2008-2009 influenced the amount of projects and profit of many supporting firms, and also caused the decline of demand for corporate clients.
Market segmentation creates segments with the same or similar attributes. It normally uses the following attributes to generate market segments. One or more of the attributes may be used to define market segments: Geographical regions, demographics, psychographics, sales channels, branches, and departments, sales representatives, product and service types (or product categories), products, offer types.
But concerning the specific of Lawrent Company it is more rational to mark out as segments the following services: juristic, bookkeeping, audit, fiscal, finance management, company’s registration. There are firms that specialize on a concrete service, but Lawrent Company offers a complex support.