0 A Work Project, presented as part of the requireme.docx

0
A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the
Award of a Masters
Degree in Management from the Nova School of Business and
Economics
Illumina:
The sustainability of its competitive position
Marta Gonçalves Serra #1467
A project carried out on the Strategy course, under the
supervision of
Professor Luís Almeida Costa

December 2014
1
Acknowledgements
I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor, Professor Luís
Almeida Costa, for his
patient guidance, availability and advice he has given me
throughout the course of this
project. His mentorship was essential for the success of this
work and ultimately, for my
overall and round learning. I would also like to thank Stathis
Kanterakis, member of the
Bioinformatics team at Illumina (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
for all the information he
shared with me regarding Illumina and the Sequencing Market.
He also made possible the
opportunity to visit Illumina’s site at Cambridge and to directly
meet employees. All his
contributions were essential to get a greater insight of the
company. Additionally, I would

also like to thank my sister, Eva Serra, currently a PhD student
at Cambridge and the
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, for her continued support in
terms of scientific and
technical understanding of the human genome area.
2
Introduction
This work project presents a case study about the sustainability
of the competitive position of
Illumina in the Sequencing Market. This is a very recent
market, which is growing at

unexpected rates and is contributing for many scientific
discoveries. Illumina is currently the
market leader in the sequencing devices manufacturing business
and aims to become the
leading company from manufacturing to end-users.
Traditionally, Illumina manufactures
instruments and pass them to the next intermediaries, which are
service providers. However,
more recently Illumina has not only been manufacturing devices
but also developing and
selling solutions directly to consumers. In such a dynamic and
fast-growing market,
predicting the future of the industry is particularly difficult.
Furthermore, firms face important
challenges when trying to sustain (and enhance) their
competitive position. This is precisely
the challenge that Illumina is facing. Since the objective was to
conduct and in depth analyze
the competitive situation of a company – Illumina –, the
elaboration of a case study seemed to
be the most appropriate approach.
The work project is composed by a case study and a case
discussion. The case study starts
with an overview of the Sequencing Market. We then describe

Illumina’s positioning in terms
of market segments and products offered. After that, we present
some facts about Illumina’s
performance. Finally, we leave some questions for discussion.
The case discussion will focus
on the value creation potential of Illumina and the sustainability
of its competitive position.
We describe the relevant frameworks to conduct these analyzes
and apply them to the specific
situation of Illumina. We conclude that Illumina is operating in
an industry with significant
barriers to entry. Furthermore, Illumina’s reputation,
knowledge, specialized workers and
unique leadership are valuable and unique resources of the
company. The firm also holds
important size advantages, mainly because of its broad portfolio
and control of the supply
chain. All these factors contribute to the sustainability of
Illumina’s competitive position and
to its strength.

3
Case Study
“A complete DNA read-out for every newborn will be
technically feasible and
affordable in less than five years, promising a revolution in
healthcare and by 2019 it
will have become routine to map infants' genes when they are
born”
(CEO of Illumina, Jay Flatley, 2009)
Illumina was considered the Smartest Company in the World in
2013 by the MIT Review.
1
Additionally, a McKinsey Study states that Next-Generation
Sequencing Business is one of
the twelve most disruptive businesses that will change our
world in the next years, appearing
on the 5
th
position in terms of economic impact.
2
Not less important, the British Government

chose Illumina to be the company sequencing 100,000 genomes
in the Biggest Sequencing
Program in the World – the 100,000 Genome Project.
3
Given all this, what is so unique about
Illumina and what is driving its success?
1. Genome at a glance
Every human being is made of millions of different cells. Each
cell has a nucleus where the
genetic code (DNA) can be found. The DNA is the molecule
that contains all the genetic
instructions that produce proteins used in the development and
functioning of all known living
organisms. DNA molecules are made of two twisting, paired
strands and each strand is made
of four chemical units, called the nucleotide bases (A, T, C and
G). In total, each strand
contains approximately 3 billion of these bases. It is now known
that the DNA is made not
only of genes (the bits that code proteins) but also regions
between genes, which function is
still largely unknown. In modern Biology and Genetics fields,
the ‘genome’ is the new

definition of DNA and includes both the genes and the
intergenic regions (see Exhibit 1).
After years of intensive research conducted by thousands of
scientists around the world, it was
announced that a complete map of the DNA of a person had
finally been finished, meaning
1
MIT Technology Review, 50 Smartest Companies, Eilene
Zimmerman, February 2014
2
Forbes, “Flatley’s Law: How one company became the force
behind medicine’s genetic revolution”, consulted at
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/08/20/flatleys
-law-how-one-company-became-the-force-behind-medicines-
genetic-
revolution/
3
Technology Review, “British Government picks Illumina to
sequence 100000 genomes”, consulted at
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/528946/british-
government-picks-illumina-to-sequence-100000-genomes/
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/528946/british-
government-picks-illumina-to-sequence-100000-genomes/

4
that the precise location and order of every gene along the
molecule is known and the precise
sequence of letters that codes for it. Now it is the time where
many scientific discoveries may
contribute to save lives, as many and many genomes are starting
to be studied. Specifically,
scientists are shedding light into the genetic causes of some
diseases as they can now look at
the genome of patients and determine, through a process called
Sequencing, where a mutation
(i.e., a wrong letter in a gene) occurred. Sequencing is the
process of determining the string of
letters contained in the DNA. In other words, it is the process of
translating the information
that is physically present in our genomes into the readable code
of letters (A, C, G and T) that
are then stored in an informatics file. For consistency, every
genome is stored in the same
exact format using the same type of file. This is very important
for reproducibility of research
and to allow comparisons between people’s genomes. Sanger
Sequencing was the first

sequencing method, developed by Fred Sanger, who won two
Nobel Prizes. Now many other
companies are finding more effective and innovative ways to
conduct that process using new
technologies. These are called Next-Generation Sequencing
methods. While it took ten years
for the first genome to be sequenced through Sanger
sequencing, next-generation sequencing
made it possible to happen in about a week. However, Illumina
Sequencing developments
pushed the limit and made it now possible to sequence 96
genomes in a single day at much
lower costs.
4
Illumina is a leading Next-Generation Sequencing firm that
develops, manufactures and
markets various science tools and advanced systems for the
analysis of genomics. Ultimately,
Illumina helps scientists to better understand how genomes
work and what relevant
information they contain. Illumina’s systems are applicable to a
large range of scientific
segments and they have greater throughputs, speed and scale

than the Sanger ones did.
2. Value Chain of the Sequencing Industry
The value creation process in the Next-Generation Sequencing
Market starts with Suppliers
of Raw Materials (see Exhibit 2). There are many small
specialized suppliers in this industry,
which provide components to sequencing machine producers.
They mainly supply electronic,
mechanical, chemical and biochemical components (such as
valves, cameras, flow cell stages,
4
Business Insider, “Illumina Genome”, consulted at
http://www.businessinsider.com/illumina-genome-sequencing-
growth-2013-10
5
computers, etc). Hamamatsu (cameras), Vici (valves) and Dell
(computers) are some of the
suppliers in the market. Suppliers of flow cell stages strongly
rely in this industry, because the
product is strictly used in sequencing. As customers’ orders

represent very large portions of
revenue for these suppliers, they are more willing to adapt and
negotiate instead of losing it to
their competitors. All those supplies will be used and
transformed in the next stage by the
Manufacturers. The main producers are Illumina, Life
Technologies, Roche, PacBio,
Affymetrix and Oxford Nanapore Technologies. They
manufacture mainly three types of
products: Sequencing Machines, Array Platforms and
Consumables. The first are sequencing
systems that are sold to those who want to investigate and
sequence genomes on their own.
The second are cheaper products that do not use the whole-
genome as Sequencing Machines
do: these arrays will just compare DNA of different people
instead of comparing the whole-
genome (only 2% of the whole-genome is DNA). Finally,
consumables are necessary reagent
kits and sample preparation kits to use on the machines. For
producers, there are some
switching costs while changing suppliers, because their
machines depend on specific
suppliers’ components. Cameras, valves and reagents, among

others, have specific sizes and
features to fit on the machines they are building and selling, so
changing suppliers is rarely an
option. Besides manufacturing, those companies test and
validate their instruments and
consumables, and they must receive certifications to assure its
quality before selling to
customers. Afterwards, they normally sell it to two types of
customers: (i) research centers,
academic institutions and government laboratories; and (ii)
hospitals, clinical practices,
pharmaceutical and consumer genomics firms. The first group
of clients is already the final
user, which will use the products to make researches and
discoveries of gene linkages with
diseases, common mutations in people with same diseases,
among other findings. The main
players in this segment are institutes such as Macrogen, Broad
Institute of MIT and Harvard,
British Columbia Cancer Agency’s Genome Sciences Center and
the Sanger Institute. The
second group – Service Providers – will continue the chain by
selling services to consumers,
either by a form of diagnostics, medical guidance, health check-

up reports, ancestral and
genealogic information, pre-natal tests, or by a form of
delivering genotyping and sequencing
services to institutes and researches that do not want to buy
machines. That group includes
companies like BGI (Beijing Genomics Institute), Luminex and
23andMe. Therefore, there
6
are thousands of different customers using sequencing
instruments, array platforms and
consumables. They have a relevant power when negotiating with
manufacturers because
many times they are very large research centers or institutions
that will run hundreds of
investigations over time. Additionally, sequencing machines are
much differentiated between
them and consumables can only be used by machines of the
same brand. Thus, many
customers prefer to stick to the usual machines instead of
learning how to use new ones.

Finally, customers are charged differently: there are some price-
discriminating strategies
based on their ability to pay, company/institute size and order
size.
3. Manufacturing Business
Around 80% of rare diseases are genomic.
5
The increased interest in studying them will
mandatorily pass by genetics and increase the market of
sequence machine makers. Either by
buying machines to sequence the DNA or by buying directly the
DNA sequenced, genetics
will be in the menu of institutes, hospitals and research centers.
3.1. The Market
The market of sequencing machines and consumables producers
has been increasing over
time. Macquarie Securities forecasts that the DNA-sequencing
market could become ten times
bigger, reaching $23 billion by 2020.
6
Manufacturers are producing and selling in areas of
science, such as Life Sciences, Agrigenomics, Reproductive and
Genetic Health, Oncology
and Informatics:

Life Sciences – Producers provide products and services for
laboratories,
universities, medical research centers and biotechnology
companies. Those products are used
in sequencing, disease and drug discovery and comparison
among human genomes. There are
more than 50,000 Molecular Biology Labs Globally, so there are
plenty of opportunities for
manufacturers, which are mainly Illumina, Affymetrix, Pacific
Biosciences, Roche and Life
Technologies (now belongs to Thermo Fisher).
7
The average rate of revenues growth segment
has been 6% per year (from 2007 to 2013) for all companies
except Illumina. Illumina’s
revenues in this sector have been growing at 25.1% annually.
5
Understanding Genomics, Genomics England, 2014
6
See Note 2
7
Illumina Inc, Investor Presentation, Spring 2012

7
Reproductive and Genetic Health – Reproductive health
solutions are being
developed and sold. The most common one is Non-Invasive
prenatal testing (NIPT). The test
can substitute invasive tests such as amniocentesis and can early
identify and confirm
abnormalities in the fetus. Sequencing players are currently
seeing massive growth in this area
as it eliminates the risk for the pregnant and fetus that common
current tests have.
8
Oncology – In the battle against cancer, sequencing is a
powerful weapon.
9
Cancer
is a disease of the genome. There are 330,000 new cases of
cancer reported every year and
thus they will need to be better understood.
10
Manufacturers are providing tools to identify

genomic changes, mutations and to allow comparisons with
healthy genomes. These advances
will allow quicker diagnostics and a better selection of
treatments for patients. In 2012, the
market size of cancer investigation driven by sequencing was
approximately $1.5 billion and
is expected to reach $10 billion in the next five years.
11
The Molecular Diagnostics market
revenues (which include Oncology, Reproductive and Genetic
Health) have been growing at a
19.1% rate per year for the last six years (from 2007 to 2013).
12
Agrigenomics – Manufacturers provide tools and solutions for
the agricultural
genomics industry. Those products will be used to identify traits
that fit into specific climates
and to drive sustainable productivity in crops. GeneSeek,
Affymetrix and Illumina are the
main players in this segment.
Entering in new markets – New areas are being explored, such
as transplant
compatibility. DNA analysis using sequencing instruments will

conclude about the
compatibility between the donor and patient before doing an
intervention. Consumer
genomics is also a segment in huge growth. People want to be
aware of genetic diseases in
order to change their behaviors towards a healthier life. They
also aim to discover their
ancestral origins, something that is possible due to genome
analysis. In the near future, those
opportunities will worth around $800 Million.
13
8
See Note 4
9
Illumina Releases, consulted at
http://res.illumina.com/documents/icommunity/article_2011_06
_sequencing_cancer_genomeanalyzer.pdf
10
See Note 5
11
Investor Day, Illumina Presentation, 2014
12

Idem
13
Information given by Matt Posard (General Manager of New
and Emerging Markets Opportunities Department of Illumina)
during a
company presentation at Morgan Stanley Healthcare Conference
http://investor.illumina.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=121127&p=irol-
EventDetails&EventId=5168129
http://investor.illumina.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=121127&p=irol-
EventDetails&EventId=5168129
8
3.2. Competition
There are four main companies in the next-generation
sequencing systems makers market:
Illumina, Pacific Biosciences, Roche and Life Technologies,
with market shares of roughly
71%, 3%, 10% and 16%, respectively, in 2013.
14
In 2012 the market share of Illumina was
66% and 24% for Life Technologies, which shows the increased
dominance of the market

leader. In the sequencing market, besides the instruments’
producers that were mentioned
before, Oxford Nanapore Technologies, Qiagen, Affymetrix,
Agilent, Luminex and BGI are
important players as well
15
. Those are director competitors of Illumina in terms of Array
systems and Consumables, such as sample preparation and
sequencing kits and array-based
genotyping consumables. The specific case of BGI, which
stands for Beijing Genomics
Center, is particularly special: it is the world’s largest genome
sequencing center and it is
responsible for 25% of the world’s genomic data.
16
All those companies produce and sell to
the previously described segments. The number of sequencing
systems makers is being stable
over time. It is a high-investment industry in which know-how,
experience and field
understanding are essential. Thus, companies in the sequencing
market have significant fixed
costs, representing around 45% to 60% of total costs. It mainly
includes R&D, SGA and

Legal costs related with patents of their technologies.
Additionally, there is some brand
loyalty involved, which creates ties between current sellers and
consumers and disincentives
new entrants. For example, Sanger Institute in Cambridge,
United Kingdom, receives
Illumina’s platforms from the beginning, as the staff and the
procedures are already prepared
for them. The market capitalization value of each company can
also compare, in a certain
way, its dimensions. Exhibit 3 comprises the market value of
the main players in the market.
There are some examples of competition among firms. For
instance, Illumina and Life
Technologies created rival partnerships, each one with one
leading medical institution to
further develop and integrate their sequencing technologies in
the clinical genomics field.
Moreover, Life Technologies was acquired by Thermo Fisher
Scientific in February 2014, the
world leader scientific group present in many fields. Marc N.
Casper, CEO of Thermo Fisher
said:

14
Mizuho Securities and GenomeWeb Survey, 2013
15
Genome Web, “Affymetrix, Agilent and Illumina affirm
commitment to Array Market”, consulted at
http://www.genomeweb.com/arrays/affy-agilent-illumina-
affirm-commitment-array-market-light-roches-planned-exit
16
Genetic Literacy Project, “Disruptive genomics: Is China’s BGI
the epicenter of the world’s biotech revolution?”, January 2014
9
“We are pleased to announce that this transaction is now
complete, and excited about
our opportunity to create unrivaled leadership in serving
research, life sciences,
specialty diagnostics and applied markets.”
17
4. Illumina background
Based in California in April 1998, it currently has offices in
several places, such as United

Kingdom, Brazil, Singapore, China and many other countries
and it employs more than 3,000
people (it started with only 25). The company is listed in
NASDAQ and it has completed its
initial public offering in July 2000. The firm is manufacturing
some of its products in
Singapore since 2009
18
. The factory started with a capacity to produce about 40,000
tools per
quarter and now most of the products are manufactured there.
Illumina has enough space to
expand the facility in order to respond to increases in demand or
new products development.
The company uses their own technologies and offers an
extensive line of products and
services used in sequencing, genotyping and gene expression
markets.
19
With those tools and
services, many genetic tests can be performed in order to extract
relevant medical information
to do diagnostics, for example. By using Illumina’s tools,
customers will be able to correlate

genetic variation and biological function, which will contribute
to drug discovery, early
detection of some diseases, clinical research and a better choice
of drugs for individual
patients taking into account their own DNA.
Illumina’s Main Markets
Illumina believes genomics will play an increasingly relevant
role in science and society, and
their tools will support research of many drugs, diseases, new
treatments and diagnostics tests.
Historically, Illumina’s core business has been in Sequencing
for the Life Sciences segment.
A human genome was costing $100 Million back in 2001 (see
Exhibit 4).
20
With Illumina
entering the Sequencing market in 2007, the cost per genome
has astonishingly dropped to
17
Thermo Fisher News, “Thermo Fisher completes acquisition of
Life Technologies Corporation”, consulted at
http://news.thermofisher.com/press-release/corporate/thermo-
fisher-scientific-completes-acquisition-life-technologies-

corporation
18
, Asia Biotech Magazine 2009, “Singapore - Industry Watch”,
consulted at
http://www.asiabiotech.com/publication/apbn/13/english/preserv
ed-docs/1304/0072_0072.pdf
19
Genotyping is the process of determining the genetic
constitution of a person by looking at its DNA sequence. Gene
Expression is the
process by which the genetic code of a gene is used to produce
the structures of the cell.
20
National Human Genome Research Institute Data, 2014
10
$10,000 in 2014 and it is almost reaching the $1,000 target.
21
Illumina also produces solutions
to Agrigenomics. Lately, Illumina has been entering in the
reproductive health segment by
developing many genetic tests. It has also been developing

many solutions for the oncology
segment which has been growing enormously. Finally, the
company provides informatics
tools that allow customers (many research and clinical centers)
to go from raw genomic data
to meaningful knowledge and conclusions. Illumina is also
exploring and leading the
developments in new markets, such as transplants, forensic and
consumer genomics.
Illumina’s Products
Illumina sells Instruments (includes Sequencing Machines and
Array Platforms),
Consumables and Services (see Exhibit 5). Both instruments
assume an extremely relevant
role in Illumina’s business, because the firm is the biggest
supplier in the world, with a market
share of approximately 70%.
22
Sales on those products represented 26% of total revenues of
Illumina in 2013, 27% in 2012 and 35% in 2011.
23
In terms of prices, the latest sequence
machine (HiSeq) has to be sold in quantities of 10 and each

costs $1 Million. All the other
platforms are cheaper and can be sold individually. On the other
hand, consumables are the
reagents and flow cells that are necessary in all the machines
for them to work, and thus they
represent continuous sales throughout their useful life. Only
Illumina’s reagents and flow cells
can be used in Illumina’s sequencing machines. Consumables
are also sample preparation and
sequencing kits to simplify and accelerate analysis, avoiding
huge losses of time from
studying the sample to results. Illumina has, on average, 47% of
the DNA sample-preparation
technology market share.
24
Consumables sales represented 62% of total revenues in 2013,
64% in 2012 and 56% in 2011.
25
Finally, Illumina also provides some services, such as
genotyping, whole genome sequencing services and individual
genome sequencing. In the last
one, individuals can ask, for example, for tests to diagnose
inherited diseases or to analyze

their predisposition for some future conditions. Service
revenues represent 12% of total
revenues in 2013. At a first glance, Illumina seems to have
higher prices comparing with
21
Technology Review, “Does Illumina have the first 1000
genome”, consulted at
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523601/does-
illumina-have-the-first-1000-genome/
22
Mizuho Securities USA and Sequencing Survey, 2013
23
Illumina’s Annual Report, 2013
24
GenomeWeb WorldWide Survey, 2012
25
See Note 23
11
customers’ equivalent platforms. For example, MiSeq costs
$128,000, while Life

Technologies equivalent costs $80,490 and Roche costs
$108,000. However, the sequencing
cost per GB of data is only $502 for Illumina, $1000 for Life
Technologies and $3,100 for
Roche, and the observed error rate is also much smaller in the
case of Illumina machines.
26
Investments and Opportunities
R&D Investment – Research & Development Expense increased
20% from 2012 to 2013 to
$276.743 million. In 2013, the expenditure in R&D represented
19.5% of Total Revenues,
value that reveals the consciousness of R&D importance for the
current and future position of
Illumina. The increase from 2012 to 2013 is explained mainly
due to an increase in the
number of employees in the department, the development of
new products and the
improvement of the existing ones.
New and Emerging Markets Opportunities Department –
Illumina has been the first
mover while entering into certain markets in the last years. The
firm has acquired many other

small businesses so that it could be the first landing on those
opportunities, when compared
with its direct competitors that are always one step behind. For
this purpose, Illumina has a
full-time staff in the New and Emerging Markets Opportunities
Department which seeks to
find good companies that they think Illumina should own.
Financial Performance
Illumina’s performance has been outstanding. Revenues have
been increasing over time in a
six-year Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 25.1%
(from 2007 to 2013), reaching
$1,421.18 million in 2013 (see Exhibit 6).
27
When compared to other companies, the average
six-year revenue CAGR (from 2007 to 2013) for Illumina’s
competitors was 5.9% in the Life
Sciences Segment, which is significantly lower.
28
Net income was $125.308 in 2013, which is
about 8.8% of Total Revenues. Recent releases indicate
revenues of $481 million in the third

quarter of 2014, a 35% increase compared with the homologous
period. In terms of end
26
Next Gen Seek, “Comparing Price and Technology of Illumina
MiSeq, Ion Torrent PGM, 454 GS Junior and PacBio RS”,
consulted at
http://nextgenseek.com/2012/08/comparing-price-and-tech-
specs-of-illumina-miseq-ion-torrent-pgm-454-gs-junior-and-
pacbio-rs/
27
Financials, Illumina’s Annual Report, 2013
28
See Note 11
12
market, the biggest Illumina’s clients are Academic and
Government Institutions, NIH
(National Institute of Health, USA) and firms in applied
markets, such as reproductive health,
diagnostics and individual genomics companies. Revenues in
the Academic/Government
Sector represented 47% of total revenues in 2011; 33% in the

NIH, 17% in Applied Markets
and 3% in Hospital and Diagnostics Market (see Exhibit 7).
Illumina is currently selling
inside and outside USA. Revenues outside USA represented
50% of total revenues in 2013,
which accounts to $706.5 million. In 2012 and 2011,
respectively, revenues with these
customers were $580.1 and $526.8 million (see Exhibit 8).
Those customers are mainly from
Europe and Asia (see Exhibit 9).
The exponential increase of the stock price over the years has
been incredible. The current
market capitalization of Illumina is $22.76 billion (October
2014). In terms of total
shareholders return, it was 273% for the period from 2008 to
2013.
29
But let’s first get back to
the beginning. When Illumina completed its initial public
offering (IPO) in July 2000, the
share price was $19.59. In the following years, until 2005, the
price per share decreased to
values below $5. By developing new products with greater
quality and throughput and by

acquiring Solexa, the share price increased rapidly in 2007
onwards (see Exhibit 10). Solexa
gave Illumina the foundation of the technology and chemistry
used in all its sequencing
machines. On June 2012, the share price was $40. Now, on
October 2014, the stock price is
$180, which represents an increase of 350% from June 2012
until now. That increase was
accompanied by many acquisitions that intensified Illumina’s
presence in the market and
increased the investors’ expectations. Cathie Wood, the Chief
Investment Officer at ARK
Investment Management, said:
“It’s rare that you find a company that has 80% to 90% share of
anything and is
driving the technology so fast that nobody can catch up. This is
a stock in its infancy.”
Expanding Through Strategic Acquisitions
Illumina’s high research and development spending combined
with strategic and in-time
acquisitions has helped achieving this great growth. Since 2005,
Illumina has spent more than

29
See Note 11
13
$1.2 billion on acquisitions.
30
Illumina was initially a company producing genotyping and
gene expression platforms, but not their current and main
product: sequencing platforms. The
first acquisition of Illumina was Solexa, back in November
2006. Solexa was a company that
developed a method to sequence genomes. In 2005, Solexa was
able to sequence its first real
genome, showing that “something other than Sanger sequencing
could work”.
31
In November
2006, Illumina CEO Jay Flatley placed a $650 million offer for
Solexa, which would
complement its offerings by expanding their portfolio to three
main products. Back at the

time, Flatley said:
“This acquisition... may prove to be one of the most successful
acquisitions and new
technology introductions in the history of the life science
industry.”
Although the read length
32
was not as good as Life Sciences’ one (company that now
belongs
to Roche), throughput and cost per gigabase were better. In
2007, Illumina’s revenues
doubled to $360 million and then doubled again in 2008, as they
were selling and installing
more and more platforms. The Sanger’s Institute (one of the
biggest Sequencing Centers in
the World) output in 2008 was so massive that if the sequenced
DNA information could be
printed (using Courier 12) it could cover the earth 63 times.
33
Additionally, genome centers
normally stick with the technology they got in the beginning, as
the staff and pipelines are
already optimized for it. Thus, as mentioned before, Sanger

Institute elected Illumina as their
supplier of platforms. By acquiring Epicenter Technologies (in
January 2011), Moleculo (in
January 2013) and NextBio (in October 2013), Illumina
improved its current sequencing
platforms to make them the best choice available in the market.
BlueGnome and Veritana Health acquisitions (late 2012 and
2013, respectively) were
essential to expand into new applied markets, as they brought
know-how, skills and
understanding of the market where they were operating.
BlueGnome has developed
technologies to test for genetic abnormalities and it was already
selling in more than 40
countries. Illumina’s CEO said:
30
MIT Technology Review, “50 Smartest Companies”, Eilene
Zimmerman, February 2014
31
Chief Science Officer, Tony Smith, 2002
32
Read Length: is a measure of the resolution for an experiment,
this is, the accuracy of the information sequenced. If the read

length is
100, it means that on average, each base in the genome was
covered by 100 sequencing runs. The higher the read length
number, the
higher the resolution, as it will sequence many times the same
information to get it in deep detail.
33
Bio IT World, “Solexa”, consulted at http://www.bio-
itworld.com/2010/issues/sept-oct/solexa.html
14
The BlueGnome acquisition supports Illumina’s goal to be the
leader in genomic-based
diagnostics and enhances the company’s ability to establish
integrated solutions in
reproductive health and cancer.
On the other side, Veritana Health develops prenatal tests.
Acquiring the firm gave Illumina a
larger understanding about the segment and a wider portfolio of
products to offer. By
acquiring Veritana, Illumina entered in new markets that are out
of their main core of

manufacturing, by directly developing and selling prenatal tests,
cancer diagnostics tests and
other diagnostics. To many firms, the supplier is becoming a
competitor in those markets.
Finally, and because Illumina is moving into the diagnostics and
health tests market, the firm
strategically acquired Myraqa in July 2014.
34
Myraqa is a regulatory and quality consulting
firm specialized in In-Vitro Diagnostics and other diagnostics.
It will mainly focus on
regulatory strategy and application support now that Illumina is
entering into this intensively
regulated market.
Illumina in the Future
Illumina has been growing exponentially. The company is
clearly the market leader. The
future of the firm seems to be bright and promising. Illumina
has already established
collaborative partnerships for 2014 onwards with leading
pharmaceutical companies to
develop a universal next-generation sequencing-based oncology
test market. A new era for

oncology is coming and Illumina will be part of it. Investors
look positive and the market
value of the company was never as high as now. However, many
wonder what will happen to
the industry and firm. Is the industry attractive for new entrants
to come? Does Illumina have
to worry about competition? Will Illumina be able to sustain its
position in the long-term,
given the specific market conditions, competition and unique
firm-specific resources?
34
Myraqa Releases of 2014, “Illumina Acquires Myraqa”,
consulted at http://myraqa.com/blog/illumina_acquires_myraqa
http://myraqa.com/blog/illumina_acquires_myraqa
15
Case Discussion
The value creation potential of a company in a given industry
depends not only on the

attractiveness of the industry but also on the competitive
advantage or disadvantage of the
company (Besanko et al., 2013: 362-279). The attractiveness of
a market is determined by the
size (and growth) of the market and by the intensity of
competition (Porter, 1985: 255). These
two factors determine the value creation potential of a typical or
average competitor that
operates in that industry. While the size (and growth) of the
market determines the volume
that companies that operate in that industry are able to attain,
the intensity of competition, in
particular the intensity of price competition, determines the
price-cost margin at which
companies are able to sell in that industry. Following Besanko
et al. (2013), a firm has a
competitive advantage in a specific industry when it
outperforms its competitors. This
advantage may result from a lower cost of production or from
the ability to provide higher
perceived benefits to clients (Porter, 1985: 12-14). A firm has a
cost advantage when it is able
to produce a good at a lower cost than its competitors, which
may reflect in a lower price or a

larger sales margin. A firm has a differentiation advantage when
its products provide a higher
perceived benefit to consumers (Porter, 1985: 14)
In the discussion of the competitive position of Illumina, we
start by presenting each relevant
framework and then we apply it to the specific situation of the
company.
Market Attractiveness
In this section, we analyze the attractiveness of the sequencing
industry. We start by
analyzing the size and growth of the market. After that, we
focus on the intensity of
competition.
The Market
The size and growth of the market determines, more than
anything else, the volumes that
companies operating in that market are able to achieve. A very
useful tool to analyze the size
and evolution of the market is the product life cycle. According
to this theory, the sales of a
new product follow, in general, an S-shaped curve over time and
the product will pass through

four stages: introduction, growth, maturity and decline (Kotler,
1967, 2011). The introduction
phase is characterized by a low sales level related with the
novelty of the product. The growth
16
phase is characterized by a large proliferation of products and
an increase in sales. In the
maturity phase the product is widely accepted and growth slows
down. Finally, in the decline
phase the product becomes redundant, unnecessary or obsolete
(Kotler, 2011).
The DNA-sequencing market only started a few years ago,
mainly with the development of
large machines capable of sequencing large samples of DNA.
Thus, products are only now
passing from the introduction to the growth phase. In this new
phase, companies, hospitals
and research centers understand machines’ advantages and
added-value. Additionally, the
DNA-sequencing market now is a $2 billion business, but it is
expected to reach $23 billion

by 2020. It also seems interesting to look at the different
segments. These products are
relevant for many segments, such as Life Sciences,
Reproductive and Genetic Health,
Oncology, Agrigenomics, Transplants, among many others. The
existence of many segments
shows the interest and demand of these products of many
players. The main segment is Life
Sciences, with a growing number of hospitals, research centers
and pharmaceutical companies
interested in understanding genes and acquiring sequencing
platforms and arrays. The trend
has been to move to the Molecular Diagnostics segment, mainly
to Oncology, Reproductive
and Genetic Diagnostics. Annual average revenues growth rate
in this segment has been
19.1%, which shows the great interest customers of these areas
have. Consumer genomics and
transplant compatibility testing are also emerging opportunities
that will be addressed by this
market, resulting in a larger and growing industry.
Intensity of Competition
The intensity of competition, in particular the intensity of price

competition, determines the
price-cost margin at which companies are able to sell in that
industry (Porter, 2008). The
intensity of competition is determined by industry structure and
by the dynamics of
competition. One should not only analyze the industry structure
because there might exist two
industries with a very similar structure but with completely
different dynamics (for instance,
one in which firms harshly compete and other in which firms
are satisfied with their margins
and thus opt to collude). Therefore, the intensity of competition
depends on both factors.
17
1. Industry structure on competition
Industry structure is the set of fundamental characteristics that
determine the essence of what
an industry is, both in terms of supply and demand (Porter,
1979: 2). To analyze the impact of

industry structure on competition, we will use Porter’s Five
Forces Framework (Porter, 1979;
1980; 2008). According to Porter, the impact of industry
structure on competition results from
the inter-play of five forces: internal rivalry, bargaining power
of buyers and suppliers,
existence of substitutes and threat of potential entrants. Industry
structure, manifested in the
competitive forces, sets industry profitability in the medium and
long run (Porter, 2008: 3).
Rivalry among existing firms
The intensity of competition in an industry depends on the
degree of rivalry among existing
competitors. That competition takes a form of jockeying for
position in the market (Porter,
1979: 8). First, the intensity of competition depends on the
degree of concentration of the
industry, i.e., on the number and relative size of competitors.
The higher the concentration,
the higher the impact of the actions of a firm in the others; thus,
intensity of competition is
higher. The Herfindahl Index measures the size of firms in
relation to the industry. The

Concentration Ratio is the percentage of market share held by
the largest n firms in the
industry. In our case, the 4-firm concentration ratio in the
sequencer makers industry is
approximately 1, which means that the four main players
capture all of the market. In the case
of arrays producers industry, the 10-firm concentration ratio is
roughly 1.
The differentiation and the switching costs are also important
determinants of the rivalry
intensity, as they lock in buyers and decrease the risk of
competitors’ attacks (Porter, 1979:
6). One the one hand, the differentiation is large, not only in
terms of instruments but also in
terms of the consumables used in the machines. Sequencing
platforms sold by firms are
differentiated according to their throughput, scale, easiness to
use and purpose of use. A very
large institute, for example, may not find a proper equivalent
product, because products are
differentiated and thus not all of them meet their needs.
Additionally, many firms, such as
Affymetrix and Illumina, require customers to buy their
instruments platforms in order to

process their arrays, and other firms’ chips cannot be processed
on their systems. These
differences reduce the intensity of competition. On the other
hand, switching costs are costs
18
that consumers incur when changing from one product to
another. There are some switching
costs involved, such as training employees to work with the new
machines, rearranging the
flow process and loosing the benefic experience curve effect
that was acquired over time.
Furthermore, if firms have large fixed costs or if goods lose
value rapidly, there will be more
incentives to undercut prices (Porter, 1979: 8). In general,
companies in the sequencing
market have important fixed costs (rounding 45% to 60% of
total costs), mainly related with
R&D and legal services. However, price cuts are not common
because of the relevant
differentiation and switching costs explained before.
Nonetheless, their products lose

technological value rapidly and new instruments are constantly
developed, which boosts some
competition in terms of innovation and technology amongst
firms. Furthermore, market
growth also creates incentives not to capture current share but
to gain new share on the new
segments. In this industry, firms are more and more expanding
their solutions to more applied
markets. This dissipates rivalry in the core business
(manufacturing) but extends it into the
new segments. Finally, Porter also states that if rivals are highly
committed to the business
and strive for leadership, their rivalry will be more intense
(2008: 9). Illumina is the market
leader in manufacturing and is highly committed to gain
dominance in the new segments, so it
is expected that it will compete fiercely (technologically)
against its current players in it.
Bargaining power of buyers
The bargaining power of buyers is reflected on their capacity to
capture more value, for
example by forcing lower prices or demanding better quality
(Porter, 2008: 7). The number of

buyers in the industry determines their negotiating power. In
this industry there are lots of
independent customers, from small to large size, that in general
do not have capacity to
influence prices. However, large volume buyers have
particularly strong power if the industry
has high fixed costs, as firms will feel pressure to keep capacity
occupied (Porter, 1979: 7).
For example, BGI is the largest install of HiSeq’s (one of
Illumina’s machines); its orders
have a huge weight and thus it is a particularly strong customer
capable of negotiating better
deals. Other large research centers such as Sanger Institute and
Broad Institute of MIT and
Harvard also make large orders due to their enormous focus of
investigation, which means
they have relevant negotiating power. The level of
differentiation of the product also affects
19
the negotiating power of buyers, depending on whether they can
find equivalent goods or not.

In this industry, consumers tend to have low price sensitivity
because they do not have many
equivalent options. Following the same reasoning, buyer’s
power also depends on the
switching costs they face in changing vendors (Porter, 2008: 7).
Changing sequencing
machines and instruments would imply a huge cost; therefore,
buyers are less willing to
change and less sensitive to changes in prices.
Bargaining power of suppliers
Suppliers can have a strong negotiating power by raising prices
or reducing the quality of
inputs. Among many factors, their power depends on the
number of suppliers and on the
degree of concentration of the supply market compared with the
one in the industry they sell
to (Porter, 2008: 6). The suppliers of the sequencing
instruments producers do not hold much
power, as there are many more suppliers of components than
manufacturers. Moreover,
suppliers provide stages, chips, cameras, valves, windows
computers and many other things
that can easily be supplied by others, as they do not hold much

differentiation. Finally, the
core components of the instruments are already owned by the
manufacturers (this is, the
software and technology used in the machines). Many
manufacturers understood the
advantages of up-stream vertical integration, i.e., of owning
their main and essential
technology used in the platforms. One of the reasons of doing
so is to avoid dependence on
suppliers, which would strongly compromise the business. Thus,
some suppliers were
acquired by manufacturers.
Threat of substitutes
When the threat of existing substitutes is high, industry
profitability is affected. There are not
other ways of sequencing human genome and getting genetic
information, which means that
there are not direct substitutes. However, there are some
indirect substitutes. Traditional
exams (such as biopsy, MRA, etc) and consequently their
interpretations and comparisons
represent alternatives to sequencing interpretation. Nonetheless,
genomes contain much more

information than those alternatives, which is reflected on the
exponential growth of the
demand on the sequencing market.
20
Threat of potential entrants
The threat of potential entrants also determines the medium to
long-term profitability of an
industry. An entry barrier is anything that requires expenditure
by a new entrant into an
industry, but that imposes no equivalent cost upon an incumbent
(Besanko, 2007: 302). High
capital requirements limit the potential entrants, as they would
need large financial resources
in order to compete with incumbents (Porter, 1979: 3). In R&D
intensive industries, such as
sequencing, the barrier is even higher because those expenses
represent unrecoverable costs.
Additionally, product differentiation of existing brands leads to
brand identification and
customer loyalty, which becomes a strong difficulty for new

entrants. Because of the high
sequencing machines cost, scientists and institutes normally
prefer to stick with brands that
already have a well-known image and reputation. Moreover,
incumbents face economies of
scale, which imply that average costs decrease as quantity
produced increase. This fact limits
potential entrants to succeed and they must accept their cost
disadvantage (Porter, 1979: 3).
The existence of an experience curve in the industry may also
represent an entry barrier.
Experience curve is the concept that unit costs in many
industries decline with experience –
this is, with the company’s cumulative production (Porter,
1979: 3). Thus, new competitors
with no experience face higher costs than incumbent firms,
especially when compared with
the market leader. For instance, Illumina’s constant investment
in R&D and its technological
advances allow the firm to offer units with smaller marginal
costs. Finally, the level of
vertical integration of the incumbent firms will also have impact
on the entrant’s willingness
to enter the market. Large companies such as Roche, Thermo

Fisher Scientific and Illumina
currently manufacture and own some suppliers, which makes
new firms reluctant of entering
the market.
Thus, it is clear to see that current players in the Sequencing
Market are protected from new
entrants. There is a huge concentration of players, which means
consumers buy from four
main players. It is capital-intensive industry which demands
high initial investments, so new
firms would find it hard to enter the market. Additionally, the
existence of large fixed costs
decreases their willingness to enter. Moreover, rivalry in terms
of technology and innovation
is extremely large, thus new entrants would not be able to
compete at the same level. Finally,
21
brand loyalty and reputation protect incumbents, as consumers
prefer to stick to the traditional
and trusted suppliers.

2. The dynamics of competition
The dynamics of competition refers to the development of
competition, over time, among a
small number of firms (Besanko et al., 2013: 226). Companies
use a variety of weapons to
compete, such as price, innovation, product design and variety.
Most of the times, price is the
weapon of choice (Rao, Bergen & Davis, 2000). On those cases,
the intensity of competition
depends on how firms in the industry define their pricing
strategies. However, competition in
prices is not very relevant in this industry. All firms implement
high prices and do not push
them down. What sustains this equilibrium with such high
prices is the concern about the
likely retaliation. Price cuts would lead to a price war that
would significantly damage the
firms in the sector. Therefore, firms tacitly agree on keeping
prices high and consequently
their profit margins.
Instead of in prices, competition in this industry is related with
technological developments.
Firms compete by improving their current machines with higher

processing capacities, speed,
reduced error probability and cost per MB. Their new updates
and developments are publicly
announced and so it increases competitor’s pressure to also
release something new. For
example, sequencing a whole genome with a $1000 cost has
been a target that biotechnology
industry has been trying to reach for many years. Last year
Illumina introduced HiSeq X Ten,
a genome sequencer that finally enables it. This is an extremely
efficient way of Illumina to
compete with other firms based on its product technological
advance, as it is the only product
with that attribute. Technologic retaliation is extremely regular.
When a firm increases its
R&D expenditure, others will also do it. When a firm announces
a partnership with a leading
medical institution for further developments and discoveries,
others will try to accompany it,
just like it happened to Illumina with Life Technologies.
Furthermore, the expectation while
launching a new technology or entering into a new segment is
that others will retaliate in a
similar way.

22
Illumina’s Competitive Situation
As mentioned above, a firm has competitive advantage in a
specific market when it
outperforms its competitors. Illumina has a strong
differentiation advantage, as its products
provide a higher perceived benefit to consumers (Porter, 1985:
17). Illumina offers
sequencing platforms with the largest power in the market,
capable of sequencing larger
samples of genome. The great accuracy of its technology makes
its products the ones with
lower errors in data. Additionally, it offers a great quality-price
relationship: price seems to be
high but costs of running the machine and sequencing data are
much lower than the ones of its
competitors. Additionally, there is a great reputation involved,
which creates a positive

differentiation and a preference for the firm products instead of
others. In fact, Genomics
England chose Illumina to be the sequencing provider behind
the large 100,000 Genomes
Project, which will run in the UK. Moreover, its market
leadership and its contributions to the
cost reduction of sequencing have been a proof of its positive
differentiation. However, can
this competitive advantage be sustainable in the long-term?
In such a fast growing and rapidly changing industry, sustaining
a competitive advantage may
not be easy. There are, in general, two main sources of
sustainable competitive advantage:
unique firm-specific resources and privileged market positions.
The resource-based view
emphasizes firm specific resources as a source of sustainable
competitive advantage (Rumelt,
1984; Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1986; Dierickx and Cool,
1989). Firms’ resources are the
tangible and intangible assets hold or controlled by the firm and
that contributes to a lower
cost or to a higher perceived benefit of the products (Cool,
Almeida Costa & Dierickx, 2002).
In order to be a source of a sustainable competitive advantage,

resources should (i) be
acquired in imperfectly competitive factor market; (ii) be
imperfectly mobile; (iii) not be
imitable; and (iv) not be subject to substitutability (Cool,
Almeida Costa & Dierickx, 2002). If
all firms in a market have access or came develop the same
stock of resources, no strategy is
available to one firm that would not also be available to all the
others (Cool, Almeida Costa &
Dierickx, 2002).
The first factor states that resources should be bought in an
imperfectly competitive market,
i.e., the costs of obtaining the resources should be acquired at a
price below its net present
23
value (Cool, Almeida Costa & Dierickx, 2002). The second
factor is the imperfectly mobility
and immobility of resources, which depends on whether they
can be transferred from one firm
to another. If all factors could be bought, competitors would

simply acquire the required
components and replicate the resources bundle. Additionally,
the third factor is that resources
should not be imitable. In fact, there are some isolating
mechanisms that avoid immediate
imitation of a firm’s resource position, such as property rights
and information asymmetries.
Finally, resources should not be substitutable. Even when
imitation is not possible, firms may
try to create equivalent resources that will allow the same
strategies.
Illumina has perfectly immobile resources which are non-
tradable, such as reputation, brand
loyalty, know-how, market intelligence and experience. Several
authors emphasize the role of
reputation and brand image as sources of sustainable
competitive advantage (Dierickx and
Cool, 89). Illumina is the company that has contributed the most
to reduce the sequencing cost
per genome, which makes it the most distinguished firm in the
industry. Furthermore,
Illumina has the capacity to forecast the growing segments and
immediately focus on R&D to
satisfy their future needs. This unique firm resource makes it

possible for Illumina to
implement its strategy before others (Lieberman &
Montgomery, 1988). All those resources
were built inside the firm and accumulated over the years, so
they cannot be acquired by a
company. Even if competitors wish to develop those assets, it
would be a time-consuming
process. More than being a time-consuming process, there is
some causal ambiguity involved.
Causal ambiguity is an important factor of inimitability, which
occurs if the source of a firm’s
competitive advantage is unknown (Lippman and Rumelt, 1982:
420). Even if others wish to
develop those assets, they probably do not know how to proceed
or where to start.
Another fundamental aspect of Illumina strategy is the constant
seek for acquiring other firms.
Acquisitions have two main goals. On the one hand, firms
acquire others in order to expand
its business to those new segments with everything already
operational. On the other hand,
acquisitions may provide an opportunity to buy resources in
bundles that otherwise would not
be tradable (Wernerfelt, 1984). In fact, a firm may acquire

another to acquire expertise and
specialized workers that would not be able to acquire anywhere
else. For example, the
acquisition of Solexa gave Illumina a combination of
technological capabilities that allowed
24
the beginning of their business in sequencing platforms.
Epicenter, Moleculo and NextBio
were also fundamental acquisitions in improving the platforms,
as they added features,
quality, accuracy and speed. Now that Illumina owns those
resources, it must keep them as a
source of competitive advantage and avoid imitation from
others. Additionally, the fact that
Illumina was the first great company to develop DNA
Sequencing systems created a first-
mover advantage. Illumina had the opportunity to establish
long-term relationships with
customers before other firms did, which is particularly
important in such loyal-consumer

market.
Additionally, Illumina also has a unique leadership advantage.
Illumina has a visionary leader
– the CEO and owner Jay Flatley – that has been leading the
company since the beginning. A
clear vision and insight of the industry, smart acquisitions and
high R&D investments are
driving the firm to succeed. However, other firms may develop
a strategic planning process
that will create the same market intelligence and act as a
substitute. Lots of research on
emerging opportunities and a clear planned strategy may lead to
the same results. Therefore,
there is a risk of firms creating strategically equivalent
resources (Barner, 1991). Those
equivalent resources are assets that enable the firm to
implement the same strategies. In
conclusion, Illumina has some firm-specific resources and
privileged market positions that are
sources of sustainable competitive advantages. Its reputation,
expertise, specialized workers
and acquisitions strategy, among others, are specific and
valuable resources of Illumina.
As stated in the beginning of the discussion, a competitive

advantage may be sustainable not
because rival firms cannot replicate the resource position, but
because they do not have the
incentives to do so (Cool, Almeida Costa & Dierickx, 2002: 63).
In this case, the firm has a
privileged market position which arises from industry structure.
Firstly, production capacity
represents a source of privileged position for Illumina. The firm
now manufactures some of its
products in the factory in Hayward (USA) and others in
Singapore, where it can take
advantage of the cluster in human health. Illumina still has
enough space to expand the
facility in Singapore to respond to market growth. Therefore,
the company has a clear
commitment to compete aggressively if entry occurs or if a
smaller competitor expands its
own production (Cool, Almeida Costa & Dierickx, 2002).
Secondly, Illumina’s market
25

privileged position also results from the large variety of
products it offers. Firms in dominant
positions such as Illumina can crowd the industry with their
products in order to gain market
share at the expense of competitors (Schmalensee, 1978).
Illumina sells the MiSeq, MiSeqDx,
NextSeq 500, HiSeq 2500 and HiSeq X Ten machines, which are
similar but vary according
to the scale, power and specificities needed by the consumer.
For instance, the needs of a
small private practice are different from the ones of a large
research center. By selling many
machines with slight differences depending on the target needs,
Illumina spreads its presence
and reduces opportunities for others to satisfy those niches.
Finally, Illumina’s privileged
position also results from the existing threat of forward vertical
integration. Besides
developing and manufacturing sequencers, Illumina is now
selling many products and
services that normally only its customers would offer.
Diagnostics of current genetic diseases,
guidance to change health behaviors according to genetics or
prenatal tests are examples of

these. Therefore, vertical integration may act as an entry barrier
to the downstream market.
New firms will hardly enter the market if they have to be
supplied by one of its competitors.
This would increase the influence of the firm in the supply
chain and increase the negotiation
power (Porter, 1985). Illumina could charge them high prices
and still compete with them in
the diagnostics market with lower prices. This would drive out
of the market many firms. In
sum, the market leadership, the excess of production capacity,
the extensive portfolio and
recent vertical integration contribute to a privileged market
position of Illumina in the
industry. All these factors are sources of a sustainable
competitive advantage.
Conclusion
After carefully analyzing the market attractiveness and the
competitive positioning of the
firm, it is clear to see that Illumina has all the conditions to
sustain a competitive edge over
competitors. One the one hand, the industry structure protects
incumbent firms. The fact that
the industry is highly intensive in capital and the large rivalry

in terms of innovation and
technology will make it hard for new firms to enter the market.
On the other hand, Illumina
has unique firm resources such as reputation, unique leadership
and highly specialized
workers. Its product capacity and large range of products also
give Illumina a privileged
market position. Those factors are all sources of sustainable
competitive advantage. Thus, the
26
firm is in a favorable position to maintain its competitive edge
over competition in the long-
run.
Appendixes
Exhibit 1 – Genome and Sequencing

Source: Understanding Genomics, Genomics England, 2014
Exhibit 2 – Value Chain of the Sequencing Market
Suppliers of raw
materials:
Electronic,
Mechanical
Biochemical parts
Manufacturers of:
Sequencing Machines
Array Platforms
Consumables
Final Consumers:
Research centers
Academic institutions

Government
laboratories
Service Providers:
Hospitals
Clinical practices
Pharmaceutical
Consumer genomics
Individual Consumers:
Diagnostics
Medical guidance
Health check-up reports
Ancestral information
27
Exhibit 3 – Market Capitalization, October 2014
Company Market Capitalization ($b)
llumina

22.76
ThermoScientifics (after acquiring Life Tech in Feb 2014) 48.17
Life Technologies (prior to acquisition) 13.6
Affymetrix 0.55
Pacific Biosciences 0.35
Luminex 0.87
Roche 240.57
Source: Bloomberg, October 2014
Exhibit 4 – Cost Per Genome Evolution, 2001-2013
Source: National Human Genome Research Institute, 2014

28
Exhibit 5 – Portfolio of Instruments and Array Platforms, 2014
Source: Illumina Website, 2014
Exhibit 6 – Revenues (in $ Million), 2008-2013
Source: Financials, Illumina Annual Report, 2013
Exhibit 7 – Revenues of Illumina by type of customer, 2011

29
Exhibit 8 – Revenues Outside and Inside USA, 2011-2013
Exhibit 9 – Revenues by Geography, 2013
Exhibit 10 – Illumina Stock Price Evolution, 2005-2014
Source: Bloomberg, October 2014
30
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Strategic Management Journal, 5: 171-
180
CMGT/578 v11
Title
ABC/123 vX
Page 2 of 2Week 3 Assignment InstructionsShort-range
Strategic IS Plan
For this assignment, you will produce a 3-page short-range

strategic IS plan for Reynolds Tool & Die that includes a
summary of where the company wants to go (its goals) and
where it’s capable of going right now (based on its current IT
infrastructure). Then you will recommend specific purchases
and strategies necessary to make its IT function capable of
supporting the company’s goals. Your plan should address
outsourcing and the facilitation of business expansion into new
markets, new regions, and new countries. The most important
part of your strategic plan is outsourcing.
To complete this assignment, review the course scenario. Pay
special attention to Reynolds’ plans for a joint venture with an
automotive parts manufacturer in Mexico and the acquisition of
a light aircraft parts supplier in Canada. The short-range
strategic plan you create will assist Reynolds in realizing what,
ultimately, is a rapid expansion of their business.
Your headings for this plan should include:
I. What Functions Will be Outsourced
Develop an outsourcing plan. You may decide to outsource all
elements of IT for this expansion. This would include a
managed services contract, which would cover all hardware
platform management, perhaps an entire data center, and an
internal and possibly external Help Desk. Or, you may decide to
outsource only certain key elements of the IT expansion, such
as the Help Desk or the data center. Whatever decisions you
make in terms of functions to outsource, support your decision
by describing how your decisions will benefit the business.
II. Risk Mitigation and Outsourcing
Because of the expansion into any international market, senior
management will require a risk mitigation plan for outsourcing
IT. Under this heading, you should address outsourcing risks

such as security, data ownership, an exit strategy for an
outsourcing contract, etc.
Will you choose an outsourcing company based in an
international market? What are the risks associated with that
choice? If you outsource IT to a domestic (assume U.S.)
company for the international expansion, what are the
assurances that you, as a senior IT manager, would need to be
comfortable with this type of scenario? For example, IBM has a
significant managed services portfolio internationally though,
obviously, IBM is a US-headquartered company. Are there risks
associated with this solution?
III. Benefits of Outsourcing as a Short-Range Strategic Plan
Explain the benefits of outsourcing as a short-range strategic
solution for market expansion. The topics you cover in this
section should include any economic benefit you anticipate. For
example, explain that a benefit is an increased ability to deploy
solutions in a timely fashion, or it will provide better security
(if applicable), etc. Tie your IT strategic outsourcing plan to the
organization’s expansion strategy. Be specific when you explain
how your plan will support the expansion strategy.
Include at least one reference in addition to the class text for
this assignment.
Copyright© 2019 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved.
Copyright© 20XX by University of Phoenix. All rights
reserved.
CMGT/578 v11
Course Scenario
CMGT/578 v11
Page 2 of 2Course ScenarioReynolds Tool & Die

Reynolds Mission Statement
“We are committed to providing our customers quality products
with the highest engineering standards.”
Reynolds Vision Statement
“We are committed to achieving our goal of being a market
leader for engineering solutions and will investment in technical
innovation. Our desire is to continue to expand our markets, our
technical competence, and our intellectual curiosity to serve our
customers.”
Additional Information
Reynolds Tool & Die is an automotive component manufacturer
supplying suspension pieces and technology to both other
suppliers and major U.S. and foreign manufacturers. Annual
revenue is around $50 million, and the company is profitable.
Reynolds has production facilities at their headquarters in
Akron, OH; in Bloomington, IN; and in Memphis, TN.
Approximately 300 people work for Reynolds, including 7 in
IT. The IT staff is broken down as follows:
· IT Director
· 2 Help Desk personnel
· 3 Network Engineers
· 1 Software Engineer, primarily supporting the company’s ERP
system
One network engineer works in Bloomington, one in Memphis,
and the rest of the IT staff is located in Akron.
The three sites are networked via an MPLS circuit. In addition
to SAP® software, the company uses Microsoft® Office 2010
for administrative work along with several specialized CAD
programs for design. The SAP software is two versions behind,
but not at end of its life. A data center is in Akron, while the
other two sites have smaller hardware footprints consisting of
Microsoft Exchange servers for email, a small file and print
server, and redundant Active Directory servers. EMC Storage
Area Network (SAN) devices are at each site. Redundant backup

appliances are in Akron and Bloomington, and data can be
cycled among the SANS for further redundancy. While some
server virtualization has been achieved, only about 20 percent
of all servers have been virtualized with the help of VMWare.
All sites use Cisco® switches, routers, and firewalls. Servers,
desktops, laptops and printers are all HP®, and are between 3
and 5 years old and the desktops and Laptops use Windows® 7
as the operating system. All servers are on Microsoft Server
2012.
There are no cloud applications. There has been a demand by
administrative personnel and engineers for integrating mobile
devices with Microsoft Exchange and other apps but to date the
company has not implemented a BYOD (Bring Your Own
Device) or a MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution.
The IT budget typically is between $1.2 and $1.5 million
annually, depending on capital expense. Note that this budget
ONLY covers hardware, software, services, and licensing.
Personnel costs are not included, nor do you need to include
them for the Week 4 budget assignment.
This year the company is embarking on significant expansion. A
joint venture has been signed with a firm from Mexico Peraltada
LLC in order to gain access to a new supplier market. Both
companies will remain independent, but Reynolds will exchange
engineering expertise for a percentage of sales in Mexico and
there will be joint development of intellectual property.
Peraltada uses Microsoft Office 2016 and Oracle as their ERP
solution. Desktop and laptops are HP, and they are running
Microsoft Server 2016. They employ around 200 people with 5
in IT. The company provides key employees with iPhones for
mobile access to their network.
In an effort to diversify, the company has purchased a small
company in Vancouver, Canada that makes light aircraft landing
gear components. P.T. Tracy, LLC employs about 80 people,
with 3 in IT. They also use SAP for an ERP solution but one
version newer than Reynolds. They use Microsoft Office 2013
and Windows 10 for their desktop OS. Their firewall solution is

Palo Alto and they use Cisco routing and switching equipment.
Servers, desktops and laptops are all Dell®. They also have
implemented a BYOD policy, using the MDM solution VMWare
AirWatch®, supporting both Apple® and Samsung® Galaxy
phones. They are running Microsoft Server 2016.
All three companies in the scenario have a Microsoft Enterprise
License in various stages of life; none will be up for renewal at
the same time.
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In early 1970s, Rasna pioneered the Indian non-carbonated soft
drink concentrate market,
using a do-it-yourself model (to drink it, you had to mix the
concentrate with sugar and water).
At 50 paise (1 cent) a glass, Rasna was extremely affordable for
the middle-class households.
It was sold in small and easily portable packs, facilitating easy
inroads into the small towns
and cities, yielding an edge over the ready-made squashes and
syrups that came in fragile glass
bottles with a high-end positioning. Rasna gained a 95% share
of the Indian non-carbonated
soft drink concentrate market. Over the decade of 1990s,
Rasna’s growth stalled, as the
competitors offered fruit drinks in tetrapacks, whose market
tripled to Rs. 6 billion ($ 1.2
billion) by 2000. Rasna’s attempt to launch an aerated fruit
drink Oranjolt failed, because of its

short shelf life and the need for keeping it refrigerated 24
hours—most retailers in India switch
off their refrigerators at night to save electric costs (Pande,
2002).
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�� Business Policy and Strategic Management: Concepts
and Applications
The opening case illustrates challenges of innovation in an
emerging market. In the
emerging market context, cost of labor tends to be quite low, so
manufacturing gives only a
limited competitive advantage. Similarly, only a few firms can
afford to invest in building brands
through lavish advertising. Therefore, more entrepreneurial and
creative strategies are needed to
be successful. Small portable packages with high shelf life can
generate significant logistical
agility, and allow the firms to offset the disadvantages of
simple manufacturing and marketing
methods.
In this chapter, we discuss a framework for strategic

management of innovation and
technologies—a key driver of the competitive advantage of
firms and of the economic leadership
of nations. Technology refers to both the process as well as the
investment that enables a firm to
transform inputs into value-added outputs. Innovation allows a
firm to develop as well as apply
technology for useful commercial ends. According to
Schumpeter, one of the earliest scholars to
recognize the value of entrepreneurship, innovation includes
new combinations of productive
resources, such as (1) Introduction of a new product or service,
(2) Introduction of a new
method of production, (3) Opening of a new market, (4)
Conquest of a new source of supply, and
(5) New organization of any industry (Schumpeter, 1934).
Strategic management of technology is complex because major
firm-level innovations are
generally inter-related with the broad cycles, waves, and
networks of worldwide innovations. For
instance, the first industrial revolution between 1785 and 1845
was led by innovations in the use
of water for power, textiles, and iron. Growth during 1845 and
1900 was based on developments
in steam, rail, and steel, and the use of electricity and chemicals
underlay the third wave between
1900 and 1950. In the Post War era, auto and electronics were
the growth drivers. More recently,
innovations in fiber optics, digital networks, software, and web
have driven value addition. Thus,
for successful innovations, firms need to be aware of the
broader national and international
technological developments. Further, with liberalization and
global competition, product life times
have shortened, and it is increasingly difficult to differentiate

among products. New products are
becoming obsolete within 1–3 years, as opposed to the pre-
globalization days when the product
development cycle was 5–10 years in most industries.
Strategy for managing innovations and technologies is founded
on five kinds of analyses:
(1) Platform analysis: how to create value using functional
inputs and servicing criteria?
(2) Channel analysis: how to capture value using external and
internal modes of entry?
(3) Sequencing analysis: how to develop value over time and
space?
(4) Perpetuation analysis: how to avoid erosion of value on
technology standards and
other intellectual properties?
(5) Championing analysis: how to nurture entrepreneurial
leadership through a culture of
discovery and a prudent accounting system?
As shown in Figure 16.1, the five themes are inter-related and
inter-linked. At the outset, a
firm must identify the platform for value creation, and the
channel for capturing value from
innovation and technology. The strategic initiatives need to be
properly sequenced, both over time
as well as global landscape. The firm should be vigilant to the
potential for the erosion of the
value generated, by strategically managing technology standards
and other intellectual properties.
Innovation and technology management cannot be left just to

chance, but should receive a focus,
strategic priority, and championing for spearheading the whole
organization and its network of
partners.
Chapter 16 Strategic Innovation and Technology Management �
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The five types of analyses are elaborated below.
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At the outset, a company must define a ‘technological
platform’—i.e., a locus of initiatives—for
the innovation and technology management activities. The
technological platform comprises of
two elements: functional, and servicing.
The functional platform refers to the activities in the value
chain, such as R&D (Research
and Development), purchasing, operations, and marketing. The
servicing platform refers to the
criteria for the assessment of the functional performance in
terms of objectives such as
productivity, cost, quality, variety, and agility.
Depending on the size and strategic intent of the organization,
technological platforms may
be differentiated in terms of product categories, market
segments, geographical segments, and/
or core technologies. For instance, in the new product
categories, innovation may be led by

Research and Development (R&D) function; on the other hand,
in the mature product categories,
improvement in technologies may be driven more by the cost
saving efforts of the vendors in the
Supply Chain Management function.
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The traditional approach to managing functional platform is
‘sequential’, where the locus of
innovation systematically moves from one functional activity to
another in a linear sequence. Two
major types of sequences are typically found: demand pull, and
technology push.
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and Applications
A more contemporary approach calls for ‘concurrent’ design
teams, where walls between
various functional areas are removed. Cross-functional
development teams are established for
assessing customer needs and technological options. The firms
may involve their critical
suppliers, multi-functional experts, and core customers as part
of the ‘value-chain’ teams during
the product development process. Value chain teams help in
integrating not just customer needs
and product design, but also vendor and process capabilities.
They search the entire value chain
for identifying ways to cut costs to reach the target price that
the customer can afford, and to add
more value to the product. The workings of the concurrent
cross-functional teams may be
illustrated using Figure 16.3.
Toyota Motors is a good real-life example of a firm using the
concurrent approach.
Toyota Motors encourages the vendors to send key technical
personnel as resident engineers to
its factories. Resident vendor engineers are able to suggest
improvements in the design and
manufacturing specifications, based on their understanding of
the vendor capabilities, and are
able to communicate Toyota needs directly to the design and
manufacturing people of the
vendor. Consequently, the vendor does not need a sales

department, and can develop and
deliver parts that really add value for Toyota.
In the ‘demand pull’ sequence, product concept moves from the
customers to marketing
personnel, who translate customer requirements into
performance specifications that the new
product is expected to meet. The design engineers develop
design specifications using known
technologies, which are then used by the manufacturing experts
to create production specifications
based on the available resources and capabilities.
Alternatively, in the ‘technology push’ sequence, new
technological breakthroughs drive
the design specifications, which are translated into production
specifications, and then into
performance specifications that the customers must accept.
The companies focused on the ‘demand pull’ spend a lot of time
and resources in
conducting market research and advertising, and are common in
the consumer goods sector. The
companies focused on the ‘technology push’ rely on a formal,
usually centralized, R&D lab,
spend a lot of resources on R&D, and are common in the
technology-intensive sectors. In either
case, there typically exists some sort of a wall between various
functional areas, with little
communication and interaction, resulting in high costs and high
risks of failure. For instance,
technology-driven design is often too complex to produce, given
the skills of the workers and the
sophistication of the machinery. Therefore, the sequential
approach is also referred to as ‘over
the wall’ method, as shown in Figure 16.2.

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For effective innovations, firms need to go beyond simply
putting together teams of different
functional experts. Each functional group has its own

perspective on the new product
development process. R&D experts like to develop and apply
the most complex technology
for product design—which adds to the costs. In contrast,
marketing experts prefer a lot of
functionality for meeting different needs of their customers,
some who may not be able to afford
high costs. Therefore, it is important for the firms to also
establish a servicing platform—the key
objectives that provide coherence and integration to the efforts
of the different functional groups.
Servicing platforms may be defined in terms of either single
criteria or multiple criteria. The
conventional approach is to select a clear emphasis for the
business strategy, such as low cost,
differentiation, or niche focus; the servicing platform then
resolves into a single criteria. Thus,
simplicity and standardization may be the servicing platform for
the low cost strategy; popularity
and variety for the differentiation strategy; and novelty and
speed for the niche focus strategy.
However, with the rise in global competition, customers are
demanding multiple perfor-
mance goals from the companies. New approaches have
emerged, that allow realizing multiple
criteria such as cost-effectiveness, time responsiveness, as well
as variety at the same time. These
approaches are built around the concepts of Design for
Manufacturing (DFM), and mass
customization.
DFM takes into account the ease and economy of production
while designing the product.
It entails an in-depth appreciation of the resources and

capabilities of the firm and the suppliers,
so as to drastically cut ‘time to market’—i.e., time from the
product idea conception to
commercialization. DFM relies on the use of core platform
technologies and standards for various
parts and service modules. These modules are used as ‘black
box’ (i.e., without change) in a wide
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and Applications
variety of products, each using a different combination of
modules. The cost of improving parts,
or of developing core platform technologies, is spread over a
successive stream of products, and
need not be recovered from the product being developed just
now. Thus, using standards makes
technology improvement in resources more attractive, and also
allows faster development of new
products and of successive waves of new products, adding

variety in functionality without extra
cost. DFM approach is flexibly used in many service sectors,
such as software. For instance,
Microsoft uses a common Windows Operating System for
developing its various application
software, such as Word and Excel.
Mass customization refers to the capability to offer highly
customized products and services
to different customers depending on their needs and demands. It
is an extension of DFM in that
cost-effective, timely, and flexible mass customization strategy
relies on ‘postponing’ the tasks
of differentiating a product for a specific customer until the
latest possible point in the value
chain. Dell Computers uses mass customization to develop a
standard computer, which can be
customized on demand from the individual customers using a
modular design. In modular design,
the customers may select among different options of hard drive,
audio-video cards, monitor,
memory, and drives based on their preferences, and these can
then be assembled just-in-time for
each customer. As a result, the benefits of standardization and
scale economies are combined with
the benefits of responsiveness and service. Consider, for
instance, how the leading paint
companies operate:
Paint companies around the world use mass customization
strategy to develop a generic paint
and a variety of color pigments. The retail stores use a
chromatograph to analyze a customer’s
paint sample and determine the paint-and-pigment mixture that
will match it. Such an approach
substantially reduces the cost of inventories for the companies

and for the stores, since the
same generic paint inventory can be used with several color
pigments. The customers can also
get a better deal on purchasing larger volumes of generic paint,
and then use different low-cost
color pigments for getting different colors.
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In a competitive market, the innovation strategy requires firms
to integrate different functional
competencies, and to attain excellence on multiple servicing
objectives. Appropriate organi-
zational design is needed to manage these twin challenges.
Japanese firms manage these
challenges using ‘heavy-weight’ product champions (Clark and
Fujimoto, 1991). The ‘heavy-
weight’ product champion is a person who oversees the entire
process from conception until
commercialization. The champion ensures timely and effective
integration of various functional
members, and allows the different functional departments to
work in an overlapping fashion. For
instance, the manufacturing may work with the design, as soon
as the idea moves from
conception phase to prototype phase. The overlapping structure
avoids gaps in communication.
An example of the approach used in India is given below:
In 2001, Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) adopted a category
structure, with each category
comprising of a set of innovation and activation teams. The

innovation team oversees product
development and brand planning, while the activation team
implements the marketing plan and
ensures consumer connectivity. As a result, there has been a
rapid growth in cost-effective,
responsive, and innovative extensions of its major brand
platforms, such as Fair & Lovely
(Lakshman, 2002).
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Once a technological platform is defined, the firm needs to
determine a channel strategy for the
development of innovation. Channel strategy refers to selection
of a mode of entry for originating
and diffusing the innovation. The mode of entry may entail
internal development, or external
opportunities tapped through incubators, spin-offs, franchising,
sub-contracting, licensing,
strategic minority stakes, joint ventures, outright acquisitions,
or non-equity technological,
operations, and marketing alliances.
A combination of the entry modes is also possible. The firm
may develop a technology
internally, and then commercialize it through external modes.
Alternatively, it may use an external
mode to tap an outside innovation, and then commercialize it
through internal development.
More sophisticated business models can allow the firms to

multiply the value captured from
innovations. Cisco’s unique business model is an example.
Cisco Systems of the US is notable for its synthesis of outright
purchase and acquisitions of
new technological innovations, with strategic alliances for
manufacturing technology. Cisco
selects and acquires companies that hold rights to attractive
technological innovations, and then
manages them by outsourcing manufacturing. This business
model is combined with a self-
service solution, where easy-to-navigate online environment
becomes the primary point of
customer contact. Using its friendly and comprehensive self-
service model, the customers may
specify their own schedule for manufacturing, and can even
receive multi-vendor solutions.
Half of the products are then delivered directly by the vendors
to the customers, drastically
cutting down the channel costs. At the height of the New
Economy boom in 2000, Cisco
Systems had the highest stock market capitalization in the US.
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Several modes of entry for tapping external opportunities to
capture the value of innovation may
be used, including incubator, spin-off, franchising, sub-
contracting, licensing, strategic minority
stakes, joint ventures, outright acquisitions, or non-equity
technological, operations, and marketing
alliances. A brief explanation of these modes of entry is in
Table 16.1.

TABLE 16.1 Major external modes of entry
1. Incubator A facility that assists businesses to overcome the
difficulties associated with
start-up and growth, using its network of contacts and
management support.
Example: Computer Associates of USA has a ‘software
incubator’ in India
to encourage development of software products by local
companies.
2. Spin-off The sale of a part of a firm to new shareholders, or
to an outside firm.
Example: spin-off of the e-business initiative, Reflect.com, by
Procter &
Gamble for the consumer-oriented beauty products.
3. Franchising Granting of the right to use a firm’s name,
reputation, and business skills at
a particular place to outsiders who are contractually bound to
abide by rules
as to how they do business. Example: McDonald’s franchises,
all with a
similar look and feel, but not necessarily owned by the
McDonald’s.
and Applications
4. Sub-contracting Assigning or subletting a contract or any part
of a contract by a firm.
Example: When Ford develops a new car, it subcontracts some
of the

part designs to its major suppliers.
5. Licensing Transfer of the rights to use a technology to
another firm. Example:
Several companies have licensed the Sun Microsystem’s JAVA
platform.
6. Strategic minority stake Acquiring a non-controlling stake in
another firm with a view to acquire
new knowledge. Example: In 2002, the United Breweries, the
number
two beer company in India, offered a non-controlling 26%
equity stake
to the global brewery company, Scottish & Newcastle.
7. Joint venture A business relationship formed for the purpose
of carrying out usually a
specific short-term or continuing project. Example: Maruti
Motors, the
leading car maker in India, began as a joint venture between
Suzuki
Motors of Japan and the Government of India.
8. Outright acquisition Outright purchase of another firm or a
part of the firm. Example: Coca
Cola company acquired Parle in India, gaining control of
innovative
brands such as Thums Up and Limca, which had a 60% share of
the
Indian soft drink market in the 1990s.
9. Non-equity alliances Cooperative partnership and
collaborative arrangements, such as for
co-development of technology, or for assistance in
manufacturing and/or
marketing. Example: Several of India’s software firms have

non-equity
alliances with the US clients.
Successful innovation and technology management requires the
firms to use these diverse
modes of entry in an inter-related manner. The concepts of real
options and technology gate-
keeping are relevant towards this end.
The real options framework (Kogut and Kulatilaka, 1994)
suggests that the firms face
significant risks and uncertainties while making investments
into new technology and innovation
areas. They can limit the costs of failure by first making less
costly strategic investments. For
instance, they may acquire a strategic minority stake in one or
more of other firms, which would
be a springboard for learning about and gaining lead in a new
technology or growth area. If any
of these is successful, then they can exercise the option of
making further investments ahead of
the rivals.
The ‘technology gate-keeping’ (Single and Spurgeon, 1996)
involves a systematic
monitoring of the specific emerging technologies having high
potential, and to leverage them for
further development. The leading firms often appoint Chief
Technology Officers with a mandate
for such gate-keeping. Microsoft’s purchase of Web TV for $
425 million, and of Hotmail for
$ 400 million in 1990s resulted from such gate-keeping. Many
Japanese and Korean companies,
such as Matsushita and Samsung, pursue a strategy of licensing
technologies from around the
world, and then develop, fuse, and commercialize them on their

own.
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Internal development is a widely used channel for originating
and applying innovation, especially
by firms that are seeking to capture full value on their
technologies. However, Grant (1991) notes
that the American firms with higher R&D intensity (as
percentage of sales) often report lower
return on investment, except for a select few that are able to
translate R&D into high market
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share also. Further, the output of most R&D departments is
never transformed into marketable,
new products. Xerox Corporation is a classic example.
During the 1980s, the R&D center of Xerox Corporation made
several breakthroughs in
custom chips, computer-aided design, artificial intelligence,
computer graphics, laser printing,
and many features later used by Microsoft Windows, including
the graphical interface, mouse,
icons, and drop down menus. However, Xerox commercialized
only a fraction of these
innovations, because of a poor coordination with the operating
divisions, and lack of product
champions to take the rest to the market. The result was a flow
of Xerox R&D engineers and

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