The document discusses factors in a firm's remote and industry environment that can impact its operations. The remote environment includes economic, social, political, technological, and ecological factors. The industry environment focuses on competitive forces like rivalry, potential new entrants, suppliers, buyers, and substitute products. It also examines operating factors like a firm's competitive position and ability to attract resources. The resource-based view of the firm and value chain analysis are introduced as frameworks to understand a firm's internal strengths and how it creates value.

1. 1. Remote Environment
Economic Factors
• Concern the nature and direction of economy in
which a firm operates
• Types of factors
• General availability of credit
• Level of disposable income
• Propensity of people to spend
• Prime interest rates
• Inflation rates
• Trends in growth of gross national product

2. Social Factors
• Beliefs, values, opinions, and lifestyles
of people
• Recent social trends
• Entry of large numbers of women into labor
market
• Accelerating interest of consumers and
employees in quality-of-life issues
• Shift in age distribution of population

3. Political Factors
• Define legal and regulatory parameters
within which firms must operate
• Types of factors
– Free-trade agreements
– Antitrust laws
– Tax programs
– Minimum wage legislation
– Pollution and pricing policies
– Administrative jawboning

4. Technological Factors
• Focus on technological changes affecting
industry
• Types of changes
• New products
• Improvements in existing products
• Manufacturing and marketing techniques
• Role of technological forecasting
• Foresees advancements and estimating their impact
on organization’s operations
• Alerts managers to impending challenges and
promising opportunities

5. Ecological Factors
• Ecology refers to the relationships among
human beings and other living things and air,
soil, and water
• Current concerns
• Global warming
• Loss of habitat and biodiversity
• Air, water, and land pollution
• Responsibilities of firms
• Eliminating toxic by-products of current manufacturing
processes
• Cleaning up prior environmental damage

6. 1. 企業本身與同業直接競爭者間的競爭強度
(Rivalry Determinants)
同產業的廠商數目
同產業廠商間的市場佔有率
同產業廠商間的市場成長率
同產業廠商間產品的差異性
同產業廠商間該產品的成本結構
同產業廠商間該產品的轉換成本
同產業廠商間該產品的品牌強度
同產業廠商間該產品的利潤空間
同產業廠商間該產品的客戶群結構
該產業之產業集中度
該產業之進入障礙
……
2. 來自供應商的議價能力
(Suppliers Bargaining Power)
只有一家
是否為少數供應商
是否為特殊規格
關鍵性零件
…
3. 買主的議價能力
(Buyers Bargaining Power)
可分消費性消耗品與工業性可轉賣品
產品特徵
產品價格
品牌強度
價格對市場的敏感度
買主的預算
購買數量
買主的喜好
…
4. 來自潛在進入者的威脅力
Economies of scale
Product differentiation
Capital requirements
Cost advantages independent of size
Access to distribution channels
Government policy
5. 替代性產品的威脅力
(Substitution Threat)
價值 / 價格比
…
2. Industry Environment

7. Competitive Force: Threat of Entry
• Seriousness of threat depends on
• Barriers to entry
• Reaction of existing firms
• Barriers to entry
• Product differentiation
• Capital requirements
• Cost advantages
• Access to distribution channels
• Government policy

8. Competitive Force: Suppliers
• A supplier group is powerful if:
• It is dominated by a few companies and is more
concentrated than industry it sells to
• Its product is unique, or differentiated, or has built
up switching costs
• It is not obliged to contend with other products for
sale to industry
• It poses a threat of integrating forward into
industry’s business
• Industry is not an important customer of supplier
group

9. Competitive Force: Buyers
• A buyer group is powerful if:
• It is concentrated or purchases in large volume
• Products purchased from industry are standard or
undifferentiated
• Products purchased from industry form a component
of its product, representing a significant fraction of its
cost
• It earns low profits, creating incentives to lower its
costs
• Industry’s product is unimportant to quality of buyers’
products or services
• Industry’s product does not save buyer money
• Buyer poses credible threat of integrating backward

10. Competitive Force: Substitute Products
• Relevance of substitutes
• By placing a ceiling on prices charged, they limit profit
potential of an industry
• Substitutes deserving the most attention are
those
• Subject to trends improving their price-performance
trade-off with the industry’s product
• Produced by industries earning high profit

11. What Causes Rivalry to be Intense?
競爭力越高 , 利潤被瓜分的越多
• Numerous competitors or they are roughly
equal in size and power
• Slow growth in industry
• Product lacks differentiation or switching costs
• High fixed costs or perishable product
• Capacity normally augmented in large
increments
• High exit barriers
• Rivals are diverse in strategies, origins, and
“personalities”

12. 3. Operating Environment
The operating environment comprises factors in the
competitive situation that affect a firm’s success in
acquiring needed resources or in profitably
marketing its goods and services

13. Factors in the Operating Environment
• Firm’s competitive position
• The composition of its customers
• Its reputation among suppliers and creditors
• Its ability to attract capable employees

14. Constructing competitor profiles
• Market share
• Breadth of product line
• Effectiveness of sales
distribution
• Proprietary and key-account
advantages
• Price competitiveness
• Advertising and promotion
effectiveness
• Location and age of facility
• Capacity and productivity
• Experience
• Raw material costs
• Financial position
• Relative product quality
• R&D advantages position
• Caliber of personnel
• General images
• Customer profile
• Patents and copyrights
• Union relations
• Technological position
• Community reputation

15. III. Internal Analysis
• Resource-based View of the Firm
• Value Chain Analysis
• SWOT Analysis
• Internal Analysis: Making Meaningful
Comparisons

16. What is the Resource-based View of the Firm?
Firms differ in fundamental ways because
each firm possesses a unique “bundle” of
resources – tangible and intangible assets
and organizational capabilities to make use
of those assets.

17. The Three Basic Resources
• Tangible assets
• Easiest to identify and often found on a firm’s balance sheet
• Include physical and financial assets
• Examples: production facilities, raw materials, financial resources
• Intangible assets
• Cannot be seen or touched
• Often very critical in creating competitive advantage
• Examples: brand names, company reputation, company morale
• Organizational capabilities
• Involve skills – ability to combine assets, people, and processes –
used to transform inputs into outputs

18. What Makes a Resource Valuable?
• Competitive superiority:
Does the resource help
fulfill a customer’s need
better than those of the
firm’s competitors?
• Resource scarcity: Is
the resource in short
supply?
• Inimitability: Is the
resource easily copied or
acquired?
• Appropriability: Who
actually gets the profit
created by a resource?
• Durability: How rapidly
will the resource
depreciate?
• Substitutability? Are
other alternatives
available?

19. Isolating Mechanisms
• Physically unique resources
• Resources virtually impossible to imitate
• E.g., one-of-a-kind real estate location, mineral rights,
patents
• Path-dependent resources
– Resources that must be created over time in a manner that
is often expensive and difficult to accelerate
– E.g., Dell Computer’s system of direct sales of customized
PCs via the Internet, Coca-Cola’s brand name, Gerber
Baby Food’s reputation for quality

20. Isolating Mechanisms
• Causal ambiguity
• Situations where it is difficult for competitors to
understand how a firm has created its advantage
• E.g., Southwest Airlines’ approach
• Same plane, routes, gate procedures, number of
attendants
• Culture of fun, family, and frugal yet focused service
• Economic deterrence
• Involves large capital investments in capacity to
produce products or services in a given market that are
scale sensitive

21. Resource Inimitability
(Adapted)
• Easy to imitate
• Cash, commodities
• Can be imitated (but may not be)
• Capacity preemption, economies of scale
• Difficult to imitate
• Brand loyalty, employee satisfaction, reputation for
fairness
• Cannot be imitated
• Patents, unique locations, unique assets

22. Key Resources Across Functional Areas
(Selected)
Marketing
• Firm’s products/services
• Concentration of sales in a few
products or a few customers
• Ability to gather needed
information about markets
• Market share
• Product-service mix and
expansion potential
• Channels of distribution
• Effective sales organization
Financial and Accounting
• Ability to raise short-term
and long-term capital; debt-
equity
• Corporate-level resources
• Cost of capital relative to
competitors
• Tax considerations
• Relations with owners,
investors, and stockholders
• Leverage position
• Cost of entry and barriers to
entry

23. (contd.)
Production, Operations,
Technical
• Raw materials cost and
availability, supplier
relationships
• Inventory control systems
• Location, layout, and use of
facilities
• Economies of scale
• Technical efficiency of facilities
• Effectiveness of subcontracting
use
• Degree of vertical integration
Personnel
• Management personnel
• Employees’ skills and morale
• Labor relations costs
compared to competitors
• Efficiency and effectiveness of
personnel policies
• Effectiveness of incentives
used to motivate performance
• Ability to level peaks and
valleys of employment

24. (contd.)
Quality Management
• Relationships with suppliers,
customers
• Internal practices to enhance
quality of products and
services
• Procedures for monitoring
quality
Information Systems
• Timeliness and accuracy of
information about sales,
operations, cash, and
suppliers
• Relevance of information for
tactical decisions
• Information to manage quality
issues, customer service
• Ability of people to use
information provided

25. (contd.)
Organization and General Management
• Organizational structure
• Firm’s image and prestige
• Firm’s record in achieving objectives
• Organization of communication system
• Organizational climate and culture
• Use of systematic procedures in decision making
• Top management skills, capabilities, and interest
• Strategic planning system
• Intra-organizational synergy

26. What is a Value Chain?
The term value chain describes
a way of looking at a business
as a chain of activities that
transform inputs into outputs
that customers value

27. 技術
產品設
計
製造 行銷 通路 服務廣告