MAKENI UNIVERSITY COLLEE (MUC

BUSINESS STUDIES – YR 2
MIS PROJECT ASSIGNMENT
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Assuming you are a consultant who has been engaged to

advise an organization (choose any organization of your
choice) on the development of an MIS strategy.

a. Discuss with the organization the effectiveness of Porter’s Competitive Forces

Model and his Value Chain Analysis process.

As a consultant who has been engaged to advise an organization Knowing who your
competition is and how their products, services and marketing strategies affect you is
critical to your survival. Whether you are a Fortune 500 company or a small, local
business, competition has a direct influence on your success.

One way to analyze your competition and understand your standing in this organization
is using Porter's Five Forces model. Originally developed by Harvard Business School's
Michael E. Porter in 1979, the five forces model looks at five specific factors that
determine whether or not a business can be profitable in relation to other businesses in
the organization. Using Porter's Five Forces in conjunction with a SWOT analysis will
help to understand where the organization or business fits in the industry landscape.

Porter's Five Forces is considered a macro tool in business analytics – it looks at the
industry's economy as whole, while a SWOT analysis is a micro analytical tool, focusing
on a specific company's data and analysis.
Understanding the competitive forces, and their underlying causes, reveals the roots of
an industry's current profitability while providing a framework for anticipating and
influencing competition (and profitability) over time, Porter wrote in a Harvard Business
Review article. A healthy industry structure should be as much a competitive concern to
strategists as their company's own position.

Porter theorized that understanding both the competitive forces at play and the overall
industry structure are crucial for effective, strategic decision-making, and developing a
compelling competitive strategy for the future. Porter Theorized using concepts from
industrial organization economics to analyze five interacting factors critical for an
industry to become and remain competitive: industry competition, threat of new
entrants, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and bargaining power of
suppliers.

In Porter's model, the five forces that shape organization competition are

1. Competitive rivalry

This force examines how intense the competition is in the marketplace. It considers the
number of existing competitors and what each one can do. Rivalry competition is high
when there are just a few businesses selling a product or service, when the organization
is growing and when consumers can easily switch to a competitor's offering for little
cost. When rivalry competition is high, advertising and price wars ensue, which can hurt
a business's bottom line.

2. The bargaining power of suppliers

This force analyzes how much power a business's supplier has and how much control it
has over the potential to raise its prices, which, in turn, lowers a business's profitability. It
also assesses the number of suppliers of raw materials and other resources that are
available. The fewer supplier there are, the more power they have. Businesses are in a
better position when there are multiple suppliers.

3. The bargaining power of customers

This force examines the power of the consumer, and their effect on pricing and quality.
Consumers have power when they are fewer in number but there are plentiful sellers
and it's easy for consumers to switch. Conversely, buying power is low when consumers
purchase products in small amounts and the seller's product is very different from that
of its competitors.

4. The threat of new entrants

This force considers how easy or difficult it is for competitors to join the marketplace.
The easier it is for a new competitor to gain entry, the greater the risk is of an
established business's market share being depleted. Barriers to entry include absolute
cost advantages, access to inputs, economies of scale and strong brand identity.

5. The threat of substitute products or services

This force studies how easy it is for consumers to switch from a business's product or
service to that of a competitor. It examines the number of competitors, how their prices
and quality compare to the business being examined, and how much of a profit those
competitors are earning, which would determine if they can lower their costs even more.
The threat of substitutes is informed by switching costs, both immediate and long-term,
as well as consumers' inclination to change.

Porter has contributed the value-chain analysis model, which is:

Value Chain Analysis helps identify ways the organization can create the best value for
your customers. Value Chain Analysis is a three step process:

1. Activity Analysis – identify all the activities involved to deliver your product or service.

2. Value Analysis – identify what to be done for each of the activity to add the greatest
value to your customer.

3. Evaluating and Planning – Evaluate if it is worth implementing it and then plan for
action.

Although there are some critics like the Blue Ocean Strategy, Porter is regarded as one
of the best management thinkers in the world.
b. Use the organization you selected to describe five (5) reasonable ways in which

internet can enable its MIS functionalities.

1. A management information system (MIS) happens to be a computerized

database of distinct financial information prepared and programmed to

generate regular reports on each management level’s operations in an

organization. With the usage of computers being global, there is no business

that does not depend broadly on their IT systems.

2. Nevertheless, there tend to be some specific sectors where MIS has become
indispensable. Even though computers cannot develop business strategies,

they can help the management understand the impact of their strategy, and
assist in making effective decision making.

3. The internet is essential because it can enable MIS systems to transform data

into vital information for decision making. Computers can offer financial
statements and production reports to help plan, monitor, and execute a

strategy.

4. The internet can also help the MIS systems provide valuable functions in that
they aggregate into coherent reports, inconvenient data volumes that could

otherwise be widely pointless to decision-makers. Therefore, through the

study of these reports, decision-makers can recognize patterns and trends

which would have remained unnoticed if the raw data got manually consulted.
5. Lastly, the internet can enable MIS systems functionality by using the raw data

to run replications – hypothetical schemes that answer a scope of ‘what if’

queries concerning changes