Thomas J Miller III
June 14, 2015
The Competitive Force
Organizations develop business strategies in order to guide the company’s operations toward a competitive business in their respective industry. A business strategy is a plan that a company develops that directs the organization toward achieving their objectives. These objectives could be more customers, increase profits, or expansion in the industry. The purpose of the business strategy for organizations is to structure the business in order to establish a competitive advantage and compete with other businesses in the industry. To ensure a business reach their objective and develop a feasible business strategy, the organization must analyze the competitive forces that might prevent them from their goals.
According to Michael Porter (2008) when developing a business strategy, a company should analyze more than just their competitors when dealing with profits. Other factors should be taken into consideration like customers, suppliers, threat of new businesses, and alternative products. These factors along with rival competitors are the five competitive forces that define the business strategy (Porter, 2008).
The five competitive forces help structure the industry by providing insight to ensure competitiveness among businesses. Each industry differs therefore certain competitive forces may emphasis more than the others. The five competitive forces have their effect on the strategy planning.
Information Technology (IT) Risk to Competitive Advantage
Information technology (IT) plays a key role in an organization’s competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is a concept that illustrates the elements organizations utilize that allow them to perform better than the competitors. Information technology can cause potential risks to a company’s competitive advantage
There are many areas and components of information technology. Information technology allows organizations to store, retrieve, send out, and manipulate information in order to efficiently run their operations. Information technology can potentially bring risks to an organization and affect their competitive advantage. There are five specific areas of IT that is discussed that could potential cause risks to an organization. Software
Software is programs that communicate with a computer or mobile device and direct it to perform specific tasks. Software is categorized as application, system or malware. Application software uses a system to perform tasks or provide entertainment functions. System applications operate the hardware in which it resides and allow the user to operate the system. Malware software is designed to cause harm or disturb a system. A corrupt or damage software might cause harm to the system or
Hardware consists of the physical components that establish a computer system. Hardware depends on software in order to function. The hardware receives instructions from the software and performs tasks it is designed for. For example, a printer is hardware that print copies of information once the software give instructions. Hardware failure can result in data lose and potential cause risk to an organization.
Users are the humans that interact with information technology. The user operates the computer hardware and manipulates the data as well as store information on the hardware. The user can use information technology for personal or for business. Human error or intentional mischief can pose a threat to an organization.
The Internet is a connection of computers on a global scale. It enables communication among computers and allows data to transfer across the Internet. The Internet use internet protocols (IP) addresses that are assigned to computer hardware in order to allow the hardware to connect. An IP address identifies and locates a device or computer hardware. If an organization does not have the proper