In: Operations Management
If structural change within an industry happens to be very rapid, then Porter’s five forces model of competition has limited predictability. How can fast-pace industry firms - such as technology-driven or e-commerce firms - predict their competition?
In my opinion, the structural change in the rapidly changing industry depends mainly on the development of new technologies. The world is going digital and there are latest technologies in the market such as Artifical Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, and the Internet of Things. These technologies are bringing the changes in the industry. Any technology-driven company would be using one of these technologies to run their business or even to increase the efficiency of their business. So these companies can predict their competition whether they are working on a technology that can provide a competitive edge in the market or using the existing technologies to a new system or a domain to increase the efficiency. The hiring of the employees also tells a lot about the companies and their management strategy. If the company is hiring a lot of people then they are planning to expand their business or when the company is firing employees then they have cost-cutting problem. The investment received by the companies in the market also help us in predicting whey might do next and how they are going to invest the money to make a positive change. Using some of these methods we can predict the competition in the market for the technology-driven companies.