Topic:

Ideation and Value Proposition Design Submission: Submit the Report on Moodle by (Week 11)
23:55 on Sunday 31 January 2021 Assessment type: Group Written Report, 2500 words (Summative).
Value: 20% Assessment purpose: This assessment will allow students to be able to demonstrate their
knowledge about the Competitive Strategy of a business in the IT/IS industry. What are the five forces
the business may face according to Porter's Five Force Model? The students are also required to identify
the core competencies and competitive advantages of the business. This assessment contributes to the
learning outcome b and d. Assessment topic: Group Written Report Task details: Choose an IT/IS
technology company and discuss and present the following of that particular company: 1) Background
of the business and its innovative products/services and growth over time. 2) How the external
environment of the business can be explained using Porter’s Five Forces Model? 3) Identify the core
competencies and competitive advantages of the business. 4) Discuss the marketing strategy of the
business that contributed to make their innovations successful. 5) Analyse how the investments made
by the business helped develop successful innovative products/ services.

Answer :
Chosen IT Technology company is Birlasoft

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Background of the business:

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Founded in 1995 by the CK Birla Group, Birlasoft is a multinational Information Technology services

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provider. It has a global footprint and best-in-class delivery centres in India and China. It mainly

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operates in the fields of Banking, Manufacturing and Financial Services, Media and Healthcare Industry,
and Insurance.

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Head Quarters:
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• Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
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Key People:
• Chairman - Amita Birla
• Chief Executive Officer (CEO) - Anjan Lahiri
• Chief Financial Officer(CFO) – Rajeev Kachhal
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• Chief Operating Officer(COO) – Dharmender Kapoor

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A number of employees:
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• More than 4000 employees

Official Websites:
• www.birlasoft.com
Achievements:
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• Birlasoft Achieves SAP Accreditation for Partner Quality Program for 2015.
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• Birlasoft wins at Big Data & Business Analytics Awards 2014 for Connected BI
Framework.
• Birlasoft Enables Customers to Gain from End-to-End IT Governance Solutions Enable
Path, a Birlasoft Company, Announces Gold Sponsorship of Dreamforce, 2014.
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• Birlasoft and Swiss Re Win 18th Annual Outsourcing Excellence Awards.

• Birlasoft Emerges Winner of European IT & Software Excellence Awards 2014.
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Services:
13. Digital
• Customer Experience
• Data Analytics
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• Connected products
• Intelligent Automation
• Cloud
• Blockchain
Growth over Time:
Michael Porter’s five forces is a model used to explore the environment in which a product or company
(or business unit) operates.:

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 Five forces analysis looks at five key areas mainly the threat of entry, the power of buyers, the power of
suppliers, the threat of substitutes, and competitive rivalry.
The Five Forces model of Porter is an ‘outside looking in’ business unit strategy tool that is used to make
an analysis of the attractiveness or value of an industry structure.
The Competitive Forces analysis is made by the identification of 5 fundamental competitive forces:
• The entry of competitors (how easy or difficult is it for new entrants to start to compete,
which barriers do exist)
• The threat of substitutes (how easy can our product or service be substituted, especially
cheaper)
• The bargaining power of buyers (how strong is the position of buyers, can they work
together to order large volumes)
• The bargaining power of suppliers (how strong is the position of sellers, are there many
or only a few potential suppliers, is there a monopoly)
• The rivalry among the existing players (is there a strong competition between the existing
players, is one player very dominant or all equal in strength/size)
Some academics believe that a sixth force could be included – government.
The Original Five Factors:
1) Threat of New Entrants –

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The easier it is for new companies to enter the industry, the more cut-throat competition there will be.
Factors that can limit the threat of new entrants are known as barriers to entry. Some examples include:

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• Existing loyalty to major brands

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• Incentives for using a particular buyer (such as frequent shopper programs)

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• High fixed costs

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• Scarcity of resources
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• Government restrictions or legislation
• Entry protection (patents, rights, etc.)
• Economies of product differences
• Brand equity
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• Switching costs or sunk costs

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• Capital requirements
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• Access to distribution
• Absolute cost advantages
• Learning curve advantages
• Expected retaliation by incumbents
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2) Power of Suppliers
This is how much pressure suppliers can place on a business. If one supplier has a large enough impact
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to affect a company’s margins and volumes, then they hold substantial power. Here are a few reasons
that suppliers might have power:
• There are very few suppliers of a particular product
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• There are no substitutes

• The product is extremely important to the buyer; they cannot do without it
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• The supplying industry has higher profitability than the buying industry
• Supplier switching costs relative to firm switching costs
• Degree of differentiation of inputs
• Presence of substitute inputs
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• Supplier concentration to the firm concentration ratio

• The threat of forwarding integration by suppliers relative to the threat of backward
integration by firms
• Cost of inputs relative to the selling price of the product
3) Power of Buyers/ Customers

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 This is how much pressure customers can place on a business. If one customer has a large enough
impact to affect a company’s margins and volumes, then they hold substantial power. Here are a few
reasons that customers might have power
• A small number of buyers
• Purchases of large volumes
• Switching to another (competitive) product is simple
• The product is not extremely important to the buyer; they can do without it for a period
of time.
• Customers are price sensitive
• Buyer concentration to the firm concentration ratio
• Bargaining leverage
• Buyer volume
• Buyer switching costs relative to firm switching costs
• Buyer information availability
• Ability to backwards integrate
• Availability of existing substitute products
• Buyer price sensitivity
• Price of the total purchase

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4) Availability of Substitutes
What is the likelihood that someone will switch to a competitive product or service? If the cost of

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switching is low, then this poses to be a serious threat. Here are a few factors that can affect the threat of

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substitutes:

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• Buyer propensity to substitute

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• The relative price performance of substitutes
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• Buyer switching costs
• Perceived level of product differentiation
• Fad and fashion
• Technology change and product innovation
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The main issue is the similarity of substitutes. For example, if the price of coffee rises substantially, a
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coffee drinker is likely to switch over to a beverage like tea because the products are so similar.
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• If substitutes are similar, then it can be viewed in the same light as a new entrant.
• Consider technology substitutes (who would have thought that MP3 technology would
replace tape & CD’s?)
5) Competitive Rivalry
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And last but not least, this describes the intensity of competition between existing firms in an industry.
Highly competitive industries generally earn low returns because the cost of competition is high. A
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highly competitive market might result from:

• Many players of about the same size, no dominant firm.
• Little differentiation between competitors products and services.
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• A mature industry with very little growth.

• Companies can only grow by stealing customers away from competitors.
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For many industries, this is the major determinant of the competitiveness of the industry. Sometimes
rivals compete aggressively and sometimes rivals compete in non-price dimensions such as innovation,
marketing, etc.
• Number of competitors
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• Rate of industry growth

• Intermittent industry overcapacity
• Exit barriers
• Diversity of competitors
• Informational complexity and asymmetry
• Fixed cost allocation per value-added
• Level of advertising expense

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 Core Competencies and Competitive advantages of the business
• Business core competencies are Birla soft company's unique abilities, products and
services that give it a competitive advantage in your industry and market.
• Personal core competencies are akin to the skills you search for on résumés when hiring
new employees for your company.
• There are viable strategies for identifying your core competencies and acting on them,
but you should be careful not to misidentify your core competencies.
Marketing strategy of the business that contributed to making their innovations successful:
Media and Entertainment are undergoing a profound paradigm shift in the way content is created,
distributed and consumed.
Global content creators, marketers and distributors find themselves with unprecedented opportunities
for disruptive innovation in all aspects of the content value chain.
Our solutions, strategic advisory services and system integration offerings allow Birlasoft to provide a
tactical, holistic and flexible vision that enables bold transformation.
Following Investments made by the business helped develop successful innovative products/services:
Today's organizations function in real-time, integrated ecosystems where quick decisions must be made
based on a steady stream of information from sources like wearable devices, smart assets, and
intelligent machines. The complexity of integration has increased dramatically, but the expectation to

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provide access to intuitive, uninterrupted and safe technologies for operations persist.
Birlasoft works with organizations in its focus industries to transform their operational processes,

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improve stakeholder experience, and discover new business models. We help them to realize quick

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value, streamline operations, improve compliance, and better manage assets in the factory, on the field,

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or wherever the customer is.

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