BA4302 Strategy in Practice Weekly Assignment #3

Strategy in Practice Weekly Assignment #3

Evaluating a Company’s External Environment

The arrival of a new technology can simultaneously represent both a threat and an opportunity to companies within a particular industry. For example, the Internet has given rise to wholly new business models and has helped some firms well-equipped to the online revolution rise while companies ill-equipped to coping with this disruptive technology falter and fail. A new technology may prove similarly disruptive in the coming years – consumer-accessible three-dimensional (3-D) printing. (If you are not familiar with 3-D printing, an explanation can be found at http://www.3dprinter.net/reference/what-is-3d-printing.)

Please read the information below and perform a Five Forces analysis for the toy industry as it currently stands. Then, tell how consumer-accessible 3-D printing could affect each of these forces. What are the potential opportunities and threats that the spread of consumer-accessible

3-D printing technology poses to incumbent firms (those already competing within the toy industry) and to new entrants (those contemplating competing within the toy industry)?