Could the Porter’s Five Forces model still be useful today

To help you integrate your learning each week and to help you demonstrate your subject matter expertise, you will complete a weekly blog-style post that focuses on one or more of the topics covered that week. Each of the 8 weekly posts must be a minimum of 100 words in length (including the post title) with no maximum limitation. Posts should be tailored to fit the personal/professional brand and/or expertise that you’re trying to develop.

Your weekly application posts should go beyond merely reiterating what was covered in the course materials. They should show your target audience(s) how to apply marketing concepts, techniques, or technologies to real-world problems or opportunities for which they have an interest. Although the tone, style, voice, and mood of your writing is up to you, be sure to consider what would work best for your target audiences. To build and maintain your professional expertise, it is imperative that you do not use words like “professor,” “class,” “course,” or other words (e.g., “this week we learned about…”) that infer your role in these posts is one of being a student. Posts that infer student status will receive grades of zero.

Below are some ideas of topics or areas that you could write about for this assignment:

Topics:

• Could the Porter’s Five Forces model still be useful today?  If so, how is it valuable to marketers?
• How can marketers incorporate the concepts of Clay Christensen’s “disruption” and how will this help them be more successful from a strategy perspective?
• What does Clay Christensen mean when he says that in the failure of particular firms or industries, there were no “stupid managers.”  How is this important from a strategic perspective vs. a tactical one?
• Where is there potential for low-end disruption in your particular industry (no examples from class please!)?
• What is the strategic value for marketers of understanding low-end disruption?
• How can design thinking be important for marketing strategy?
• How could you apply design thinking to a marketing issue in your industry from a strategic perspective?
• Why is process thinking or systems thinking important for marketers with respect to strategy, growth, and sustainability of the organization and the industry?
• How can (lean) six sigma’s use of process thinking help marketers and marketing?
• How can critical thinking and reflective journaling with respect to the marketer worldview help from tactical and strategic levels?
• How does perception relate to worldview and vice versa?  Why is it important to marketers?
• How can a quantitative understanding of product cannibalization help marketers from a strategic perspective?
• Any other topics that relate to what was covered this week in class or online.