BUSINESS WRITING

Academic Business Writing

Academic Business Writing

Introduction

The music industry inculcates companies as well as individuals that earn revenues via making and selling of music. As a matter of fact, among such individuals and organizations, there are composers who, by and large, compose music - record and sell music under the umbrella of certain record labels. The emergence of music industry can be traced back to 20th century, where the records took over the place of music sheets in the world of music. With the passage of time, the music industry has been transforming due to its digital distribution. Many of the companies have changed their way of operations, from physical distribution, now companies like Apple Inc. have its own digital store, where users purchase their favourite music whenever they want (Hull et. al., 2011, 291).

Competitive advantage has many facets, and there is no any single definition to it. In fact, competitive advantage is one of the most favourable positions for any organization. Competitive advantage, as a matter of fact, involves communication of enhanced perceived value to a particular target market (Grant, 2013, 264). The achievement of competitive advantage has many dimensions, such as, better quality product or level of service, lower prices, enhanced customer support etc. However, within this, the sustainable competitive advantage refers to maintaining the idea of competitive advantage over the period of time. Hence, the focus of this paper will remain over the business competitive strategy within the music industry, using Michael Porter's competitive advantage.

Discussion

The five forces model by Michael Porter was proposed in the year 1980. As a matter of fact, this tool allows marketers to create the enhanced value of through effective business operations. Following is the description of this competitive model within the music industry (Grundy, 2006, 229):

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

This force, within the fives forces model, is essential in ascertaining the overall attractiveness of industry in terms of power of suppliers. However, the powerful suppliers curtail the potential of profit in an industry. In fact, the bargaining power of Suppliers becomes high if there are lower numbers of substitutes and the product supplied is limited in quantity. The main supplier within the music industry is the way through which music labels get penetration into music. These include the artists as well as their managers. However, the value of artists or suppliers is high mainly due to the uniqueness of their voice. In addition to that, there are also other factors whose bargaining power is low as compared to such artists, these includes material suppliers, like of discs, casings, packaging etc.

Bargaining power of Customers

Bargaining power of customer is another facet which has potential to assess the effectiveness of industry. However, within the music industry, the customers are of two types: individual and corporate customers. Individual customers are those who listen to music and purchase it either at physical store or online. The bargaining power of individual listeners is high, because the notion of piracy has compelled the music industry to drop ...