Porter's Five Forces Model Of The Paper Industry

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Application of Porter’s Five Forces Model yields some very interesting discoveries when applied to the pulp and paper industries. The model, as discussed in our textbook, attempts to evaluate how well an industry can generate profits by examination of intensity of rivalry, treat of new entrants into the industry, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and bargaining power of suppliers (Parnell, 2014). While I know from personal experience that it is not easy to be profitable in the paper business, applying the model does provide some insight into the reasons why those difficulties exist. Examination of the eight factors of rivalry intensity shows a number of competitors with many of them producing very similar product lines. …show more content…

Newsprint used to be International Paper’s main product, but it is no longer produced by that company since it was so unprofitable (‘A Short History of”, 1998). Very few companies manufacture newsprint anymore due to the fact that most people get their news via radio, television, and various other internet sources. Emails and social media posts have all but replaced Christmas, birthday, and get-well cards. Magazines are read online, Christmas catalogs have been replaced by online sales, and the vast majority of our junk mail has been transformed into spam in our email boxes. Corrugated and cardboard boxes have been replaced by plastic “clamshells”. Even our government has gotten into the act of reducing paper by forcing the use of electronic health records in the 2010 Affordable Care Act (“Key Features of the”, 2015). Because paper products are used in so many different applications, there is virtually no end to the substitute products which are …show more content…

Dell, Tyson, Samsung, and watermelon farms purchase boxes to ship their products to stores and occasionally directly to consumers. Grocery stores and fast food restaurants purchase paper sacks to hold the customer’s goods. McDonalds and Starbucks acquire the coffee cups directly from the manufacturer. Cutsize paper is purchased and distributers, like Wal-Mart, Staples, and Office Max, break the pallets and sale individual reams and cartons to consumers. The vast majority of the buyers of paper are major customers, and they often prefer generic products; therefore purchasers have tremendous bargaining power. Manufacturers attempted to raise prices in the mid 2000’s, but they met with strong opposition and the efforts failed (“Paper business in mature”’, 2013). Even when manufacturers shifted modes and found methods to produce paper more cheaply by increasing productivity as much as 30%; buyers demanded, and received lower prices from the

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