Porter’s Five Forces Model

Porter’s 5 Forces Model is a business model and a tool which helps in identifying main competitive forces of an industry or a sector. The 5 Forces Model is mainly used to create a corporate strategy which will help a company to enhance its long- term profitability.

Understanding Porter’s Five Forces Model

The 5 Forces Model was created by Harvard Business School’s Professor Michael E. Porter and was published in his book “Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors” in 1980. The model was created to explain why various industries are able to maintain varying level of profitability. Porter’s 5 Forces helps in analyzing the industry of the company so that a company can adjust their corporate strategy, boost their profitability and beat their competition.

What are the five forces of the Porter’s Model?

  • Competition in the industry
  • Potential of new entrants into the industry
  • Power of Suppliers
  • Power of Customers
  • Threat of substitute products

Competition in the Industry

For most industry, the level of competition in the industry determines the positioning of the product in the market. The intense the competition in the market, the more the company has to focus on innovation, marketing, price, etc. of the product. When the competition is less, a company has more authority to charge higher prices and establish the terms of deals in order to increase sales and profits.

Potential of New Entrants into the Industry

A company’s positioning is also affected by the new entrants in the market.  This in turn puts pressure on prices, costs, and the rate of investment needed to sustain a business within the industry. The less the time, money and effort it takes for a competitor to enter the market, more is the threat for a company to lose its market share. On the contrary, if there are strong barriers to entry in the industry, companies more secure about their market share.

Power of Suppliers

Power of suppliers in a market means how easily suppliers can increase the cost of the inputs. The suppliers’ power in the market is determined by the factors like number of suppliers in the market, uniqueness of the inputs they provide, cost of switching a supplier for a company. If the number of suppliers in an industry is less, a company would depend more on its current supplier, thus giving more power to supplier in terms of cost of inputs and other advantages in trade. However, if the suppliers are more in the market, then company has the advantage of switching the supplier in case the supplier increases the price or if a company finds a cheap supplier, thus keeping their input costs low and increasing their profitability.

Power of Customers

Customers are more powerful in an industry when there are less number of customers in an industry and more number of suppliers. Because the client base for a company is smaller and more strong, each customer has greater negotiating leverage to get better rates and deals. A company with a large number of smaller, independent consumers will find it easier to raise prices and increase profits.

Threat of Substitute Products

A substitute is a product or service that can be easily replaced with another by consumers. In economics, products are often substitutes if the demand for one product increases when the price of the other goes up. When there are no close substitutes in the market, a company can take advantage of charging higher prices. However, if there is availability of close substitutes, customers will switch to substitutes in case of increase of the prices of the products of a company.

Understanding Porter’s Five Forces and how they apply to a particular industry can help a company change its business plan to make better use of its resources and generate more profits for its shareholders.

International Relations

Introduction

The term ‘international relations’ was first used by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century, although its Latin equivalent, ‘intergentes‘, was used a century earlier by Rijehare Zouche. Both of them had used the term in the context of what later came to be known as international law. Today, nation states have become highly interdependent, and relations between them, political or economic, have developed into an essential area of knowledge.

The term ‘international relations’ (IR) may be used both for a ‘condition’ and a ‘discipline’ Quincy Wright, for example, makes such a distinction. The official relations between sovereign countries are described as international relations, though according to Wright, ‘… the word “interstate” would have been more accurate because in political science, the state came to be the term applied to such societies’. Viewed thus, international relations, as a condition, refers to the facts of international life, that is to say, the actual conduct of relations among nations through diplomacy based on foreign policy. It also includes actual areas of cooperation, conflict and war. According to Quincy Wright, IR should tell the ‘truth about the subject’, i.e., how such relations are conducted and, as a discipline, IR should treat them in a systematic and scientific manner.

Meaning Of International Relations

International relations as a subject is concerned with the relationships among the governments of various sovereign states. Many people may think that relations among nations are regulated and conducted by presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, officials of the foreign offices and diplomats. This is partially true. The scope of international relations is not merely political. Today, economic activities such as international trade, role of multinational corporations, terrorist activities and impact of environment are all embraced in the fold of relations among nations.

Most scholars agree that the term ‘international politics’ is used to describe official political relations between governments acting on behalf of their states. The term ‘international relations’ is broader. According to Stanley Hoffman, ‘The discipline of international relations is concerned with the factors and activities which affect the external policies and power of the basic units into which the world is divided.’

International Relations As A Field Of Study

As a field of study, international relations analyses a wide range of political activities. These include war, peace, diplomacy, trade relations, treaties, alliances, cultural, exchanges, participation in international organizations, etc. Each of these activities makes up distinct issue areas on which scholars and foreign policy makers focus attention.

The scope of international relations is often defined by subtitles, like ‘questions of war and peace’ as a subtitle of international security. Joshua S Goldstein wrote, ‘the movements of armies and of diplomats, the crafting of treaties and alliances, the development and deployment of military capabilities – these are the subjects that dominated the study of IR in the past… and they continue to hold central position in the field.’

Besides these, religious groups and movements working in two or more countries also act as non-state actors in the international relations. These may include large followers as the Catholic Church has, or a spread out population as sought to be represented by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

References

International Relations By V N KHANNA and LESLIE K KUMAR

Bio-diversity and climate change (Nature’s cries for assistance)

Bio diversity is the biological variability of life on earth. It is the variation of animal, plants, fungi and microorganisms like bacteria. Biodiversity is a variation in the genetic, species, and ecosystem level. Terrestrial biodiversity is usually greater near to the equator. Biodiversity is not equally distributed on earth. There are only 10% of tropical evergreen forests on earth but they contain about 90% of world species. Marine Biodiversity is greater is usually higher along the coast in western pacific where the sea temperature is highest. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots and has been increasing through time. Biodiversity supports everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, medicine, and shelter.

But as people put expanding weight on the planet, utilizing and devouring more assets than ever some time recently, we hazard disquieting the adjust of biological systems and losing biodiversity. Quick natural changes regularly cause mass terminations. More than 99.9 percent of all species that ever lived on Soil, producing to over five billion species, are evaluated to be terminated. In 2006, numerous species were formally classified as uncommon or imperiled or undermined; in addition, researchers have assessed that millions more species are at chance which have not been formally recognized. Approximately 40 percent of the 40,177 species surveyed utilizing the IUCN Ruddy List criteria are presently recorded as undermined with extinction—a add up to of 16,119.

The factors affecting the biodiversity are Residential & commercial development, Farming activities, Energy production & mining, Transportation & service corridors and human activities. Pollution is an another major cause of loss of biodiversity causing habitat destruction. Territory devastation has played a key part in terminations, particularly in connection to tropical woodland pulverization. Components contributing to living space misfortune incorporate: overconsumption, overpopulation, arrive utilize alter, deforestation, contamination (discuss contamination, water contamination, soil defilement) and worldwide warming or climate alter.

Climate change is the long-term alteration of temperature and normal climate designs in short. Climate alter might allude to a specific area or the planet as a entire. Climate alter may cause climate designs to be less unsurprising. These unforeseen climate designs can make it troublesome to preserve and develop crops in districts that depend on cultivating since anticipated temperature and rainfall levels can now not be depended on. Climate alter has too been associated with other harming climate occasions such as more visit and more seriously tropical storms, surges, deluges, and winter storms.

Effects of climate change are Hotter temperatures Nearly all land areas are seeing more hot days and heat waves; 2020 was one of the hottest years on record. Higher temperatures increase heat-related illnesses and can make it more difficult to work and move around. Wildfires start more easily and spread more rapidly when conditions are hotter. More extreme storms Changes in temperature cause changes in precipitation. This comes about in more extreme and visit storms. They cause flooding and avalanches, pulverizing homes and communities, and costing billions of dollars. Many more effects like Droughts, Rise in the level of oceans, shortage of food and more health problems.

Securing biodiversity could be a exceptionally complex errand since most of human’s activities have a negative impact on biological systems by overexploiting them. For occurrence, human exercises create contamination that influences living species. Deforestation crushes the living space of numerous animals, reptiles, and plants. Limiting deforestation Reducing the artificialization of natural environments and preserve natural areas as much as possible Reduce air pollution (by limiting our use of transport and our energy consumption, by switching to renewable energies) Fighting global warming by creating regulations for activities that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Making changes in the way industrial agriculture works and using more agroecology methods.

Top 7 Mobile Phones Under Rs15000 – Best Smartphones under Rs15000 in India

The availability of smartphones have made the price range significantly lower than what it would have cost a decade ago. This is due to competitions amongst the best selling companies where affordability and specifications played an important role.

POCOX3

POCO X3, with only 13,999 comes with 6GB RAM and 64 GB ROM which is expandable up to 512 GB. It is 6.7 inch with Full HD Display. Not only that the camera( Rear- 64MP+13MP+2MP+2MP, Front20MP) is excellent, it also comes with a 6000mAh LiPo  battery which is exceptionally good for gaming and that the battery could last up to 2days without charging. It contains Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G Processor which works super duper fast.

The reason why I kept this on top list is because I have experience using the smartphone and I love the fact that it does not hang ornheat up like most phone does. I highly recommend customers to buy this because with that amount, there is no other smartphone better than this.

SamsungGalaxyF22

Samsung Galaxy F22 is as good as POCO X3 in comparison with the battery offering 6000mAh and 15W charger. The smartphone ranging ₹14,999-15,999 comes with 6GB RAM | 64GB ROM with AMOLED Display and 90Hz refresh rate. It is 6.4 inch and has 48MP Quad Camera.

I recommend the smartphone to all the camera lovers who consume hours taking selfies and videos.

RedmiNote10S

Redmi Note10S is launched recently containing Android 11,MIUI 12.5 and Octa Core Processor. It is 6.23 inches with AMOLED Display and has 13MP Front Camera. Although the battery is 5000mAh Li-Po l, it is still better than most smartphones under ₹15,000. The price of this smartphone is ₹14,999 and comes with 64GM RAM | 128GB ROM

With the price, smartphones like this is rare to find. Many smartphone users face difficulties because of the storage and this perfectly fits the position.

POCO M3Pro

POCO M3 Pro comes with 4/6GB RAM | 64GB ROM, 5000mAh battery along with 18W fast charging. It is 6.5inch and has 90Hz refresh rate and is only ₹13,999.

POCO is one of the best MIUI products and because nod the updated Android version, I can assure the smartphone will do anyone a great deal.

Realme 8

Realme 8 is different from many smartphones ranging between ₹14,999-₹15,999 because it is a 5G smartphone. The battery 5000mAh as well as the camera 48MPRear, 16MP Front is for selfie lovers and gamers. It also comes with 90Hz refresh rate, 6.5 inch display and offers 4GB RAM | 64 GB ROM.

The bright side of the smartphone is that it contains features that other normal smartphone doesn’t.

Realme 7i

Realme 7i comes with 6.5inch and HD+LCD Display which gives a better resolution. The processor is Qualcomm Snapdragon 662Octa Core and the battery is 5000mAh with the camera 64Mp+8MP+2MP+2MP- Rear, 14MP Front. In just ₹14,999, one can get up to 4GB RAM | 128GB ROM. It is exceptionally good for gaming because it does not lag.

Oneplus5T

Oneplus 5T is a 6.1 inch smartphone and comes with 3300mAh, Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Processor and 16MP Rear and Front camera. One can get 6GB RAM | 64GB ROM in just ₹14,999.

Oneplus being one of the best smartphone brands, I highly recommend the smartphone to customers who are indulge in doing projects and works.

Butterflies🦋

Have you ever seen a baby butterfly? Me neither because they don’t exist🤭. Butterfly is the adult form of caterpillar. But who gave butterflies the right to be this beautiful🥺, they are a treat to eyes. All the colors they display with so much variety in shapes and patterns is just breathtaking. They indicate biodiversity but sadly the change in climate and the shift in weather is slowly making these creatures to go extinct. Since, they are known to react quickly on climate change and to see them struggling to survive is a serious indication and warning of global warming.

Photo by Madison Inouye on Pexels.com

let’s look at some amazing facts about butterflies.

Butterflies can fly with a speed of 12 miles per hour.Their size can differ from as tiny as 1/8 inch to a huge 12 inches.

Their wings are made up a substance called chitin and are transparent in real. All the colors we see are a reflection of various colors through the thousands of scales present in them.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

There are about 24,000 butterfly species on this earth. Antarctica is the only place to be devoid of their presence.

The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve is located in Mexico. Millions of butterflies travel from Texas. The trees are filled with butterflies and appear orange in color. The goal of reserve is to protect the butterfly species and their habitat.

They have their taste receptors on their feet. Their legs help them in locating the best plants and are evn used by them to choose plants for laying eggs.

Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels.com

Their average lifespan is of a 3-4 weeks. One species of butterfly lives only upto 24 hours and some migratory butterflies can live for about 8 months.

Butterflies are cold blooded hence, require ideal settings. They can’t fly if their temperature is less than 85 degrees. Some species migrate to warm places when the temperature begins to drop.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Butterflies are health conscious and so they follow liquid diet. Lol. Actually they don’t have the necessary apparatus that helps in chewing instead they have a straw like structure that helps them in sucking nectar from flowers.

Their wings are a great defense against enemies. All the color and patterns are actually to scare predators away. And also they have 4 wings not 2. Forewings, that are close to the head and hindwings, at the back.

Photo by Aenic Visuals on Pexels.com

First Olympic Gold Medal for Bermuda

Olympics is a leading international sports event held every four years. With more than 200 participant nations.

Each year hundreds of athletes from all over the world gather at the host country and rival each other for first place in different events. This year Bermuda,  a British island territory in North Atlantic which first participated in the games in the year 1936. Witnessed a major development as Flora Duffy wins first-ever gold for the country in triathlon.

Who is Flora Duffy?Duffy, a 33-year-old female athlete who was diagnosed with anemia in 2013. But still, she managed to bounce back. She is also a two-time former world triathlon series champion.

What is Triathlon?Triathlon is a grueling race made up of a one-mile open water swim, 25 miles of biking, and a run of 4.6 miles.


The 33-year-old finished with a time of 1hour55:36 minutes. Her opponent, Georgia Taylor-Brown ended in second place took a minute more than her. Third place was secured by the Katie Zaferes of the United States.