Case Study, Stage 1: Business Environment Analysis

Before you begin this assignment, be sure you have read the “UR UMUC Healthy Fitness Center Case Study.”

Purpose of this Assignment

This assignment gives you the opportunity to apply the concepts of the Porter Five Forces model to a specific business, develop a strategic direction for your Fitness Center, and identify a process that could be improved with the use of technology.  This assignment specifically addresses the following course outcomes to enable you to:

• analyze business strategy to recognize how technology solutions enable strategic outcomes
• analyze internal and external business processes to identify information systems requirements.

Business Environment Analysis for UR UMUC Healthy Fitness Center

The UR UMUC Healthy Fitness Center has been in business since 1980 and has seen an increase in competition from small fitness centers, Cable TV and Internet Exercise channels and sites, Wii and other TV Game Console, various exercise equipment infomercials and increasing supply of Exercise DVD’s . One of your fitness instructors told you that she saw a sign announcing the construction of Gold’s Gym (a well-known national fitness franchise) a few blocks away.  Your staff is worried and is looking to you to provide reassurance that the competition will not affect the business.  In addition, you have decided to develop your strategic direction for bringing the UR UMUC Healthy Fitness Center into the 21^st century.

You know that Michael Porter’s Five Forces Model is a useful tool for analyzing a business, understanding the importance of the five competitive forces and helping to develop its Generic Strategy.  It is also used to aid organizations facing the challenging decisions of dealing with changes made by existing competitors, entering a new industry or industry segment, or developing a strategy for dealing with new competition.  The Five Forces Model helps determine the relative importance of the forces affecting competitive position that could affect the future success of a business.  The Five Forces are:

• Buyer Power
• Supplier power
• Threat of substitute products or services
• Threat of new entrants
• Rivalry among existing competitors

The Five Forces and the Generic Strategy are fully described and discussed in the textbook, and the Business Model and Competitive Advantage are covered in Module 1.  In order to analyze the Fitness Center’s current competitive position and develop a Generic Strategic direction, you have decided to use the Five Forces Model to analyze your Fitness Center business.

Assignment

Using the textbook and external resources, write a short paper 2-3  pages in length, not including References page and cover sheet, responding to the bulleted items below.  Remember to use the APA formatting rules and correctly cite and reference your sources with APA format.  Use the Grading Rubric to be sure you have covered everything.  Submit your paper via your Assignment Folder as a Microsoft Word document with your last name included in the filename.

Create a document that includes the following:

• Brief introduction providing the background of the case, why you are writing and what is to come in your paper.  This should only be 3-5 sentences.