Hitachi Ltd is a Japanese conglomerate and multinational company. It is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Hitachi ltd, is the parent company of Hitachi Group. Hitachi Group is highly diversified and operating in eleven major industries or business segment. It is working in; Social infrastructure, information and telecommunication system, high functional components and materials, power system, financial services, Electronic system, Automotive system, Digital media, Railway system, other components, and construction machinery. The Group is working its best to achieve milestone in each of its business segment. Hitachi limited is growing each year, and currently employing 33,490 employees. The sales of the company in March 2019 was 1,927,241 Million Yen (Hitachi Global, 2019).
Hitachi ltd is one of the leading companies and has to face immense competition in the industry. As the company is operating in different segments, it is necessary to identify the competition analysis. Porter Five forces analysis helps in understanding and identifying the competitive forces. The model assists in underlying the causes of competition and current profitability of any industry. The model provides the framework for influencing and anticipating the competition over a period of time. Here is the detailed Porter five forces analysis of Hitachi;
Bargaining Power of Buyers
Customers paly major factor in this force. The more bargaining power they have, the more impact they will have on prices. Hence, companies will set the prices by analysing their bargaining power. However, the bargaining power depends on multiple factors, like if the switching cost for the consumers will be high, there will be low bargaining power. If the consumers will have more options for a commodity, then they will have high power. In addition to this, the consumers of Hitachi have moderate buying power. As the Group is involved in eleven business segment and every business line has new consumer base to attract. The company takes care of its customers by meeting their changing demands (Hitachi report, 2019).
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
As the bargaining power of suppliers affect the profitability of the company. The high prices charge by the suppliers means more cost of production for the company and low profit margin. But, if in the industry, buyers will be less than suppliers, bargaining power of suppliers will be low. However, in case of Hitachi, the bargaining power of the suppliers fluctuates between low to high. The suppliers will have less impact in the automotive industry, as numerous suppliers are present. But their influences will be more in construction industry, as special equipment are available with few suppliers. Regardless of this, the group gives high regards to its suppliers maintains good relationship with them (Annual integrated report, 2019).
Threats of New Entrants
Threats from the new entrants is moderate in case of Hitachi Group. This is mainly because of the diversified business lines of a group. However, threat of the new entrants is a major factor which is limited because of many other factors. High capitalisation cost is required to operate in the automotive or electronic or railway industry. New entrants have to compete with the big competitor like Hitachi, who has a huge customer base and a big brand name. Developing and managing the huge distribution network is difficult for the new firms. Moreover, there is a risk of squeezed out by the big rivals (Marketstructure, 2019).
Threats from the Substitute Products
Hitachi Group is facing moderate level of threat from the substitute products. This is mainly because it has diversified its business line in different segments to mitigate the risks. However, in every business segment, it has to compete with rivals and make sure to produce best innovative products so that customers cannot switch to alternate. For example, the group is involved in railways system. The substitute of it is cars, tubes, or taxis. Hitachi has to maintain its services and systems to retain the consumers (Integrated report, 2019).
Rivalry of Existing Players
As the Group is diversified in different business lines, it is facing competition in every industry it is operating. For example, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Fujitsu, NEC, etc, are competing in the electric, information and equipment systems. The Group has a pressure to maintain the market position in every industry, by focusing on the activities of the rivals. It needs to bring more innovative and differentiated products in every business line to achieve its goals (Craft, 2019).
References
Annual integrated report, 2019. A business foundation that supports sustainable growth. [Online], Available at: file:///C:/Users/CC/Dropbox/Business%20Law/ar2019e_26.pdf, [Accessed on: 3rd December, 2019].
Craft, 2019. Hitachi Competitors. [Online], Available at: https://craft.co/hitachi/competitors, [Accessed on: https://craft.co/hitachi/competitors, [Accessed on: 3rd December, 2019].
Hitachi Global, 2019. About Hitachi ltd. [Online], Available at: http://www.hitachi.com/corporate/about/hitachi/index.html, [Accessed on: 3rd December, 2019].
Integrated Report, 2019. The Hitachi’s group growth strategy. [Online], Available at: file:///C:/Users/CC/Dropbox/Business%20Law/ar2019e_12.pdf, [Accessed on: 3rd December, 2019].
Market structure, 2019. Porters five forces. [Online], Available at: file:///C:/Users/CC/Dropbox/Business%20Law/portersfiveforces.pdf, [Accessed on: 3rd December, 2019].