MetLife is founded in 1868 in Manhattan, New York, is the comprehensive providers of the life insurance, retirement benefits, employee benefits, asset management, annuities, in both domestic and international markets. MetLife employs around 69000 employees. It serves to more than 100 million consumes and almost 90 companies of the Fortune lists are its customers. The functions of MetLife are in more than 50 countries and has a prominent position in the market like in United States, Latin America, Japan, Europe, Middle East, and Asia. It is one of the biggest companies in insurance industry (MetLife, 2019). The company is growing at such larger pace and need to have competitive analysis of the industry, to gain more recognition in both national and international markets. The managers of MetLife can use the Porter five force analysis in order to determine the strategic position of the company. With the help of the Porter five forces analysis, the company can also explore the new doors for opportunities and increase the profitable level. Here is the detailed Porter five forces analysis of the MetLife;
Bargaining Power of Buyers
Buyers or the consumers of MetLife are always more demanding, according to the nature of the consumers, and want to buy best offerings in the least possible prices. This has built the pressure on the MetLife’s profitability in the longer run. More the customer base will be, higher will be the bargaining power of the consumer will have. It is necessary for the MetLife to reduce the bargaining power by increasing the customer base. It needs to innovate the new products and services in order to seek more discounts and other offerings which limit the bargaining power of the consumers. The new products of MetLife will also help in reducing the defection of current consumers to competitors (Fernfortuniveristy, 2019).
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
MetLife is successful enough to have the efficient supply chain and maintains the good supplier relationship. The company has strengthened the position against the suppliers in order to decrease the dependency level on any one supplier. This will also increase the price sensitivity. The company should also develop the long-term relationships with the suppliers, in every region wherever they are working to increase the supply chain efficiency. The company should also find the alternative ways to serve the products or services to lower the competition level and gain the cost benefit analysis (Henry, 2018).
Threats of New Entrants
Threats from the new entrants for the MetLife is medium to low, because of many reasons. Economies of the scale is one of the main reasons for the new entrants for deciding to enter in the insurance market because of the difficulties in achieving it. It is easier to produce more in order to gain cost advantage but difficult to sell more especially when the company is new, as building customer base takes a lot of time. New entrants need to differentiate its products with hat of competitors in order to attract customers. Different marketing strategies are expensive to implement. Thus, MetLife has to take the advantage of it and enter in new markets because of already having a strong brand name (Murphy, 2018).
Threats from the Substitute Products
Threats from the substitute products always exist in every industry, but the benefit MetLife is having is that it is operating in more than 50 countries, and has diversified the risks as in, few countries have many rivals and substitutes but few countries don’t have, and MetLife is able to gain more customer base there. MetLife should also not worry about it because of the quality services it is providing in best possible prices, which attracts new customers and retain the old one (Murphy, 2018).
Rivalry of Existing Players
There are many rivals of MetLife like AIG, Prudential Financial, Samsung Life Insurance, New York Life Insurance Company, etc. who are competing in the industry at much larger level. It is necessary for the company to distinct its services and use the marketing and promotional strategies to gain the huge market share (Fernfort, 2019).
References
Fernfort university, 2019. MetLife, Inc. Porter Five Forces Analysis. [Online], Available at: http://fernfortuniversity.com/term-papers/porter5/analysis/1018-metlife–inc-.php. [Accessed on: 4th July, 2019].
Henry, Z. 2018. MetLife Inc Porter Five Forces Analysis. [Online], Available at: https://www.case48.com/porter-analysis/3232-MetLife-Inc, [Accessed on: 4th July, 2019].
MetLife, 2019. About us. [Online], Available at: https://www.metlife.com/, [Accessed on: 4th July, 2019].
Murphy, E. 2018. MetLife Inc Porter Five Forces Analysis. [Online], Available at: https://www.essay48.com/term-paper/3232-MetLife-Inc-Porter-Five-Forces, [Accessed on: 4th July, 2019]