Bank of America Corporation is American investment bank operating across the globe. It is based in North Carolina and has central hubs in London, New York City, Toronto, Minneapolis, and Hong Kong. It was established in 1998 through the acquisition of the NationBank. It has a big name in the banking industry worldwide. It has redefined ways for its operations in financial. Bank of America make sure that they are providing financial services to consumers according to their objectives and making their financial lives easier by connecting communities and clients to resources. It successfully delivers this by focusing on the environmental, social and governance- ESG growth and leadership. It drives growth by creating jobs, developing communities, fostering the economic mobility, also addressing the biggest challenges of the society, while provide the return to consumers and manage the risks (Bank of America, 2019). The banking industry is very competitive, and it greatly dependent on the market structure. The Porter’s five forces model helps the businesses finding the attraction in industry. There are five components of the model; bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threats of the new entrants, threats from the substitute products, and rivalry of the existing players. This helps the company in making its strategies according to the analyzation of all components to be successful (Jurevicius, 2013). Here is the Porter’s five force analysis of Bank of America;
Bargaining Power of Buyers
There are two types of consumers in the banking industry. Firstly, there are individual consumers wo are not a big threat for the bank, because of the medium or high switching cost, thus they have less bargaining power. For instance, if client has mortgage, credit card, car loan etc. it is hard to switch the products to other banks. Secondly, there are corporate clients, they find the switching cost high because of any large project funding by bank. Thus, they also have low bargaining power (Graduate way, 2019).
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
In the banking industry, capital suppliers are many and cannot bargain strongly. However, numerous suppliers are available in the market for raw materials. If the suppliers are in the dominant position, they can reduce the margins earn by Bank of America in market. Thus, extracting the higher prices from the banks. However, banking and financial industry needs specialized skills and knowledge, talented employees and staff can be hired by other investment firms and banks, thus, labours (staff) has high bargaining power. Bank of America builds the effective supply chain with the help of more suppliers, develop the dedicated suppliers list (Graduateway, 2019).
Threats of New Entrants
The banking sector offers considerable barriers to the new entrants because of the high capitalization level. As the Money Centre banks requires high level of credibility, the strong brand presence is necessary, which is quite expensive. Innovation, different ways of operating tasks, and strategies bring pressure to Bank of America for reducing the pricings strategies, costs and require more value proposition to consumers. Thus, it needs to manage such challenges and create barriers for safeguarding the competitive edge. Bank of America protects itself in this case by creating economies of scales to reduce the fixed costs. It invests more on research and development, and building capacities and redefine the standards, to make the industry more dynamics (Fernfortuniveristy, 2019).
Threats from the Substitute Products
Whenever any new service or products meets with the same consumer needs but in different manner, profitability level of industry suffers. For instance, Google Drive and Dropbox are the substitutes of hardware drives. Threat of the substitute product is high due to high value propositions than previous products. Bank of America makes sure it maintains its service orientation along with product orientation and understand the core needs of clients (Fernfortuniveristy, 2019).
Rivalry of Existing Players
Banking industry is very competitive because of the high level of exit barriers. Large number of competitors are present in the market and equally balances. Normally, every bank works hard to attract the consumers of competitors to increase the profitability and reducing the rivalry by lowering the rates and increasing the services. Bank of America makes sure to build the sustainable differentiation, along with efficient scales to compete better. It collaborates with rivals or try for acquisition of small banks to reduce the competition level (Bartleby, 2019).
References
Bank of America, 2019. Who we are? Our Company. [Online], Available at: https://about.bankofamerica.com/en-us/who-we-are/our-company.html#fbid=biYW7rVkYjJ, [Accessed on: 1st April, 2019].
Bartleby, 2019. Bank of America five force analysis. [Online], Available at: https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Bank-of-America-Five-Force-Analysis-FK6WZZSX7KU4Y, [Accessed on: 1st April, 2019].
FernFortUniversity, 2019. Bank of America Corporation Porter Five Forces Analysis. [Online], Available at: http://fernfortuniversity.com/term-papers/porter5/analysis/1028-bank-of-america-corporation.php, [Accessed on: 1st April, 2019].
Graduate way, 2019. Bank of America five force analysis. [Online], Available at: https://graduateway.com/bank-of-america-five-force-analysis/, [Accessed on: 1st April, 2019].
Jurevicius, O. 2013. Porter’s five forces. [Online], Available at: https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/porters-five-forces.html, [Accessed on: 1st April, 2019].