Competing within a highly profitable industry is desirable, but it can also attract unwanted attention from outside the industry. Potential new entrants to an industry are firms that do not currently compete in the industry but may in the future ("New Entrants" [Image missing in original]). New entrants tend to reduce the profit potential of an industry by increasing its competitiveness. If, for example, an industry consisting of five firms is entered by two new firms, this means that seven rather than five firms are now trying to attract the same general pool of customers. Thus executives need to analyze how likely it is that one or more new entrants will enter their industry as part of their effort to understand the profit potential that their industry offers.
New entrants can join the fray within an industry in several different ways. New entrants can be start-up companies created by entrepreneurs, foreign firms that decide to enter a new geographic area, supplier firms that choose to enter their customers’ business, or buyer firms that choose to enter their suppliers’ business. The likelihood of these four paths being taken varies across industries. Restaurant firms such as Subway, for example, do not need to worry about their buyers entering the industry because they sell directly to individuals, not to firms. It is also unlikely that Subway’s suppliers, such as farmers, will make a big splash in the restaurant industry.
On the other hand, entrepreneurs launch new restaurant concepts every year, and one or more of these concepts may evolve into a fearsome competitor. Also, competitors based overseas sometimes enter Subway’s core US market. In February 2011, Australia-based Oporto opened its first US store in California. 1Oporto operates more than 130 chicken burger restaurants in its home country. Time will tell whether this new entrant has a significant effect on Subway and other restaurant firms. Because a chicken burger closely resembles a hamburger, McDonald’s and Burger King may have more to fear from Oporto than does Subway.
Every industry is unique to some degree, but some general characteristics help to predict the likelihood that new entrants will join an industry. New entry is less likely, for example, to the extent that existing competitors enjoy economies of scale (because new entrants struggle to match incumbents’ prices), capital requirements to enter the industry are high (because new entrants struggle to gather enough cash to get started), access to distribution channels is limited (because new entrants struggle to get their offerings to customers), governmental policy discourages new entry, differentiation among existing competitors is high (because each incumbent has a group of loyal customers that enjoy its unique features), switching costs are high (because this discourages customers from buying a new entrant’s offerings), expected retaliation from existing competitors is high, and cost advantages independent of size exist.
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