Porter's five forces analysis for UK's venture capital industry Essay

Porter's five forces analysis for UK's venture capital industry - Essay Example This industry emerged in 1945 following the adoption of the Macmillan committee report, the industry was founded by three banks and they include private bank of England, London clearing bank and the Scottish clearing bank. It was formed due to capital raising problems faced by small companies that were emerging. The following is a discussion of the industry using the Porter’s five force model. Porter identified five forces that influence and shape an industry and they include rivalry, barriers to entry, buyer power, supplier power and substitution threat, the following is a discussion of the five forces and the characteristics of the UK venture capital industry. This refers to the degree of competition. The degree of competition in markets is determined by the concentration ratio which is a measure of market share, as many firms enter an industry the profits of the firm decline. (Porter, 22) A firm will choose a number of strategies in order to increase its market share, a firm will reduce prices to increase market share, vertical integration which include integration with suppliers and buyers and differentiation of its products. Rivalry intensifies when many firms enter the industry, existence of substitutes, existence of exit barrier and when product differentiation of products is limited. (Porter, 22) Degree of competition in the venture capital market is high given that there are over 1,300 firms in the industry. Venture capital industry products also have close substitutes which include loans and equity, therefore the industry firm’s degree of rivalry is considerably high. Rivalry has intensified over the years with the entry of many firms into the industry, initially there were only 3 firms in the industry and over the years many firms have entered the market. (Lerner, 41) The existence of substitute products produced in an industry constrains a firm in the industry to increase prices.

Search on Mechatronic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Search on Mechatronic - Essay Example Mechatronics may also be referred to as "electromechanical systems" or less often as "control and automation engineering" (Wikipedia, 2007). Mechatronics meant a mechanism that is electrified until the early 1980s. Where as in the mid-1980s, mechatronics came to mean engineering that is the boundary between mechanics and electronics. In this 21st century, the term mechatronics encompasses a large array of technologies. However, each technology still has the basic element of the merging of mechanics and electronics but now it also may involve software and information technology (IEEE/ASME, 1998). For instance, many early robots resulted from mechatronics development. As robot systems became smarter, software development, in addition to the mechanical and electrical systems, became the main focus of mechatronics. To give some of the common examples where mechatronics systems are used include: the design of robots, washing machines, cameras, microwave, motor vehicles, DVD, etc. and other machines where an integrated engineering design is being adopted. Integration involves subjects such as mechanical, electrical, electronics and control engineering. In other words, mechatronics combines together areas of technology that involve sensors and measurement systems, drive and actuation systems, analysis of the behaviour of systems, control systems and microprocessor systems. In general a mechatronic system consists of the following basic items. The product or production process involves a mechanical structure containing actuators (generally it may be a motor to make things move), a microprocessor to control the overall operation of the system, sensors to allow the microprocessor to monitor the state of the system and electronics to connect the other parts together (fig 1). Mechatronics in the 1970s, was concerned by and large with servo technology used in