Critical Issues
· What business the newspaper should be in?
· How should the newspaper position itself in the new media industry?
· Should it continue provide news to readership or should it be e-commerce business with news being just one of its many products?
· How to build a comprehensive one-stop shopping without substantial deviation from its mission of providing news content to the masses.
· How to deal with increased competition from companies such as Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft?
· How to best serve its Chicago based readership in a complex environment where competitors were emerging from nontraditional sectors of the community?
· How to take advantage of the alliances Tribune formed with other technology companies in order to differentiate itself from its competitors?
· How to develop new and innovative products for the online environment quicker and achieve economies of scale
5 Force Analysis
Buyers (moderate)
· Many website and e-commerce buyers
· Buyers do not have substantial bargaining leverage
· Individual buyer volume is minimal as the buyers are the individual website users
· Buyer information is widely available
· Buyers have moderate brand identity to news sites and e-commerce sites
· Buyers are extremely price sensitive
· There is no threat of backward intergration
· Moderate differentiation of products (news delivery methods and practices vary by competitors)
· There are many substitures available (Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, NY-Times, etc…)
Suppliers (moderate)
· There is moderate bargaining leverage as advertisers have many options for advertising online
· Volume (amount of hits/users on the website) is extremely important to advertisers
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