D4: This course

Introduction

Beyond Meat is a plant-based meat producing company that is located in the United States of America. The company 0rdocuces products that can be used as substituted to meat and has been in the market since 2009. Some of the common products that the company has been able to produce in recent years include the plant-based burger as well as sausages. The products have become common due to the awareness of benefits that people enjoy and can accrue by se of vegetarian diets (Beyond Meat's Competitors, Revenue, Number of Employees, Funding and Acquisitions, n.d.). For any company to succeed, it is important to ensure that the competitive environment is analyzed. To analyze the competitive environment of Beyond Meat, Porter’s five forces of analysis are used to effectively analyze the situation (Ireland, Hoskisson, & Hitt, 2008).

Threat of New Entry

Beyond Meat company enjoys an advantage since the threat of entrance of new companies in the market is very low. There are various factors that result to this low threat levels. One the company requires high costs to start and there is a low margin nature within the grocery and vegetable industry, which are the main resources to the company (Aaron, 2019). As such, the market and competitive setup tends to favor the large corporations that are developed such as Beyond Meat. It is difficult for a new brand to emerge and gain the competitive ability to compete with Beyond Meat.

Supplier Power

Beyond meat faces significant threat of supplier power. The threat can be rated to be between medium and high. Beyond Meat relies largely on supplies of vegetables and groceries rom local stores and producers. Despite the amount of regulations that the company has instituted to act as regulators of the supplier activities, there are tendencies of suppliers exercising significant authority on the products and production costs of the company depending on the different seasons and farming trends.

Buyers’ Power

Buyer power entails the ability of the customers and buyers to dictate critical aspects of the company (Porter, 2008). For Beyond Meat, the Buyer Power can be rated to be between law and medium. In most cases the company dictates various aspects including the pricing and other aspects of the product. This is necessitated by the uniqueness of the product and the demand in the market. However, there are cases such as in times of recess when there is an economic crash and the buyers cannot afford expensive products. In this case, the company considers the buyers giving some extension of buyer power.

Competitive rivalry

Due to the nature of the market, there are few competitors in production of plant-based meat substitutes. However, companies such as Impossible Foods, Hungry Planet and NLB. This are large existing corporations that pose significant competition in the market (Beyond Meat's Competitors, Revenue, Number of Employees, Funding and Acquisitions, n.d.). This companies provide significant challenge by the competition is limited and controllable in the sense that there are few large corporations in the industry offering similar products

Threat of substitution

The products that Beyond Meat deals with are substitutes to meat. As such, there are high chances that most customers and potential buyers opt to go for meat products which provide the chances to access substituted to the plant-based meat which is more expensive. As such, the market exhibits high levels of threat of substitution of the products that the company produces (Laura, 2019). Stores such as Walmart also pose significant threats by producing organic and healthy foods that may be used as substitutes to Beyond Meat’s products posing significant threats.

Conclusion

The biggest threats to Beyond Meat can be seen to be supplier power, threat of substitution and to an extent, the existing competitors. The management of the company can employ some strategies that help to reduce the expression of this threats. Business strategies that are geared towards eliminating the identified threats can prove to be efficient and effective for the company to implement.

Recommendations

The management and board of directors play a critical role to ensure that the company is able to attain independence and competitive advantage that places it in an appropriate position to compete in the market. There are various aspects that can be recommended to boost the effectiveness of the company in achieving its goals. One of the main strategies is ensuring that the company can manage the competition is customer satisfaction. Taking care of the existing company is one of the key aspects that can boost the relationship between the company and its customers hence promoting competitive advantage over the existing companies (Farris, Bendle, Pfeifer, & Reibstein, 2010). Existing competitors pose a significant threat to the products of Beyond Meat. The management can therefore focus on providing customer satisfaction by boosting customer experience to ensure that it beats this competition.

Supply chain management is one other area that the company can focus on to ensure that the suppliers’ power is limited hence not affecting its operations. Supply chain management entails all activities involving acquiring of raw materials to the supply of products. Identifying suppliers and strategies of purchasing such as on time deliveries and buying goods on bulk are strategies that the management can ensure they strike a balance on to provide Beyond Meat with a competitive advantage by eliminating the existing supplier power. Insourcing of resources can also play a critical role in ensuring that the company has the right quantity of supply without facing the suppliers’ demands (McCarthy & Anagnostou, 2004). Insourcing entails producing the raw materials from within the company with available resources. Cultivating the necessary crops on the company’s farm for use in production is an example of the insourcing strategies.

The strategies identifies can help the management to ensure that it plays a critical role in playing its role and responsibilities in the market boosting the relationship with customers. This relationship can further be strengthened by creating of appropriate mechanisms of collecting feedback from the customers so as to understand customer preferences. Customer satisfaction helps to eliminate some of the threats of competitors. Supplier power should also be limited by employing strategies that limit the impacts of supplier decisions.

References Aaron, B. (2019, May 7). Beyond Meat Has Lessons to Serve Up. Wall Street Journal, B1. Beyond Meat's Competitors, Revenue, Number of Employees, Funding and Acquisitions. (n.d.). Retrieved from Owler: https://www.owler.com/company/beyondmeat Farris, P. W., Bendle, N. T., Pfeifer, P. E., & Reibstein, D. J. (2010). Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Ireland, R. D., Hoskisson, R., & Hitt, M. (2008). Understanding business strategy: Concepts and cases. Cengage Learning. Laura, W. (2019, 10 May). The vegetarian 'meat' aimed at replacing the real thing. Retrieved from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47816210 McCarthy, I., & Anagnostou, A. (2004). The impact of outsourcing on the transaction costs and boundaries of manufacturing. International Journal of Production Economics, 88(1), 61–71. doi:doi:10.1016/s0925-5273(03)00183 Porter, M. (2008). The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review.