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Level 4 Diploma in Business Management

Competition: Porter's Five Forces and the Ansoff matrix

BM402 · Business Operations — Week 13 of 16

CourseBM402
Week13 of 16
SemesterI
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This week’s topics

Competition: Porter's Five Forces and the Ansoff matrix

  1. Starting point: competition and monopoly power
  2. Porter’s Five Forces framework
  3. Ansoff matrix

What you will be able to do

  • 4.3 Apply a technique to quantify a business’s external environment.

Activity

Start with this week’s 2 videos, then discuss how they apply to this week’s topic and note one example from a real business.

Study materials

Videos

  • The Costs and Benefits of Monopoly · YouTube · Marginal Revolution University · 9 min · for registered students
  • Maximizing Profit Under Competition · YouTube · Marginal Revolution University · 13 min · for registered students

Further resources

  • Introduction to Business 2e, ch. 1.7: Competing in a free market · PDF · OpenStax (2026), section 1.7 on perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly in brief; pp. 38–39 · for registered students
  • Principles of Economics 3e, ch. 9.1: How monopolies form – barriers to entry · PDF · OpenStax (2022), section 9.1 on monopoly and the barriers that keep rivals out; pp. 217–220 · for registered students
  • Principles of Economics 3e, ch. 10.2: Oligopoly · PDF · OpenStax (2022), section 10.2 on oligopoly, collusion and the prisoner's dilemma; pp. 246–252 · for registered students
  • Antitrust in a time of populism · Open-access article · Shapiro (2018), International Journal of Industrial Organization. Clear survey of rising market concentration, monopoly power and competition policy. · for registered students
Materials marked “for registered students” open in the student portal, which is set up as soon as you receive final acceptance.
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Course plan
  • Week 1: Business sectors: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaterna…
  • Week 2: Types of business: profit, not for profit, NGOs, micro, SME…
  • Week 3: Legal structures: sole trader, partnership, limited company…
  • Week 4: Business functions and how they work together
  • Week 5: Organisational structures: hierarchic, bureaucratic, matrix…
  • Week 6: How functional relationships shape structure: charts, autho…
  • Week 7: The internal environment of a business and why it is import…
  • Week 8: Midterm evaluation
  • Week 9: Quantifying the internal environment with SWOT/TOWS
  • Week 10: Assessing the internal environment: capacity assessment gri…
  • Week 11: The external environment of a business and why it matters
  • Week 12: Measuring the external environment with PESTLE
  • Week 13: Competition: Porter's Five Forces and the Ansoff matrix
  • Week 14: Assessing a business’s external environment alongside its i…
  • Week 15: Review and coursework completion
  • Week 16: Final evaluation and project assessment
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