For my final semester of college, one of the classes I am taking is my business capstone. Part of the syllabus is keeping a blog and posting both about musings from the class as well as closely following a company. My company of choice is the car-maker, Volkswagen. I chose this company because I do not know too much about the business of automobiles and I thought it would be really interesting and informative.
So far class has been far more interesting than I would have initially expected. The first day was just going over the syllabus and then Professor Tuggle spent the last 15-20 minutes delving into the material. The first lecture focused on the importance of competitive advantage. What made the lecture really interesting was the way real life companies and their circumstances were woven in to make the class really understand. This lecture also focused on strategy and how to best outdo other companies and stay relevant.
The next lecture focused on the external environment and how this might affect a business. What I most took away from this lecture was the importance of understanding the environment surrounding your business while also being very self-aware of which stage your business is in and which sector you are trying to appeal to. The professor stressed the importance of Porter’s 5 forces when we analyze companies and read various cases. The forces are as follows:
1. Buyers
2. Suppliers
3. Threat of substitutes (not rivals)
4. Potential competitors
5. Intensity of rivalry
These were all interesting to go through one by one with examples given throughout. What I mostly took away from this lecture was the importance of competition: companies don’t want competition because they want to be able to control the market without any price wars. Being aware of the external environment can also make you more aware of competition (or potential competition) a company faces.
All in all I’m understanding the material fairly well. It’s strange for me to take a business class like this because I am an accounting major and I have been focusing so much on that aspect of all companies. It’s really nice and refreshing to look at marketing and management strategies in addition to all of the financial information I learn through accounting courses.