Porter's Five Forces (Evidence-Cited)

Purpose

Read an industry's structure through Porter's Five Forces, with evidence: search plan → force-by-force ratings with signals → profit-pool implication → next-step options. Each force, competitive rivalry, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, buyer power, supplier power, is rated weak/moderate/strong and justified with documented signals, because a rating without signals is vibes. The analysis closes where it should have been aiming all along: where the profit pool sits and who is squeezing it. Five forces is an argument about where margin goes, not a diagram for slide four.

Input

Works best with: the industry or segment, named as precisely as you can ("clinical data management SaaS," not "healthcare"), and the decision this analysis should support. Also useful: a geographic boundary if the structure differs by region, and a market-landscape-scan in session, the forces read builds on it and searches only gaps.

Input supplied inline with the invocation, text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended ARGUMENTS: line, counts as answers already given. Use it against the question budget; don't re-ask.

Arriving empty-handed? That works too. The skill opens with at most 3 questions (segment, decision, boundary) and proceeds on labeled assumptions if they go unanswered.

Example invocation: Five forces on mid-market field-service management software, North America, decision: whether we enter or partner.

Key Concepts