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Harlequin Case Analysis Essay

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Harlequin Case Analysis Essay
Single-Title Market Opportunity
Financial Analysis
A financial analysis of the performance of Harlequin in the North American market indicated that the firm had captured over 80% of North American series romance market by 1990. However, its market share for the women’s fiction market was only 5% indicating a significant overlap in the readership of series romance fiction and other fiction stories.

C4
Firms Harlequin Simon and Schuster Harper/Avon Total
Market Share 19.4% 7.6% 6.4% 33%

The C4 for the publishing industry is 33%, which means the industry is not concentrated.
HHI
Firms Harlequin Simon and Schuster Harper/Avon Total
Calc 19.42(376.36) 7.62(57.76) 6.42(40.96) 516.04

This HHI index shows that the publishing industry is not concentrated and it is competitive. The HHI and C4 results suggest that the …show more content…
Furthermore, Harlequin’s distribution channel is complex; hence, it is hard to imitate this offering, which gives Harlequin a competitive advantage. Single title books required more mainstream distribution methods using retail stores. Therefore, the organization should change its distribution strategy for romance series when dealing with single title books.
From the VRIO analysis, it is evident that Harlequin has a competitive advantage in producing romance series over single-title books. The resources required to produce single-title books are not valuable; this does not give the firm a competitive advantage. The resources used for single-title books are not rare like in romance series books. In addition, the resources used for the publication of single-title books are easily imitable. Besides, the 5-forces market analysis shows that the single-title book industry is highly competitive, with high levels of product differentiation, which leads to price wars among publishing
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