Michael Porter's Five Forces Analysis

Michael Porter, a professeur in Harvard Business School developed a popular model that is still used today to develop strategies that increase companies’ competitive edge. These are commonly known as the Five Forces that demonstrate how information technology and information systems can make a company more competitive. One of the forces was the bargaining power of suppliers in the market.

In the renewable energy industry the suppliers don’t have as much bargaining power today as they did in the past as the number of firms in the industry is increasing at an extreme rate. As a result of this increased supply the prices demanded by the suppliers for their services are decreasing in order to del with the increased competition. In recent years
Its is one of Ireland’s many useful natural resources that can be used in the production of energy as well as solar and wave power which has now also become widely produced. There are both on-shore and off-shore wind power stations in Ireland, more off-shore due to its inccreased wind strenght and decreased visual pollution of the coastline. The negative points to the develpoment of these off-shore wind power stations is the construction and maintenance costs which are considerably higher than the on-shore wind farms. This year (2014) information systems have calculated that 4% of the overall electricity usage was produced from wind farms, and it is considered to be increasing at a tremendous rate. Information systems are widely used in the renewable energy industry to monitor the developments and performance of the energy sources. The data and information received from the information systems is then used to improve the product and enhance its performance in the
Firms such as C+F and the Atlantic Ocean Energy Alliance are mainly based along the west coast of Ireland , utilising the strong winds to produce wind power. Vestas wind turbine manafacturer have build over 80 wind turbines since 1999 in areas such as Inverin and Derrybrien in Galway. First Wind Turbines (FWT) have proposed that 30 wind turbines are to placed off the Galway coast in the Skerd Rocks region within the next 5-10 years. These firms are just interested in the main renewable resource in the west coast which is wind energy. There have been huge improvements in the technology and equipment used in the wind power industry in ecent years, as the turbines are now taller and its blades are now longer than ever before. There has been a more reliable and efficient way of recording the power output and data of the wind turbines due to the advances in the information technology side of the industry. These renewable energy resources are now more computer and machine based which has improved the overall productivity and effectiveness of the power-sources. Since the introduction of computers and information systems in the industry , firms have reported an increase of 35% in the efficiency of their products and an even more important decrease in