NBA’s Competitive Strategy and Partnerships Analysis
Using Porter’s competitive forces model, analyse the NBA’s market situation. How does the use of Akamai help the NBA compete in this market?
To analyse the NBA’s market situation, it is necessary to refer to Porter’s competitive forces model and to examine the position in relation to such criteria as the industry rivalry, buyer power, suppliers’ power, threat of substitutes, and threat of mobility.
Referring to the industry rivalry force, the National Basketball Association should state its position within the industry and compete with the other North American sports leagues such as the Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League along with a range of the other professional leagues around the world.
According to the criterion of the buyer power, the NBA depends on the audience’s interest in the league’s activities and provide media content.
The influence of the suppliers’ power on the NBA is rather low. The NBA is not dependent on the potential substitutes because of the tremendous competitive advantage. Focusing on the threat of mobility, it is possible to state that it is rather low, but any problems with the access to the NBA media content because of the website’s drawbacks can lead to decreasing the number of the potential audience.
Thus, the use of Akamai helps the NBA compete within this market because the company’s services are used to guarantee the provision of the high-quality content around the globe of regardless the location of the user.
That is why the high-quality content reaches the global audience easily, contributing to the NBA competitive advantage. The necessary NBA content can be accessed by users more comfortable and quicker in comparison with using the services operated by the other leagues because Akamai relies on multiple distribution channels.
Using Porter’s generic strategies model, what do you think is the NBA’s overall strategy or strategies?
Following Porter’s generic strategies model, it is possible to state that the NBA’s overall strategy is the differentiation strategy. Having analysed the target scope, it is essential to note that the NBA is oriented to broadcast the important information about the league as well as all the associated media content widely, focusing on the global audience.
The NBA avoids possible differences in relation to the audience’s access to the media content and uses the Akamai services in order to add to the leading company’s strategies according to which the advertising and promotion are realised in all the regions globally, and the company’s success depends on the effective self-provision.
Furthermore, the chosen advantage is the product uniqueness that is why the Akamai services are discussed as efficient to contribute to the aspect of the product uniqueness.
Why is it important that all fans in the world have the same experience?
Following the NBA mission and goals, it is necessary to state that all the fans around the globe should have the same experience while sharing the NBA media content. This fact is important because the league orients to the global audience, and it is important to avoid and overcome any discrimination associated with the possibilities of users from different countries to access the video, games, or interviews broadcasted widely.
The NBA works to increase the number of the target audience globally; that is why it is significant to provide the media content to all the world regions in order to give the users equal opportunities. As a result, to increase traffic levels and visits to the NBA’s website, it is necessary to use the Akamai efficient services dependent on the developed technologies.
Why is it important that individual franchise owners can build, manage, and distribute on the NBA platform their content?
The services provided by Akamai enable the individual franchise owners to manage and distribute their content on the NBA platform more actively and efficiently, contributing to the increased competitive advantage and owners’ potential. The NBA provides the individual franchise owners to distribute the independent content in order to strengthen them and to attract more people as the target audience.
Thus, the business model, which is used by the NBA and improved with references to the use of the Akamai services is useful to provide more advantages for the individual franchise owners to develop their activities.
The individual franchise owners rely on the developed business strategies and the promotion of the business activities with the help of the NBA platform and the Akamai services can be discussed as the necessary condition to speak about the overall success of the NBA as the leading league within the industry.
The word ‘partnership’ appears several times in the video. Who are the NBA’s partners? How does the concept of a strategic ecosystem apply to the NBA’s partnership strategies?
The increased competitive advantage of the NBA directly depends on the league’s effective partnership with the Akamai computing platform and server to distribute different types of content globally. From this point, Akamai is one of the NBA’s partners.
The advantages of such partnership are in providing the NBA with the opportunities to respond to the increased demand for the league’s media content and to provide the high-speed and high-quality channels for the users worldwide to receive the access to the necessary material without references to the region, but depending on Akamai servers located globally.
The other NBA’s partners are the companies and suppliers which support the NBA’s activities, advertising, and promotion. In this case, the NBA can build the effective partnership relations with suppliers and distributors to support the worldwide spreading of the NBA’s media content and with different companies which operate in the sphere of the technological support as Akamai does.
As a result, while developing the effective and developed partnership relations with different companies operating in various associated industries, the NBA creates the specific strategic ecosystem which is successful to contribute to the progress of all the companies working within the ecosystem.
From this point, referring to the example of the relations with Akamai, it is possible to note that the NBA relies on the developed strategic ecosystem as the source of the necessary support. For instance, the Akamai services guarantee the effective management of a variety of media assets. The distribution of the content is equally efficient in different countries around the globe.
That is why the NBA intends to develop the partnership relations with Akamai in order to contribute to the NBA website’s development and to the further attraction of the global audience. The Akamai services are efficient, reliable, and based on innovative technologies. That is why, such relations with the Akamai services can be discussed as advantageous for the NBA.