FINAL PAPER
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS OF
MGT318V

MARTY FINUCANE
FALL 2012
MR. TOM DELUCA

MGT318V Marty Finucane
Mr. Thomas DeLuca Fall 2012

1. Briefly describe your company and the type of business you are envisioning. Please describe the product or products that you will be handling and a basic corporate structure.

My company is called Buffalo Athletic Design, Inc. or BAD, Inc. It will be headquartered in Buffalo, NY and specialize in the design and creation of specialized sporting and outdoor clothing and equipment. The brand will start by concentrated mostly on winter sports such as hockey, skiing, snowboarding, and hunting with the goal of possibly expanding the brand to include sports and activities of all seasons. The corporate structure is represented by the diagram below:

2. How will you attempt to create competitive advantage in the market place? Describe the role MIS and IT will play in creating the competitive advantage. Please be descriptive.

BAD, Inc. will use a focused strategy to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors. We will focus on the winter sports niche in order to penetrate the market and get our brand name known. Given the extensive demand for winter sports clothing a gear in the Northeast Region as well as some locations out west, we believe that we can successfully expand our brand by targeting these regions and offering a brand that is superior to all other winter gear outfitters. In addition to having our products in local sporting goods giants like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Eastern Mountain Sports, we have a strong online presence through our website, www.badincsports.com, where customers can order customized gear from the comfort of their own homes.
Management Information Systems (MIS) will utilize the data collected by our IT team to make pertinent decisions regarding our brand in order to achieve the company’s goals. For example, Store A is selling more ski jackets than Store B, which is selling more hunting apparel. MIS will use the data collected in our DBMS to ultimately make the decision to provide Store A with more ski jackets and Store B with more hunting apparel. These types of decisions will be continuous and will depend solely on the data.
Information Technology (IT) will utilize several different features including, but not limited to, online surveys, a customer memory system, which will allow a customer to create an account on the website and save certain information for later use, and an interactive “design-your-own” custom gear page that will allow customers to fully customize anything on our product line for that true personal feel and style. The website will be extremely user friendly and will be updated and maintained 24/7 to ensure a seamless customer experience unlike any other sporting goods website. We believe will help separate us from the pack. 3. Create a Porters Five Forces model to analyze your market position. For each force, describe the power position and reason behind it.

| Threat of Substitute Products or ServicesHIGH | | Supplier PowerLOW | Rivalry among Existing CompetitorsHIGH | Buyer PowerHIGH | | Threat of New EntrantsLOW | |

Supplier Power is low due to the fact that there is plenty of competition and many different similar choices that the consumer will have to make when purchasing.
Buyer power is high for the same reasons. Since the buyer will ultimately have a choice on which brand they choose and the choice is not very limited, they have more control over the overall cost of certain items.
The threat of substitution is high because there are many alternatives to our products that consumers can choose to buy over ours. If we do not maintain a leg up over the competition, they can easily replace our brand in the minds of consumers.
The threat of new entrants is low because the market for these niche products is already so saturated, it