Analysis of the Commercial Launch Industry : Determining Competitiveness using Porter’s Five Forces Framework

Abstract: This thesis aims to analyze the rules of competition of the commercial launch industry between the years 2010-2020 to better understand the market and gain strategic insights for market share captivation or profitability. The industry is analyzed quantitively within the theoretical framework of Porter's five competitive forces. By the means of a Pooled OLS model, we conduct a regression analysis with five industry proxies that closely relate to Porter’s five forces to explain competition in the industry. The results provided us with enough evidence that quantitively applying Porter’s five forces with industry specific proxies leads us to a better understanding of competition in the commercial launch industry. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that the strongest competitive force is the threat of buyers. While the threat of competitive rivalry, power of suppliers and new entrants are relatively weak but highly significant, the threat of substitutes is of very low significance to affect market competition. The result of the analysis is then used as a tool to provide strategic insights for industry actors for optimal positioning in the market. Finally, we present some suggestions for future research on the subject, as well as other industry analysis using the theoretical framework.