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there is little brand loyalty so customer are likely to switch easily between products.

Substitute threat: This measures the ease with which buyers can switch to another product that does the same thing e.g. aluminium cans rather than glass or plastic bottles. The ease of switching depends on what costs would be involved. Using Porter's model, firms can generate high profit if the industry is:

Difficult to enter
There is limited rivalry
Buyers are relatively weak
Suppliers are relatively weak
There are few substitutes
BOSTON MATRIX:
The Boston Matrix model is a tool for assessing existing and development products in terms of their market potential, and thereby implying strategic action for products and services in each category.

Cash Cow: The rather crude metaphor is based on the idea of 'milking' the returns from previous investments which established good distribution and market share for the product. Products in this quadrant need maintenance and protection activity, together with good cost management, not growth effort, because there is little or no additional growth available.

Dog: this is that product or service of a company which has low presence in market. There is no point of developing goods and services in this quadrant. Most of the companies discontinue their product which they think fall under this quadrant. Businesses that have been starved or denied development find themselves with a high or entire proportion of their products or services in this quadrant, which is obviously not very funny at all, except to the competitors.

Problem Child: These are products which have a big and growing market potential, but existing low market share, normally because they are new products, or the application has not been spotted and acted upon yet. New business development and project management principle are required here to ensure that these products' potential can be realised and disasters avoided. This is likely to be an area of business that is quite competitive, where the pioneers take the risks in the hope of securing good early distribution arrangements, image, reputation and market share.

Rising Star: 'star' products, are those which have good market share in a strong and growing market. As a product moves into this category it is commonly known as a 'rising star'. When a market is strong and still growing, competition is not yet fully established. Demand is strong; saturation or over-supply do not exists, and so pricing is relatively unhindered.

SWOT ANALYSIS:
To determine what a company's strategy should be, the managers must consider the internal strength and weaknesses of their company and compare them with external opportunities and threat. This process is known as SWOT analysis.

Strengths: are internal factors which a firm may build on to develop a strategy. They may include:

Marketing strengths
Financial strengths
Operation strengths
HRM strengths
Weaknesses: are internal factors which a firm may need to protect itself such as:

Marketing weaknesses such as limited distribution
Financial weaknesses such as high levels of borrowing and low rates of return
Operational weaknesses such as old or poor quality equipments
HRM weaknesses such as high rate of labour turn over and industrial d