Porter’s Five Forces Model
When Lime users face few costs to switch from a Lime app to a Bird app, this "force" is considered very high.
What is the Bargaining Power of Buyers?
This segment of the general environment includes the NACTO regulations and city-mandated minimum fees Lime must pay.
What is the Political/Legal segment?
This primary value-chain activity for Lime includes the maintenance, machining, and facility operations for its Gen4 fleet.
What is Operations?
Managers must be this, meaning they align resources for short-term efficiency while proactively exploring new opportunities.
What is Ambidextrous?
This statement explains why Lime exists and its basis of competition (e.g., providing smart mobility), and is more specific than a vision.
What is a Mission Statement?
Because there are numerous equally balanced competitors like Voi, Tier, and Bird, the intensity of this force is high in the scooter industry.
What is Rivalry among Existing Firms?
Trends in GDP and unemployment are part of this segment, which affects whether "white-collar workers" choose to rent a scooter.
What is the Economic segment?
Lime’s "swappable battery" technology and data-analytic algorithms represent this specific type of tangible resource.
What are Technological Resources?
Because the business environment is unpredictable, Lime’s final strategy is usually this—a mix of deliberate and emergent decisions.
What is a Realized Strategy?
For Lime's objective of "300 million trips" to be meaningful, it must be measurable, specific, appropriate, realistic, and timely.
What is SMART?
A consumer choosing to walk or take a personal car instead of renting a Lime scooter is an example of this competitive force.
What is the Threat of Substitute Products or Services?
The shift in lifestyle where people want "one app" for all transit needs is a factor in this segment of the general environment.
What is the Sociocultural segment?
While Bird is a rival, Lime’s reputation for reliability and its brand name are these types of resources, which are difficult for competitors to account for.
What are Intangible Resources?
Lime’s goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 is an example of this "massively inspiring" mental image of a shared future.
What is Organizational Vision?
When Lime works with cities for mutual success, it achieves this state where stakeholders are dependent upon each other for well-being.
What is Stakeholder Symbiosis?
If a city like Dallas only allows a few companies to operate, the city acts as a "powerful group" representing this force.
What is the Bargaining Power of Buyers?
This forecasting method involves projecting "alternative futures" based on in-depth environmental assessments.
What is Scenario Analysis?
For a resource like Lime's Gen4 scooter to provide a sustainable competitive advantage, it must meet these four criteria.
What are Valuable, Rare, Difficult to Imitate, and Without Substitutes?
This view of leadership suggests that external forces, like the Covid-19 pandemic, are what primarily determine an organization's success or failure.
What is the External Control Perspective?
This stakeholder management view argues that the gain of one group (like shareholders) is the loss of another (like cities demanding refunds).
What is the Zero-Sum View?
Large capital requirements and the need for access to distribution channels (like city permits) act as these, which determine how easily new rivals can enter the market.
What are Barriers to Entry?
When firms like Uber and Lyft consider entering the bike-share market, they increase this specific force in Porter’s model.
What is the Threat of New Entrants?
The "bicycle graveyards" and vandalism in Paris occurred because shared bikes lacked this "difficult to imitate" attribute based on interpersonal relations or culture.
What is Social Complexity?
This concept describes how managers can improve their position by increasing their power relative to the five competitive forces.
What is Five-Forces Analysis?
This is the expectation that Lime will strive to improve the overall welfare of society, assessed via the "triple bottom line".
What is Social Responsibility?