This paper contains a five page analysis of American Express using Porter's Five Forces model and considers the niche the company has carved for itself in the financial business sector. There are five bibliographic sources cited.
Name of Research Paper File: CC6_KSamExPort.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
a useful method of assessing a companys position within its industry. American Express is not ubiquitous in its coverage, but it may be the credit industrys most prestigious name.
From the outside, it appears to other card companies that the niches AmEx has claimed for itself are largely closed to them. The purpose here is to assess
American Express relative strength in its industry to determine whether that perception is fully accurate. Risk of Entry by New Competitors
There are many credit cards available, with many marketing permutations available through those that already exist. Master Card(r) has been a distant second
to Visa(r) in past years, but it currently has been determined to take on its next level competitor. Both of these companies have more cards placed with customers than
does American Express, but they serve different markets. American Express targets the business customer, and its marketing coup is that business people and
business owners still view holding the card as a mark of business success. They believe that others seeing them use the card will associate it with prestige and with
business success (Fickenscher, 1999), while other brands are just routine credit cards. In todays financial services industry, it is quite likely that some
of the large investment banking firms could begin their own credit card businesses. They have established clientele to which to begin their marketing efforts, and the funds they have
available to them provide much of the necessary capital for establishing the new venture. It is doubtful that any would attempt to directly compete against AmEx in its own