Team (5) 1-800-Got-Junk: Business Strategy

Porter's Five Forces

Bargaining Power of Customers: MODERATE; The customers of 1-800-Got-Junk have the right to bargain and haggle over prices in order to save money for each of the appointments they set up with 1-800-Got-Junk. It is truly up to the workers/company whether they want to compromise with the customer or not.

Threat of Substitutes: STRONG; The junk removal industry has a high amount of competitors. Rather it be other renowned companies, the bottom-feeders, or a manual laborer with access to a truck, the ability of junk removal can essentially be done by anyone or anything that fits into those categories. Some of the biggest substitutes customers could use is the regular Waste Management trash pick-up or bulk pick-up, and recycling centers.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers: WEAK; The resources 1-800-Got-Junk needs usually come at a regular rate with no real increase or decrease in price.

Threat of New Entrants: STRONG; Entering into the junk industry is not a complicated, expensive or time consuming being that anyone can haul junk if they had a truck. The main overhead cost is the actual truck. After that, one would then need to hire and train drivers who are also fit to haul junk.

Rivalry: STRONG; The competition from existing rivals is high due to the fact that anyone could essentially haul junk or even haul their own junk. One of our biggest rivals is College Hunks Hauling Junk.

Competitive Strategy

Our company's competitive strategy focuses on exceptional on-time service, upfront rates, clean shiny trucks, and friendly uniformed drivers. This addresses the threats from the five forces with their efficiency and effectiveness. As this is a service based industry, the company focuses heavily on the customer side. They put a lot of effort in being effective and efficient for their customers so customers are more likely to reuse the service.

Business Process

The structured process we focused on was operations. 1-800-Got-Junk is a service-based company. To have 1-800-Got-Junk to come to your home to haul junk, first the customer would have to make an appointment which is usually done online. Once the customer puts in all their information, the job is then directly sent to the workers' phones through the app Salesforce. It is then when the workers sign into that said job, prepare their trucks with any equipment they may need, and set out to that said customer to haul their junk. Pricing changes with each customer since it all depends on how much junk or how big the junk is to remove. Customers here are allowed to bargain with the workers to try and receive sales or lower charges for the junk they have hauled.

The dynamic process we focused on with 1-800-Got-Junk was the use of social media for marketing purposes. 1-800-Got-Junk uses various social media platforms and providers like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even LinkedIn to not only bring in work, but to spread awareness of their company and potential future hires.