Week 6 Reading Reflection

1. Personally, what surprised me the most was how much power the buyer has over companies and pricing points. Sometimes as a buyer, I can feel like I do not have any control over the prices that companies are setting for their products and services, but Porter explains how customer can drive down prices and demand better products or services. As I read more into the article, Porter explained how buyers can learn how to play vendors off against each other if they believe that they can find an equivalent product or service elsewhere. 
2. I thought that the section of the article where Porter touches on government involvement was slight confusing to me. He tried to demonstrate his point by using patents as an example of how the government can contribute to an industry's profitability. Also, the article explains how sometimes government involvement can negatively impact profitability on industries through ideas such as favoring unions. The concepts that Porter used as examples confused me because I did not fully understand what the impact was directly on the industries. I wanted there to be a little more elaboration on how these concepts directly impact the industries because I did not fully understand that idea. 
3. If I could ask the author any question, I would ask him what he believed to be the hardest force specifically that drove strategy to mold or change. I would want to know what he would be most concerned with if he was working for a company that was trying to be profitable in today's economy. 
4. Overall, I did not find anything in the article that I necessarily disagreed with. I understand the points that the author was making, and I was impressed with the insight that he was able to give about how the professional industry operates. I definitely learned from this article, and the author brought up some very valid points in regards to how industries operate.