Week 6 Reading Reflection

I was surprised to think about how the rivalry among competitors can diminish profitability.  But when reading the article it makes complete sense because when there are new competitors in a particular industry the other companies have to worry about raising their prices. If they raise them while a new competitor has lower prices than that then they lose out on certain profits. I think the exit and entry barriers confused me the most of the entire article. What are the entry barriers and exit barriers and why do they exist? The text explained the barriers but I still did not quite grasp the point behind them so I would not mind more explanation. I do not disagree with anything the author said I think the five forces concept makes sense for describing competitors.

Idea Napkin No. 1

All of my life I have been very good at math, but it was not until a couple of months ago that I realized I wanted to become a math teacher. It had never crossed my mind before because of all of the bad things I have heard about becoming a teacher, the low pay wages, horrible benefits and the atmosphere.  I have done plenty of research on the topic as of lately and many of those points are very true. The salary of a teacher is not high to begin with but it is especially low in Florida.  Many teachers lose passion in their work because of the environment they are thrown into, where they have no budget to work with and disinterested children that they have to help pass.  It is a very tough job, children now a days do not care about their school work in the least and many parents don't either.  So after all the research and brainstorming I did about this topic I came up with the Teacher Relief Program. This program is an outside company completely geared towards teachers. Teachers receive little to no recognition for the job that they do and many of them do not want or need it but after years of not feeling appreciated many of these teachers lose the drive and passion that had once made them great teachers. This program aims to show teachers that someone is thinking about them and that they matter in this world. This program will get its funding from donations from the parents and also by fundraisers. I think the parents will care enough to donate or help out because I think many know how hard it is being a teacher and will want to make them feel appreciated. I think this idea alone sets my business plan apart from anything else because there is not a program at any school like this.  Many jobs have teacher appreciation weeks but teacher's do not really get anything. I think my idea is still at such an early stage that its a little weak because I am still not quite sure how the program would help teachers. I think much of the problems is the kids do not care and the teachers do not know how to make them care.