This force introduces excessive costs for a business to enter the market. Take Boeing or Airbus in commercial airline industry. For a new company to enter this market considering the variety of talent needed, vendors in the supply chain, and regulations in the airline industry, businesses don't have the appetite to enter this space quickly.

When suppliers are fewer in number, they exert force on the market. Consider the country of Ghana that lacked processing plants to take the raw tomatoes and convert them to alternate storage forms. Therefore, they shipped the tomatoes to European countries who sent canned tomatoes at a higher price back to Ghana forcing the famers out of their profession.

When there are more firms in the market, price is comparable. Air-travelers look for frequent file mileage, more leg space, lounger services, and priority boarding. Cruise travelers look for onboard amenities, shore excursions, BOGO deals, and discounted cuisine services. So, comparison shopping is high where buyers dictate overall industry prices.

The opposite force of entry barrier is the force of substitutes. The cost of entry is so low many enter the market. Take online training services challenged by MOOC, where anyone can launch courses on platforms like Udemy or Courseera reducing training costs. Although they don't substitute instructor led courses, they challenge training and teaching landscape.

When firms have similar financial and market potential, then, the intensity of rivalry will be high. Apple and Samsung come up with innovative functions on their phones and tablets almost waging a price war with competitive features. Another component of this force is the exit barrier where the firm losing ground has too much at stake to exit the industry.

When firms compete for market share, they join forces for a relative advantage. Apple working with Intel to support data portability with Microsoft is an example of not losing their consumers to other competitors (co-opetition). Besides, each firm can complement their deal with additional product or service such as Sears offering free shipping on appliances for a specific order size.