Question 1. Where does your firm position itself on the industry life cycle? What are the strategic implications?

Answer so far: Covetrus combines products, services, and technology into a single platform that connects their customers to the solutions and insights they need to grow. When speaking of the industry life cycle of a company, there are five stages of that life cycle. The industry life cycle contains five stages-- introduction, growth, shakeout, maturity, and decline-- all of which take place during the development of an industry over time. Covetrus is most evidently in the second stage of the industry life cycle. They are a new competitor in the global animal healthcare industry and know they need to grow in order to stay competitive in the industry against their competitors. Covetrus was established in 2018 and has done well to introduce and implement themselves into the industry. Their struggle now is to continue to grow and crumble behind other competitive companies. In their 2019 Annual Report, Covetrus provided elements in which their collective actions are focused on for 2020. From those collective actions they stated they will focus on "Maximizing effectiveness and efficiency in [their] core business to deliver greater stability which will then form the foundation for sustained growth moving forward,". (annual report) Covetrus recognizes that risk could arise because of the limited demand growth and because of the addition of numerous products and services from competitors that are continuously being introduced into the market. The company also recognizes that their current and ongoing expansion efforts internationally will make them more vulnerable to more risks but the future growth of the company depends crucially on increasing and growing their international sales.

*Tips for what may need changing are appreciated*

2. What is the firm's innovation strategy? Does it rely on incremental or radical innovations? Disruptive or architectural? What are the competitive implications of the firm's innovation strategies?

Answer so far: Covetrus did not want to be a disruptive company. They realized that reassuring veterinarian practitioners that they are putting innovation to work on their behalf, they would then be able to give modern support to the industry. Covetrus appears to rely on architectural innovations and incremental innovations. According to an article, Covetrus stated "To navigate future evolution and growth, [they] created a brand architecture that would allow seamless incorporation of more entities under the umbrella of one integrated solution."(Rebrand) By relying on architectural innovation, it means that Covetrus innovates by leveraging existing technologies into new markets. They reconfigure technology components and thus change the general architecture of the product.

*Tips for what may need changing are appreciated*

The 'firm' is in reference to the company, Covetrus: CVET. The bolded questions are what I mainly need help on.