Why would the government be willing to erect barriers to entering an industry?

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung, and General Electric, have rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and design thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including Stanford d.school, Harvard, and MIT. What is design thinking, and why is it so popular and effective?

Design Thinking is not exclusive to designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? Well, that’s because design work processes help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, businesses, countries and lives. And that’s what makes it so special.

The overall goal of this design thinking course is to help you design better products, services, processes, strategies, spaces, architecture, and experiences. Design thinking helps you and your team develop practical and innovative solutions for your problems. It is a human-focused, prototype-driven, innovative design process. Through this course, you will develop a solid understanding of the fundamental phases and methods in design thinking, and you will learn how to implement your newfound knowledge in your professional work life. We will give you lots of examples; we will go into case studies, videos, and other useful material, all of which will help you dive further into design thinking. In fact, this course also includes exclusive video content that we've produced in partnership with design leaders like Alan Dix, William Hudson and Frank Spillers!

This course contains a series of practical exercises that build on one another to create a complete design thinking project. The exercises are optional, but you’ll get invaluable hands-on experience with the methods you encounter in this course if you complete them, because they will teach you to take your first steps as a design thinking practitioner. What’s equally important is you can use your work as a case study for your portfolio to showcase your abilities to future employers! A portfolio is essential if you want to step into or move ahead in a career in the world of human-centered design.

Design thinking methods and strategies belong at every level of the design process. However, design thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. What’s special about design thinking is that designers and designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn, and apply these human-centered techniques in solving problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, and in our lives.

That means that design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees, freelancers, and business leaders. It’s for anyone who seeks to infuse an approach to innovation that is powerful, effective and broadly accessible, one that can be integrated into every level of an organization, product, or service so as to drive new alternatives for businesses and society.

You earn a verifiable and industry-trusted Course Certificate once you complete the course. You can highlight them on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

Barriers to entry is an economics and business term describing factors that can prevent or impede newcomers into a market or industry sector, and so limit competition. These can include high start-up costs, regulatory hurdles, or other obstacles that prevent new competitors from easily entering a business sector. Barriers to entry benefit existing firms because they protect their market share and ability to generate revenues and profits.

Common barriers to entry include special tax benefits to existing firms, patent protections, strong brand identity, customer loyalty, and high customer switching costs. Other barriers include the need for new companies to obtain licenses or regulatory clearance before operation.

Key Takeaways

• Barriers to entry describe the high start-up costs or other obstacles that prevent new competitors from easily entering an industry or area of business.
• Barriers to entry benefit incumbent firms because they protect their revenues and profits and prevent others from stealing market share.
• Barriers to entry may be caused naturally, by government intervention, or through pressure from existing firms.
• Each industry has its own specific set of barriers to entry that startups must contend with.
• Barriers to entry may be financial (high cost to enter a market), regulatory (laws restricting trade), or operational (trying to attract loyal customers or inaccessibility of trade channels).

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Barriers to Entry

Understanding Barriers to Entry

Some barriers to entry exist because of government intervention, while others occur naturally within a free market. Often, companies lobby the government to erect new barriers to entry. Ostensibly, this is done to protect the integrity of the industry and prevent new entrants from introducing inferior products into the market.

Generally, firms favor barriers to entry in order to limit competition and claim a larger market share when they are already comfortably ensconced in an industry. Other barriers to entry occur naturally, often evolving over time as certain industry players establish dominance. Barriers to entry are often classified as primary or ancillary. 

A primary barrier to entry presents as a barrier alone (e.g., steep startup costs). An ancillary barrier is not a barrier in and of itself. Rather, combined with other barriers, it weakens the potential firm's ability to enter the industry. In other words, it reinforces other barriers.

Barriers to entry may be natural (high startup costs to drill a new oil well), created by governments (licensing fees or patents stand in the way), or by other firms (monopolists can buy or compete away startups).

Government Barriers to Entry

Industries heavily regulated by the government are usually the most difficult to penetrate. Examples include commercial airlines, defense contractors, and cable companies. The government creates formidable barriers to entry for varying reasons. In the case of commercial airlines, not only are regulations stout, but the government limits new entrants to limit air traffic and simplifies monitoring. Cable companies are heavily regulated and limited because their infrastructure requires extensive public land use.

Sometimes the government imposes barriers to entry not by necessity but because of lobbying pressure from existing firms. For example, one state requires government licensing to become a florist and four states require government licensing to become an interior designer. Critics assert that regulations on such industries are needless, accomplishing nothing but limiting competition and stifling entrepreneurship.

Natural Barriers to Entry

Barriers to entry can also form naturally as the dynamics of an industry take shape. Brand identity and customer loyalty serve as barriers to entry for potential entrants. Certain brands, such as Kleenex and Jell-O, have identities so strong that their brand names are synonymous with the types of products they manufacture.

High consumer switching costs are barriers to entry as new entrants face difficulty enticing prospective customers to pay the additional money required to make a change/switch.

Industry-Specific Barriers to Entry

Industry sectors also have their own barriers to entry that stem from the nature of the business as well as the position of powerful incumbents.

Pharmaceutical Industry

Before any company can make and market even a generic pharmaceutical drug in the United States, it must be granted a special authorization by the FDA. The FDA cites that even the most important drugs for general public health may take up to six months to approve. Although the standard review timeline is around 10 months, more complex drugs or applications may be required to enter this review cycles multiple times due to revisions.

Moreover, just 18% of applications are approved in the first cycle. Each application is incredibly political and even more expensive. In the meantime, established pharmaceutical companies can replicate the product awaiting review and then file a special 180-day market exclusivity patent, which essentially steals the product and creates a temporary monopoly.

On average, it may take billions of dollars to bring a new drug to market. Between 2009 and 2018, the median cost of developing a new drug ranged from $314 million to $2.8 billion. Equally as important, it can take up to 10 years for a drug to be approved for a prescription. Even if a startup company had the capital on hand to develop and test the drug according to FDA rules, it still might not receive revenue for 10 years. Last, ultimate success is far from guaranteed. From 2011 to 2020, the likelihood of approval for development candidates for just Phase I was 7.9%.

Electronics Industry

Consumer electronics with mass popularity are more susceptible to economies of scale and scope as barriers. Economies of scale mean that an established company can easily produce and distribute a few more units of existing products cheaply because overhead costs, such as management and real estate, are spread over a large number of units. A small firm attempting to produce these same few units must divide overhead costs by its relatively small number of units, making each unit very costly to produce.

Established electronics companies, such as Apple (AAPL), may strategically build in switching costs to retain customers. These strategies may include contracts that are costly and complicated to terminate or software and data storage that cannot be transferred to new electronic devices. This is prevalent in the smartphone industry, wherein consumers may pay termination fees and face the cost of reacquiring applications when they consider switching phone service providers.

Oil and Gas Industry

The barriers to entry in the oil and gas sector are extremely strong and include high resource ownership, high startup costs, patents and copyrights in association with proprietary technology, government, and environmental regulations, and high fixed operating costs. High startup costs mean that very few companies even attempt to enter the sector. This lowers potential competition from the start. In addition, proprietary technology forces even those with high startup capital to face an immediate operating disadvantage upon entering the sector.

High fixed operating costs make companies with startup capital wary of entering the sector. Local and foreign governments also force companies within the industry to closely comply with environmental regulations. These regulations often require capital to comply, forcing smaller companies out of the sector.

Financial Services Industry

It is generally very expensive to establish a new financial services company. High fixed costs and large sunk costs in the production of wholesale financial services make it difficult for startups to compete with large firms that have scale efficiencies. Regulatory barriers exist between commercial banks, investment banks, and other institutions and, in many cases, the costs of compliance and threat of litigation are sufficient to deter new products or firms from entering the market.

Compliance and licensure costs are disproportionately damaging to smaller firms. A large-cap financial services provider does not have to allocate as large of a percentage of its resources to ensure it does not run into trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), or a host of other agencies and laws.

What Are Some Barriers to Entry?

The most obvious barriers to entry are high start-up costs and regulatory hurdles which include the need for new companies to obtain licenses or regulatory clearance before operation. Also, industries heavily regulated by the government are usually the most difficult to penetrate. Other forms of barrier to entry that prevent new competitors from easily entering a business sector include special tax benefits to existing firms, patent protections, strong brand identity, customer loyalty, and high customer switching costs.

Why Would a Government Create a Barrier to Entry?

Governments create barriers to entry for varying reasons. In some cases, such as consumer protection laws, these barriers are intended to protect public safety but have the unintended effect of favoring incumbent businesses. In other cases, such as broadcasting licenses or commercial airlines, the barriers are due to the inherent scarcity of the public resources needed by these industries. In some cases, the government may impose barriers to entry explicitly to protect favored industries.

What Are Natural Barriers to Entry?

Barriers to entry can also form naturally as the dynamics of an industry take shape. Brand identity and customer loyalty serve as barriers to entry for potential entrants. Certain brands, such as Kleenex and Jell-O, have identities so strong that their brand names are synonymous with the types of products they manufacture. High consumer switching costs are barriers to entry as new entrants face difficulty enticing prospective customers to pay the additional money required to make a change/switch.

Which Industries Have High Barriers to Entry?

Industries requiring heavy regulation or high upfront capital often have the highest barriers to entry. Telecommunications, transport (i.e. car or airplane), casinos, parcel delivery services, pharmaceutical, electronics, oil and gas, and financial services often all require substantial initial investments. Each of those industries is also heavily regulated or requires substantial oversight from governing bodies.

Why would government policy be a barrier to entry?

How can the government impose barriers to entry?

What are the major barriers to entry into an industry?