Question

Identify three key sources of digital competitive advantage. For each source, identify a company that you believe exemplifies that digital competitive advantage in today's world and specify the ways you see them using Information Technology to achieve that advantage. In each key area, you should explain based on your understanding.

Answer 1

1. Creating great content

A lot of companies grapple with the notion of having similar product descriptions for the products they offer in a particular space. That when companies started investing in SEO and SEM, a lot of them on-boarded experts from the industry to get their opinion on these products. The real game changer was including users to write their experiences, which led to a lot of organic growth. This phenomenon gave rise to creating superior content to keep users engaged during all stages of their journeys and also led to a lot of conversions which impacted the bottom-line.

Company: Investopedia

Here's a company which has leveraged content marketing like no other, which brings in 33 million visitors to their site on a monthly basis. This can majorly be attributed to two reasons

• Their ability to create amazing content architecture which satisfies users and search engines alike.

• They provide an easy understanding for a lot of financial jargon with the help of real world examples.

2. Building a great user experience

This is one area which is grossly under invested in by many companies, which is precisely why it makes up for a great opportunity. Following are some ways to achieve this:

• Conducting usability testing and implementing refinements on an ongoing basis. This helps users remember the site's user friendliness, which keeps bringing them back.

• Building a website that is fast, which directly translates into a superior user experience. One way of doing this is by using accelerated mobile pages.

• Creating a great mobile experience, Many firms now have a mobile-first mentality, which helps them in creating a fast website due to its increasing preference.

Company: Zara

Zara has a website which is simple, clean and intuitive, it limits navigation choice by giving the users restricted but clear options. This one simple things helps the user avoid confusion while making the buying decision, too many options can overwhelm the visitors which can potentially bring the conversion rate down.

3. Mastering a social media platform

Establishing dominance on a platform like Facebook would be very difficult now as it is very mainstream with a lot of businesses eyeing a top spot. Embracing new and upcoming platforms where the majority of competition is not active yet makes all the difference. Early adopters of a new platform flock towards a brand, which makes it easier for the brands to build and develop earned media assets.

Company: AirBnB

AirBnB is a hospitality company which allows people to list and find vacation homes online. The company has used Instagram for the better part of a decade to create an online empire, which their followers droll by. Since visuals play an important factor while people research for their vacations, AirBnB has mastered the art of posting breath-taking pictures of their inventory. This feat was officially acknowledged when the won the award for 'best Instagram presence'.