1. Articles by Michael E. Porter and Don Tapscott
‘Strategy and the Internet’ vs. ‘Rethinking Strategy in a Networked World’
Articles by Michael E. Porter
and Don Tapscott

2. Strategy and the Internet: Fundamental Questions
Who will capture the economic benefits that the Internet creates?
Where will the value end up? With the customers? Will companies be able to reap a share of it?
What will be the Internet’s impact on industry structure? Expand or shrink profit?

3. Distorted Market Signals
Revenue Side – Sales figures can be unreliable:
Subsidized sales, such as no sales tax
Curiosity shopping
Some revenues from online commerce have been received in the form of stock rather than cash
Cost Side also fuzzy
Subsidized procurement
Understating the need for capital

4. Distorted Market Signals, cont’d.
Stock Market – some companies made decisions based on influencing near-term share price or responding to investor sentiments
Financial Metrics:
Expanded definition of revenue
Number of customers
Number of unique users – “reach”
Number of site visitors
Click-through rates

5. Dot Com Key Performance Indicators (1995 – 1999)
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Hit: Number of browser requests for a single item
Impression: Number of times a banner ad is seen by a visitor
Page Views: Number of times a page is displayed
Unique Visitors: Number of different individuals visiting the site
Click-through Rate: Percentage of times responded to advertisement by clicking on the ad

6. Dot Com KPIs (2000)
Source: McKinsey Quarterly

7. A Return to Fundamentals
Creation of true economic value once again becomes the final arbiter of business success
Economic Value: Price – Cost
Reliably measured only by sustained profitability
Uses of Internet
Selling toys
Internet technologies:
Site-customization tools
Can be deployed across many uses
The uses of Internet technology ultimately create economic value

8. How Can the Internet be Used to Create Economic Value?
Industry Structure: Determines the profitability of an average competitor
Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Allows a company to outperform the average competitor

9. Porter’s Model of Competitive Rivalry

10. Competitive Rivalry Model, cont’d.
The model is supposed to help a firm identify threats to its competitive position and to lay plans and derive average profitability and attractiveness of industry
The model recognizes 5 major forces that could endanger a company’s position in a given industry

11. Porter’s 5 Competitive Forces
The rivalry among existing firms in the industry
The threat of potential new entrants to the sector
The threat of substitute products or services
The bargaining power of suppliers
The bargaining power of buyers

12. Porter’s Model – New Entrants
The ease with which a company can enter a given trade sector
Barrier to entry include the need for:
Capital
Knowledge
Skills
Government regulations, e.g. online sales tax
Market leadership and switching costs, e.g. Microsoft

13. Porter’s Model – Substitution
A new product or service that becomes available and supplies the same function as the existing product
E-Commerce substitution:
Online banking, MP3, movies, software, games, airline ticket booking, books, newspapers, magazines, post cards, etc.

14. Porter’s Model – Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Suppliers have bargaining power where:
There are few or no competitors
There is a shortage of supply

15. Porter’s Model – Bargaining Power of Buyers
Buyers have bargaining power where:
There are a number of competitors
There is a surplus of supply
Customers: more sellers online, unbiased information access, increased information processing, the competitor is just a click away, etc.

16. Porter’s Model – Existing Players
The competition between existing players is won on the basis of generic competitive advantage of price, differentiation, or focus

17. Competitive Advantage
3 basic strategies:
Cost leadership:
Prices lower than the competition
Differentiation:
Products with some quality that makes them more attractive than the competition
Focus:
Concentration on a single aspect of the market (a niche)

18. How Can IT Help Provide a Competitive Advantage?
Cost Leadership:
Reduce administrative costs, e.g. supply chain
Differentiation:
Quality of service (QoS)
Responsiveness to customer requirements
Focus:
Target information on the selected segment
Gather customer data from that segment
Quick Response and JIT:
Evolve new products and services
Facilitate customization

20. First Mover Advantage
The first organization to implement a new type of systems/businesses can gain the price advantage or differentiation while competitors are still operating with traditional methods
E-Commerce first movers include:
Amazon
eBay

21. First Mover Advantage, cont’d.
First movers take a big risk:
New unproven business models
New expensive technologies
Second/late movers can copy proven ideas and technological applications

22. First Mover Advantage, cont’d.
To gain competitive advantage using IS and IT usually needs an element of surprise; the system needs to be out in the market place before competitors make a start in copying the idea
Sustaining that competitive advantage requires either:
Converting the technical advantage into brand advantage
Sustaining the technical lead by continuous product and service development
The development of many e-Commerce systems, cannot be entirely private – customers had to become involved and competitors can copy

23. First Mover Myth
Deployment of Internet technologies would increase switching costs and create strong network effects which would provide first movers with a competitive advantage  MYTH
Switching costs: All cost incurred by a customer in changing to a new supplier
As switching costs go up, customers’ bargaining power goes down and barriers to entry into a industry increase

24. Internet and Value Chain: 5 Overlapping Stages
Automated discrete transactions: order entry and accounting
Functional enhancement of individual activities: sales force operations and HR management
Cross-activity integration: CRM, SCM, ERP
Integration of value chain: end-to-end applications that connect CRM, SCM, ERP
Real-time optimization

26. The Internet and Competitive Advantage
Sustainable competitive advantage:
Operating at a lower cost
Commanding a premium price
How to achieve it?
Operational Effectiveness: Doing the same things as your competitors but doing them better
Strategic Positioning: Doing things differently than your competitors

27. Operational Effectiveness
Many companies doing the same thing the same way
A lot of companies developing similar types of Internet applications, often with COTS
Customer’s purchase decision is on the basis of price, undermining industry profitability

28. Six Principles of Strategic Positioning
Start with right goal: long-term return on investment
Deliver a value proposition different from competitors
Have a distinctive value chain
Robust strategies involve trade-offs
Define how all elements of what a company does fit together
Continuity of direction

29. The End of the New Economy
New Economy = Old Economy + Access to Information Technology
Business > e-Business >>> Business
Strategy > e-Strategy >>> Strategy

30. Porter Summary Profitability still counts
True economic value is measured by sustained profits
To compete, companies must operate at a lower cost and/or command a premium price, either through operational effectiveness or by creating unique value for customers
Being first mover does not guarantee competitive advantage over the long haul
Traditional framework of strategies, like Competitive Forces, are still applicable

31. What Do Others Think?
Don Tapscott’s article is sub-titled ‘Why Michael Porter is Wrong about the Internet’
Obviously disagrees with Porter at some fundamental level

32. Tapscott’s Article Business Web
Any system composed of suppliers, distributors, service providers, infrastructure providers, and customers that uses the Internet for business communications and transactions

33. Tapscott, cont’d.
Internet is an unprecedented, powerful, universal communication medium
It will soon connect every business, business function, and the majority of human beings on the planet
It is the only platform which converges all communication media and IT tools
The internet of today will drastically change in near future

34. Tapscott, cont’d.
Internet is not only the means to link computers, but the mechanism by which individuals and organizations exchange money, conduct transactions, communicate facts, express insight and opinion, and collaborate to develop new knowledge

35. Tapscott, cont’d. Three core areas ripe for business model innovations
Unique Products
Operational Efficiencies
Customer Service and Relationships

36. Unique Products
IBM shifted its mentality from proprietary hardware and software to partnering with other companies
Now offering Linux and investing lots of $ in OSS projects
Built the PC market based on Microsoft standard
Only 15 years ago, IBM had rivals in Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Prime Computer, and Data General (DG). They have failed because they did not partner

37. Operational Efficiencies
In procurement, GE used reverse auctions to save ~$600 million in 2001
Run these global auctions daily
$6 billion worth of auctioning in 2000

38. Customer Service and Relationships
The Internet is more than an added channel for customer service
Sales agents have Internet-based information and tools that can be used at the customer site
Call centers equipped with customer relationship management (CRM) systems can deliver better customer service because they have the full customer records
Brick-and-mortar stores exploit location-based services to gain more customers that find them through the Internet

39. Tapscott, cont’d.
In the Internet era, firms can profit enormously from resources that do not belong to them
Example:
Ebay  PayPal, UPS, FedEx
Flight booking  Sabre

40. References
Strategy and the Internet by Michael Porter appeared in the Harvard Business Review in March 2001
Rethinking Strategy in a Networked World by Don Tapscott appeared in Strategy + Business, Issue 24 (Third Quarter, 2001)