Digital Technologies

Topic

Select a company that has used digital technologies to change or enhance its competitive strategy. Look up the company on the internet and using Porter's five forces model discuss how the company has increased (or decreased) its competitive advantage.

Group 1

Adhish Luitel

Aniket Aggarwal

Ipshita Rath

Nilesh Gupta

Ravi Kumar

Introduction

Digital technologies or digital electronics represents the digital signals which are in the form of binary or digital code. These signals are in the stores, create, and process data in the form of binary digits (David Dunning, 2014).

If we go back in the history of digital marketing, it is known as digital marketing was made in the late nineteen century, but became more known when IBM started its personal computers. So, digital technologies came up with the personal computers (David Dunning, 2014). If we see today, we have numerous devices that contain digital technology, not only in personal computers but also in mobile phones, digital cameras, music players, and more.

A competitive strategy is a long term plan of action which allows a firm to gain competitive advantage; an edge over its competition and the ability to create greater value for itself and its share or stakeholders (BusinessDictonary, 2014; Investopedia, 2014).

In this paper we will assess how Flipkart has used digital technologies as a strategy to enhance its competitive advantage.

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Company Introduction - Flipkart

Flipkart is a firm in the online retail industry, it is one of the leading e-commerce businesses in the India. Flipkart has more than 11 million book titles listed (Vacancy Next, 2012). With more than 4 million registered users with the estimated sales of 45000 items a day (Techcircle, 2013). Flipkart has 11 different categories starting from the first title of Books and from there expanding it to Electronics, mobile phones & accessories, computers, home appliances, kitchen appliances, personal care gadgets, health care products, apparel and more (BusinessWeek, 2014). Flipkart was found by the Bansal Brothers, that are Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal graduates from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi with a degree in computer science. Both of them previously worked at Amazon.com and left to start Flipkart (Vacancy Next, 2012). Flipkart was established in October 2007 and then after the company is growing very rapidly as the best e-commerce business in India (Vacancy Next, 2012). Flipkart was started by just investing INR 4 Lakh and now the value of the company is estimated to be around INR 400 Crores (Videathink, 2013). Flipkart claims 100% growth every quarter since established (Etailingindia, 2014). Flipkart acquired WeRead in 2010, Mime360 in 2011, Chakpak.com in 2011 and Letsbuy.com in 2012 (Indiadigitalreview,