Huawei has just announced its 2021 financial results, with the title “Solid Operations, Investing in the Future”. That is actually a pretty good summary of their strategy post-US tech ban. **Disclosure:** While this coverage is unpaid, Huawei provided me with travel and hotel accommodations within the past 12 months. It was also interesting because CFO […]
Southeast Asian tech giant Grab is facing a difficult choice: should it focus on profitability or growth? This article explores the pros and cons of each strategy and discusses the potential outcomes for Grab. Ultimately, the decision of whether to focus on profitability or growth will depend on a number of factors, including the company’s financial situation, its competitive landscape, and its long-term goals.
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses how customer capture can be a competitive advantage in digital businesses. He explains the different levels of competition and provides a checklist for building a competitive advantage. Towson argues that customer capture is becoming increasingly important in the digital age, as businesses compete for attention and loyalty. He provides examples of companies that have successfully built competitive advantages through customer capture, such as Amazon and Netflix.
Traditionally, revenue and demand-side advantages are described as “customer captivity”. It shows up as a company that gets higher pricing and/or more repeat purchases from customers – compared to other products or services of comparable quality. Next time you are in an airport terminal waiting for a flight, check the prices of literally anything. Once you […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson interviews Abel Deng, CEO of Huawei Thailand, about Huawei’s four big projects in Thailand. Deng discusses the importance of digital infrastructure in Thailand’s economic development and how Huawei is helping to build the country’s digital future. The four projects are:
Building a 5G network in Thailand
Developing a smart city in Bangkok
Investing in education and training
Supporting the development of startups
A moat is a competitive advantage that allows a company to generate sustainable profits. There are three levels of moat strength: competitive fortresses, competitive advantages, and competitive nuisances. Companies with strong moats are more likely to be successful in the long run.
In Part 1, I laid out how to think about physical networks. For logistics, that means lots of warehouses and trucks doing various routes between them. In Part 2, I talked about one of the big competitive advantages of logistics networks, which is network effects. Note: These are significantly different than the network effects we […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses lessons from Warren Buffett on compounding and competitive advantage. He shares insights on how to build businesses that can grow over time, and how to identify companies with sustainable competitive advantages.
I recently wrote about Shein and how they are increasing on rate of learning (plus low prices). That article is here. And I characterized their rapid updating of their site (adding +1,000 new products per day) as “retail at the speed of algorithms”. However, there are other types of rate of learning. One is when […]
Dingdong is a Chinese specialty ecommerce player focused on fresh groceries. It has gone public while still operating profit negative, but brings to mind a similar situation with Meituan at IPO. Jeffrey Towson argues that Dingdong’s success will depend on its ability to build a strong logistics network and scale its operations.