I have published a framework for building competitive advantages in digital businesses.
One Hour Moats and Marathons: 5 Rules for Winning in Digital Business
This is the short Executive Summary Book of the entire series.
This is the entire 6 part book series.
Reports of the death of competitive advantage are greatly exaggerated.
Competitive advantage is alive and well in the digital age. Yes, many traditional competitive advantages are being disrupted by continually emerging digital tools, trends and business models. But new types of moats are also being created. And they can be shockingly powerful.
How can you look at Facebook, Google, PayPal, Alibaba, Tencent, Adobe and the other digital giants and not see massive moats?
The key question for managers and investors is: How do you build and measure competitive advantage in digital businesses?
And the answer is Professor Jeff’s six levels of digital competition, which are detailed in this book.
Professor Jeff has created a granular, bottoms-up approach to building and measuring competitive advantage in the digital age. And also for assessing how competitive strength is being impacted by the constant stream of new digital tools such as IoT, AI, autonomous vehicles, industrial robots, computer vision, DTC, C2M, and so on. It literally never stops.
Professor Jeff’s six levels of digital competition will help you see digital change and disruption happening at the component level before it plays out in the business model and financials.
- What competitive strengths are specifically being changed by a new business model?
- How is this new digital tool going to impact operating performance versus competitors?
- Which types of moats are being disrupted by this technology?
- What new types of moats are becoming possible?
Jeff Towson is a technology equity investor and advisor, CEIBS / Sasin professor, best-selling author and keynote speaker. His writing and speaking are on digital competition and China / Asia’s leading tech companies. His podcast and subscription newsletter (Asia Tech Strategy) covers the strategies of Asia’s tech companies.
Professor Jeff is one of the most followed professors in Asia (+3.1M followers on LinkedIn). He was also the #1 LinkedIn Top Voice for Finance globally (2017) and a Top Voice for China (2016, 2017, 2018). He is frequently cited as a global influencer by companies such as Huawei and Alibaba.
Here are copies of all the graphics from book 1.