Information Brokers or Portals

Information brokers or now commonly known as portal sites provides a form of service, which adds value to the huge amounts of data available on the open networks. They provide value by consolidating and aggregating the large amount of information into organised pool of information for consumption by the Internet users. An example of an information broker or portal site is Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) which basically started as a directory service and subsequently evolved into a portal site.

Sources of revenue for this type of models may be through subscription-based or advertising.

Creating Competitive Opportunities

The Internet is an exciting mechanism to be involved in and people who understand the advantages that the Internet provides will be able to benefit from it. Competitive advantage in an industry can be measured by the company's long-term return on capital relative to its competitors.

Some of the guiding principles in establishing competitive advantage are :-

Understanding The Customer
Competitive advantage in e-commerce begins with understanding the customer. It is both rare and effective for any company to focus all its capital and people on enhancing the customer's experience. Amazon.com has done this very well and has taken online consumer shopping to a new height. Anyone seeking advantage from e-commerce must think along similar lines about how their company might change its processes to serve customers more effectively.


Understand Company's Capabilities
If traditional companies are intending to move into the online environment, they must first understand what their current capabilities are in relation to offering value to their existing customers. It may range from superior customer services to low product pricing and etc. It is important to understand a company's current capabilities and to effectively translate this capabilities to the online environment.



First Mover
The first mover advantage is always important especially in a new area like the Internet. However, it is important to realise that the first mover advantage is limited and if given a short window of opportunity, competitors with access to unlimited resources may wipe out the advantage. Companies thinking of moving unto the e-commerce arena must remember two things-

Always be a first mover as what Amazon.com has successful done; and

Ensure that operational efficiency is there when services are first introduced.


Understanding The Internet
Companies that are able to understand the playing field can effectively take advantage of the environment. Amazon.com has proven this by introducing new businesses processes that are able to harness the strengths of the Internet thereby providing superior customer service, selected the right product which has books to start with and introduced new concepts in the buying process for the benefit of the customers.


Anticipate New Competitors
While it is important to be aware of what competitors are doing, it is important to focus on how customers perceive the relative value of competitors' products and services. A company should not feel compelled to replicate every strategic move of a competitive but rather stick to a predefined plan which has been well thought out. However, it is important to at least anticipate the strategic moves of new competitors to enable further planning to be made.