Rol van IT in de Democratisering van Handel

IT can play a major role in this effort only if the core competencies of the organizations are identified and automated.

While the technology can be blamed for commoditizing of products faster, we can leverage the same technology to expedite creation of Network Externalities. Let me take EBay as an example. While it is simple to copy Ebay’s business model, it will be extremely difficult to create a value for the sellers because all the buyers have become EBay’s captive audience.

So, IT is a double edged sword. On one hand it is enabling commoditization of product. On the other hand it can be leveraged to differentiate your product/service and organization. Even with democratized information availability, IT can help create first mover’s advantage. It all depends on how organizations use IT. In the later blog I will talk how IT can enable organizations to identify their products and/or services’ Long Tail which can also be exploited to create a differentiation strategy for that organization.