Explain how the Internet can help a company to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace through (1) cost leadership and (2) differentiation.

Explain how the Internet can help a company to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace through (1) cost leadership and (2) differentiation.

Cost leadership entails the competitive advantage of offering a product or service to consumers at a lower price than the other rivals. Taco Bell achieved a competitive edge through cost leadership in an increasingly saturated fast-food marketplace. The company introduced a drive-through digital menu board complete with Ai-enhanced speech-recognition capability and innovative Taco Bell Management system (TBS). This competitive strategy permits firm-cost leadership by automating order-taking while ensuring perfect pitch control. Also, experienced staff helps verify ambiguous orders from the algorithm using an online tool (Standen et al., 2020). The integrated tech platform will likely help the firm acquire more, precise, and fewer incomplete orders, translating to a better Taco Bell consumer experience with lower costs and more convincing insights for the company. The competitiveness of the Taco Bell drive-through in the market offers grounds to lower operational costs over time. The competitive edge audit substantially concludes Taco Bell scaling, thus reducing operational costs since food is not wasted between shifts, unintentional costs on salaries, and premium facility hours depending on increased conveyable orders and volume (Standen et al., 2020). Taco Bell will establish a competitive advantage in other areas dominated by McDonald's by introducing innovative technology-based approaches to upscale directly and reduce costs proportionately.

Part B

eBay Inc.'s global leader facilitates online containers auction and sales marketplaces. Regarding e-business, it incorporates other successful online entrsprises owned by eBay to augment consumers' experiences at eBay sites, as the main competitive advantage is to separate itself from other industry players. For example, mobile eBay facilitates keeping records of sold and bought items, tracking delivery status and shipments, enabling users to view and bid items, and keeping feedback. With various differentiating tools in eBay mobile operational, the company's consumer shopping experience has been augmented. eBay's Dhgate.com assists consumers in searching, evaluating, bidding, and buying Android and iPhone share apps. This has improved the competitive position of eBay app creator and usages due to its elaborate and affordable shopping experience (Emarketer & PR Newswire, 2015). The company's other elements of competitive advantage include its customized recommendation that enhances personalization, established sub-area insights on big data and powerful systems, strict quality rules and policies, learning capacity based on massive amounts of critical user and operation data, and very responsive, consumer-oriented as well as adapts to change faster than other e business firms (Lu & Sheng, 2021). The strategy is sustainable because the industry has increasingly continued offering more competitive and innovative products. The firm's sustainable e-business strategy is based on developing exciting products rapidly, maintaining aggressive sales, and rolling back resources into operations. The above-mentioned competitive advantage is categorized as sustainable since eBay gamifies consumer shopping and selling experiences via applications to gratify their competitive instincts (Blue Hill Analytics, 2020).

References

Blue Hill Analytics. (2020). EBay (Financial) Value Chain Analysis | Fulfilling Value Proposition with Software | Blue Hill Insight. Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQsupg1q8Bk

Emarketer, & PR Newswire. (2015). With Starters' Bids, Maowei Hits Top Rank of Global Special Smartphone Auction Apps with Unique Exclusive Items and Bids. Muscat Daily. Retrieved from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/special-report-maowei-hits-top-rank-on-global-special-smartphone-auction-apps-with-unique-exclusive-items-and-bids-550137592.html

Diario Elmexian. (2021). Desinfecta Un México en Línea and Harley Davidson through UNEFON and 1,100 Virtual Concert Views. Diario Elmexian. Retrieved from https://www.diarioelmexicano.com.mx/espectaculos-cultural/desinfecto-un-mexico-en-linea-y-harley-davidson-a-traves-de-unefon-y-1-100-vistas-en-virtual-concierto-3397400.html

Gonzalez, T. R (2021). Is HD Bankruptcy? The Battle For Sympathetic E-Business? Retrieved from https://medium.com/@hq104615/are-h-ds-packeage-issues-throwing-hd-into-bankruptcy-the-battle-for-empathic-e-business-b8b66e7cc6ff.

Lu, Y., & Sheng, J. (2021). Research on the Competitive Advantage and Strategy of E-business Enterprises Based on Process Value Chain. Journal of Applied Science and Engineering Innovation, 8(3), 130-137. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/JingLi-102/publication/354494748_Research_on_the_Competitive_Advantage_and_Strategy_of_E-business_Enterprises_Based_on_Process_Value_Chain/lin