Digital Winners and Losers

March 05, 2019

Read The Full Prompt

Digital technologies are upending many industries and companies. Think about Uber’s impact on the taxi business or Spotify’s impact on music downloads.

For this assignment, please identify companies/organizations that you think are winning and losing due to the same transformation.  Do most of the work on the winners, and focus less on the losers, devoting attention to winner/losers according to a ratio approximately 3/1. Why are they a winner and why is the other organization a loser? Discuss the key elements of how the winner creates and/or captures value that is leading you to call them a winner. Similarly for why you are calling the other firm a loser.

Create an approximately 1000-1200 word post to make your contribution by Tuesday, March 5, at 8 p.m.

Please also respond to and comment on three other posts per module. Comments are due by Wednesday, March 6, at 10 a.m. Feel free to use graphics, data, videos and links to other sites to corroborate your points.

Selected posts will be discussed in class and also featured on the HBS Digital Initiative website.

Please prepare a 2-3 min summary of your blog post before class.

Submitted (37)

The Gentrification of Higher Education
Fidel Cashflow
Last modified on March 7, 2019 at 6:34 am
The advent of the internet promised increased connectivity between people across the world and the democratization of information.  This digital revolution has created winners and losers. Losers: Low and mid-tier colleges and universities Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christenson has [...]
Energy Management Systems: a digital transformation that’s leaving electric utility companies by the wayside
Alex
Last modified on March 5, 2019 at 7:22 pm
Energy management systems are enabling a transformation to a new, digital energy era. And those with the best energy management systems and financing models are poised to win as we switch to a decentralized model of energy production.
Who has what it takes to be The Voice?
Gene E. Lectington
Posted on March 5, 2019 at 7:36 pm
Virtual Assistants are software programs that translate spoken language and conversational text into completed requests. Overtime, Virtual Assistants have become smarter as more data has improved the algorithms that process requests and translate them into responses. The technological advancements of [...]
Crowdsourcing Navigation: The Effects of GPS in our Pockets
MS
Last modified on March 5, 2019 at 7:14 pm
Waze is a case study in what is possible - both good and bad - when real-time data is at our fingertips
Kobalt: Transforming the Music Industry through Transparency and Accountability
Kike
Last modified on April 24, 2019 at 6:39 am
Music’s digital revolution has not only transformed the way we consume, but also paved the way for new business models to develop on the back-end.
Winners and Losers Across Industires
Jose Munoz
Posted on March 5, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Analyzing the winners and losers of digital platforms across different industries.
Text the City hall and Actually Get a Response
Mega
Last modified on March 6, 2019 at 1:29 am
A civic engagement mobile app that digitalizes government and transforms it into an agile bureaucracy
Digital Era Helping Large Banks Grow Market Share
JB
Posted on March 4, 2019 at 8:33 pm
How the shift from branches to online is helping large banks dominate in digital acquisitions, underwriting analytics, and digital-first branch cafes.
Digital Disruption in the Fast-Fashion Industry
Nicolas Khaliliyeh
Last modified on March 5, 2019 at 6:21 pm
Can apparel retailers including fast-fashion disrupters Zara and H&M save themselves from digital disruption? Zalando, Europe's leading online fashion platform, Boohoo, ASOS, and other pure e-commerce player, are killing the fashion-industry status quo.
Developing a Digital Farmers’ Network to Create Pricing Transparency
JWA
Last modified on March 5, 2019 at 7:29 pm
FBN has created a platform to share data and make pricing more transparent in one of the most opaque markets left in the US. In doing so, they are taking on some of the largest players who have a lot [...]
Digital Solution for Integrating Payments and Point-of-sales Systems Targeting at SMEs
Wendy Chiang
Last modified on March 5, 2019 at 7:55 pm
Industry Background and Transformation For small and medium enterprises owning physical shops, point-of-sales (POS) systems along with payment systems are crucial technologies that support the whole operations. Before the digitalized POS system emerged, most shops in the United States used [...]
US Telehealth sees international response – does regulatory support overcome first-mover advantage?
TOM4
Last modified on March 5, 2019 at 6:13 pm
The problematic promiseof telehealth for matching supply and demand of medical services has been an often-revisited topic over the past decade, particularly after passage of the Affordable Care Act.  Since then, telehealth has represented the certain promise of scaling the [...]
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