1: Facebook uses information systems to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. According to Damianos Sakasa, Nasiopoulos Dimitriosa, Androniki Kavourab in the article the development of Facebook’s competitive advantage for brand awareness they analyzed the Facebook brand as well as the advantages and disadvantages of its creation. They also came up with a model for the commercial advancement of consumer behavior (Sakasa, Dimitrios, & Kavoura, 2015). For example, one of my really good friends is Mormon, and ever since she became friends with me on her Facebook newsfeed, unexpected things started showing up. Such as how to tie a Hijab which is a Muslim head covering since she wanted to know what Muslims believed in this, she researched on Facebook about Muslims once or twice. Therefore, now Islamic things come up in her news feed.
This system can help the public regardless of age in their decision-making process as consumers which can be a great advantage for business (Sakasa, Dimitrios, & Kavoura, 2015). This can also be a disadvantage for businesses since now my friend is getting those advertisements from businesses even though they would not gain anything out of it since she is a Mormon and would not wear a headscarf. Another example of a disadvantage is that one of my cousins who is only 15 years old gets Minneapolis Public School advertisements since she lives there. This scares for me to even think that my little cousin could potentially be tracked down, but I have full faith in her that she has the power to chase away anyone who tries to track her down.
2: Michael Porter identified three strategies for successfully competing in the marketplace which are: the overall cost of leadership, differentiation, and focus. The overall cost of leadership reduces the cost of products and services (Tovar, 2021). Differentiation is making the products and services different from competitors and the focus is on focusing on a specific market segment to achieve a cost or differentiation advantage (Tovar, 2021). The strategy Facebook utilizes is the focus when competing for their desired results of success.
They are achieving success by focusing on the general public and what they want to market. Small and new brands utilize Facebook’s ads system since anyone can advertise through Facebook ads. We just have to pay a small fee to market our products and/or services. This can also be a disadvantage for small businesses since sometimes people advertise their experiences with small businesses which can also hurt those business owners. For example, a life coach I took coaching with through Facebook had tried to coach people about the business which she had no idea about. She charged a big amount for coaching people about business and while doing so another one of her students got very angry with her and advertised it all over Facebook which I believe she brought upon herself and actually desired. I would personally never go teach something I do not know anything about.
3: The company Facebook will be able to sustain its competitive advantage in the future too since every single day in the world people are coming up with new brands of products and services to sell. For example, I am in the process of starting up my business in life coaching and mentoring. I have a business Facebook page and two business Facebook groups through which I provide my life coaching and mentoring services. As well, I have come across many other people conducting their services through Facebook’s platform. Therefore, I do not believe that Facebook will go out of business any time soon.
References:
Sakas, Damianos P, Dimitrios, Nasiopoulos K, & Kavoura, Androniki. (2015). The Development of Facebook’s Competitive Advantage for Brand Awareness. Procedia Economics and Finance, 24, 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2212-5671(15)00642-5
Tovar, S (2021). Introduction to Business Information Systems [PowerPoint Slides]. Files. https://vcccd.instructure.com/courses/33735