Position Analysis of MySpace - Assignment Example

Position Analysis of MySpace Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Introduction MySpace started its operations in the year 2003 as social networking web site for independent musicians in Los Angeles. It grew so rapidly such that by the year 2006 it was regarded the most popular website in the United States of America. This is because within the same period, MySpace overtook rival social networking sites such as Facebook and Friendster and claimed nearly 80 percent of online social networking visits. The web site’s popularity made it very attractive to giant advertisers such as Procter and Gamble and Coca Cola, which sought access to the youth market (Farnham 2006). MySpace’s rapid growth attracted Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of the giant media firm News Corporation to purchase it in 2005. The acquisition of MySpace by News Corporation bolstered the site’s growth due to capital investment that enabled rapid innovation. So fast was the growth that by 2006, the investments achieved included 20 novel products in development, which included Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony as well as 11 international sites (Farnham 2006; Johnson, Scholes & Whittington 2008, p. 355). But in spite of the rapid growth, a number of problems arose. For instance, the high volume of traffic and conflicts in user controlled use of the site created capacity as well as reliability problems. In addition, more challenges to MySpace were posed by the entry of new players in networking such as YouTube, which was very popular for its video service. This was in addition to mounting pressure from online predators as well as malicious gossip aimed to derail MySpace’s development. Further arguments against MySpace were based on the point that as the company matured, it would slowly lose its popularity (which seems to be the case presently with the increase in popularity of other social networking sites such as Facebook). Against a backdrop of the issues highlighted above, this paper is a position analysis of MySpace. The analysis will be done by using and evaluating modules as well as various techniques to critically appraise the organization’s current issues and challenges such as increased competition from rival organizations. The analysis will be use to suggest as wide range of alternatives that can be used to deal with the issues and challenges that will be identified. Performance of MySpace in recent years By the year 2006, MySpace has gained a lot of popularity, and it was embraced mostly young adults and teenagers who found its features irresistible. In the United States, MySpace ranked only second to Yahoo Inc. in terms of page views. MySpace’s unique features included the ability of users to create customized profile pages, where they could post photos, maintain journal blogs, create links with their friends’ profiles, and access messages that were left by others. These features have been very instrumental in the growth of MySpace over the last three years. As of 2006, MySpace had registered over 74 million users the world over and it was estimated to be adding almost 250,000 new users every day (Perez 2006; Farnham 2006). Most of MySpace users between 2006 and 2009 have been teens, who enjoy the ability to set up personal profile pages and also post notes that are easily accessed by their classmates and friends. The information shared includes where the teens go to parties as well as the daily events that happen in schools or other institutions of learning. By 2006, MySpace had become the most preferred web site, snatching the position from Google, which has previously overtaken Yahoo in the same dimensions. As such in spite of it not being a search engine, MySpace became a threat to Google because it was considered the first place to visit on the Internet (Perez 2006; Farnham 2006). The success of MySpace in 2006 and the following years cannot attributed to highly advanced conceptual or technical innovations .In fact, if technology were used to rate the popularity of web sites, MySpace could lag far behind. This is because the site’s features can only be regarded rustic in terms of the contents of web paged as well as web design. In addition, the site like lacks key elements of advance web sites such as the Web 2.0 features. These include the ability of users to tag web contents and for the web developers to create applications that are referred to as mashups on the site’s platform. MySpace is only just a Web 1.5 feature (Fox 2009, p. 126; Perez 2006). Given that other sites are better equipped as compared to MySpace, conventional knowledge would imply that the great success attained by organization could only have been achieved by the more advanced sited such as America online, Microsoft’s MSN outfit, Yahoo or Google. Or more closely, greater success in social networking could have been attained by Friendster. Against this background, it is worthwhile to analyze the factors or strategies that can be attributed to the success of MySpace (Fox 2009, p. 126; Perez 2006). MySpace’s initial success factors / strategies The strategic positioning of MySpace as top web site can be attributed to several factors. To begin with, MySpace was one among the first social networking web sites to avail a host of other services including blogging, varied multimedia contents and streaming, sharing of photos, and a wide variety of communication tools such as instant messaging and email. A combination of the mentioned factors played the magic for the rapid rise of MySpace (Perez 2006). Another key contributor to the success was the decision to incorporate young adults and youth in the use of the Internet. This is a key market segment that had initially been ignored by the other social networking sites. In addition, the clear focus on music as well as general entertainment, in which more than one million bands were used to promote their music made the site the preferred choice among youngsters. They got a chance to express themselves using the site as opposed to the other sites that excluded their interests. The early advocacy for youngsters’ interests thus amplified the success prospects of MySpace. Initial studies showed that MySpace got an opportunity snatch many youngsters who had earlier on been using the services of sites such as AOL for instant messaging (Perez 2006). The key aspects that MySpace at the top of other popular sites are thus highlighted below: Founded on celebrities and bands: When MySpace initially hit the Internet scene, many of its members were celebrities and bands they were enthralled by how MySpace could potentially develop a new way for them to interact and connect with people they regarded as most important to them – that is their fans. The more the celebrities and bands promoted their MySpace pages, the bigger the fan base that was created, and significantly bolstered the growth the MySpace Community. MySpace came as a perfect tool for developing a grassroots-level channel directly to fans that were eager to get a way to connect (Hupfer, Maxson & Williams 2006, p. 214). Ability to customize: although MySpace was not the absolute first in the market to offer social networking services, it became the biggest and most widely recognized. Key to this was success was the creativity part displayed by the site. Customers were able to customize nearly every part of their personal spot in the MySpace environment. This ability to turn personal statements into a true identity made the site gain wider popularity (Hupfer, Maxson & Williams 2006, p. 214). Easy-to-use interface: MySpace provides a user friendly interface that is welcoming to all manner of computer users. This mean that the customer population is not segregated (Hupfer, Maxson & Williams 2006, p. 214). Communication options: MySpace offers users several ways to connect with their friends via a variety of tools such as email messages, instant messaging, bulletins, blogs, event invitations, video and audio players and so forth. The different tools make the site to attract a wide range of customers whether it is for fun or for serious networking functions (Hupfer, Maxson & Williams 2006, p. 214). The factors plus other success strategies or strengths are analysed as part of SWOT analysis in the appendix. Analysis of the success strategies MySpace’s formulation of a corporate-level strategy In common parlance, individual investors often times wish to diversify in an investment portfolio that offers some high risk stock as well as low risk stocks. All these are supposed to be complemented with a few income bonds. In a similar perspective, organizations like to have a mix of business divisions that are commonly referred to as strategic business units. A strategic business unit has a unique business mission, product line, competitors, as well as markets relative to other strategic business units within the same organization (Daft & Lane 2009, p. 194). The use of strategic business units can be seen in MySpace’s operations since the company was acquired by News Corporation. The diverse strategies include the incorporation of unique services in a networking site that was easy to use and customize. In addition, the inclination in the target audience (by targeting mostly youngsters came as a big advantage to MySpace going by the number of subscribers to have joined any other site (Daft & Lane 2009, p. 194). How MySpace maintains the corporate level strategy At MySpace, it is not just about people sitting behind their laptops or desktops and sharing emails or song or videos. MySpace has had a major focus on advertising. While to most of the registered millions of people MySpace is regarded as place for entertainment, amusement and great pastime after or while at work, to marketers it is a great opportunity to grab the attention of the population that has its eyes glued to computer screens. Marketers have the opportunity to advice shoppers on how their online purchase can be delivered; musicians have the opportunity to get feedback on their latest song releases and so on. MySpace’s rapid growth can be attributed to its decision to target marketers by maintaining a large audience. The first step in effective marketing is defining the markets. Marketers are interested in the size of audience that will have access to information about a given product since this directly translates to the sales of a given product that can be attained. In order to order to achieve this, the target groups have to be segmented, their prepositions about particular products have to be met, and any kind of communication with them has to be based on the prepositions (McDonald 2005, p. 88). All these are summarised in figure 1. Figure 1: The marketing model Source: McDonald (2003), p. 88 Figure 1 is an elaborate scheme that MySpace applied in order to achieve a high advertiser base. Hence juggling between networking services and satisfying clients (advertisers) were key in bringing MySpace to the top of the networking chart. MySpace’s commitment to its clients is one factor that has driven it to the top as a marketing site. In the music and video industry for example, while it is difficult for one to determine if a movie is actually getting ready to be a hit, MySpace allows viewers to add dissimilar versions of their movie trailer to their own profile and download new movie-themed backgrounds. They can also add the movie to their top fiends’ list (Hupfer, Maxson & Williams 2006, p. 214). Using the BCG matrix to analyse MySpace The BCG (Boston Consulting Group) matrix can be used in relation to MySpace to organize its operations into two wide categories – that is the business growth rate and market share. Business growth rate relates to how rapidly the entire industry is developing. On the other hand, market share defines whether the business unit has a smaller or larger share of the market than its competitors. The combinations of a low and high market share with high and low business offer four categories for a corporate portfolio (Daft & Lane 2009, p. 194; Stone 2001, p. 46) as shown in table 1. Table 1: The BCG Matrix Relative market share “Star” products – these have a high market share as well as high growth rate. They generate a large cash inflow, though this has to be offset by the cash they need for production. “Question mark” products- these have a high growth rate even though they only have a low market share. The cash generated is minimal and often result in negative cash inflow. “Cash cow” products - these have a high market share but have a significantly low potential growth rate. “Dog” products- these have a low market share as well as low potential growth rate. They generate minimal cash that is commensurate with the cash that is required to produce them. Sources: Adapted from Daft & Lane (2009) p.194; Stone (2001) p. 46 “Star” products are those which have achieved a high market share and generally enable self financing of the company that produces them (Stone 2001 p. 46) In recent years and presently the MySpace site can be said to be at this level. This is because since its acquisition it proved to be offering services that were truly needed by the Internet social networking community. According to Stone (2001), products that are considered under the “star” category are those that are new if viewed in terms of their life cycle .This is undoubtedly true as regards MySpace since the firm introduced a host of services that were distinctly new in the purview of social networking as it entered that particular market. “Cash cow” products are the market leaders and even through they may be projected to undergo very little potential growth, they are considered to have a very stable market (Stone 2001 p. 46). In terms product life cycle, “cash cow” products can be said to be at the maturity stage of just entering maturity (Stone 2001 p. 46). This can be said of MySpace, whose internet social networking services still top the networking chart in spite of the massive competition arising from both established and upcoming rivals. Daft and Lane (2009) note that “MySpace is still in the lead in online social networking, but Facebook is getting all the attention (p. 193). Also to be put into consideration are other competitors such as Twitter, Flixster, Hi5, and Friendster. That notwithstanding, the services offered by MySpace seem to be the most popular, maintaining MySpace at the top (Monas 2006b, p. 39). “Question mark” products are those which have not yet attained a dominant mart position with respect to the associated cash flow (Stone 2001 p. 46). Such products could be those that have slipped back from a previously dominant position. This can be likened to the video feature offered by MySpace. With the advent of specialised websites such as YouTube, which goes with the slogan “Broadcast yourself” and was formed in 2005, much attention to downloading or sharing videos shifted from MySpace to YouTube. It can not be gainsaid that MySpace has to be more aggressive in order to maintain its position in sharing of music and video clips. Thus, MySpace had and still has a lot to do in order to shake off the competition since more and more networking sites now have video and audio sharing features. “Dog products” are those that have little or no future and are generally in decline (Stone 2001 p. 46). From the information available it can be said that MySpace has never been near having such products. MySpace’s challenges In spite of the good performance in the recent years, MySpace face myriad challenges that could ultimately have a major impact on its position. One major challenge though, is linked to the popularity of the site. As a popular social networking, MySpace has become a common tool paedophiles to carry out their business. Although there are rules and regulations governing the use of MySpace, it is very common for these rules to be flouted. Yet MySpace cannot eliminate the people who misuse the site because doing so would be tantamount to eliminating a long list of members, which is not a good aspect of business especially with respect to advertising. As such, there have been many recorded incidents of MySpace members meeting predators on the site. Predators have been regarded the biggest challenge, even more than competition from Myspace’s rivals in social networking. There have been many suggestions to increase monitoring and surveillance of members’ accounts and profiles but this has implications since it is obvious that many members would not want to have their profile contents checked all the time. Other suggestions to increase security at MySpace have been to increase the minimum age to 16 up from 14. But this also poses a serious challenge to membership since it would greatly reduce MySpace’s client base. In addition, monitoring a large website such as MySpace is monumental task that would amount to additional exorbitant costs. Nonetheless, monitoring efforts can be considered successful since users have been empowered to restrict access to their pages the firm has a mechanism to scan images in each profile in order to reinforce the “no nudity” policy (Fox 2009, p. 131) Another key challenge that MySpace faces is the desire to live up to expectations of its mother company – that is the giant News Corporation. News Corporation uses MySpace as its Internet marketing strategy and constantly supports its performance. For instance, in 2008 the giant corporation paid some half billion dollars for MySpace other web sites that are owned by Intermix Media Inc. In reality though, MySpace does not perform according to New Corporation’s expectations. This is because whereas the income generated by the company is mainly from advertising, many advertisers usually shy away when they realize that users generate their own web content, some of which may be offending to other users who, ironically, are the target of the advertisements (Arrington 2008). Another major issue facing MySpace is rival companies MySpace has dominated the social networking scene for years but each year there has been growing competition from other social networking sites such as Facebook. Over the last few years, Facebook has undergone monster growth. This saw it catch up with MySpace in April 2008 going by membership numbers. According to statistics that were released by Comscore, both social networking sites were attracting about 115 million people during that period (Figure 2). This shows that MySpace no longer enjoys the fame of being at the top as it did about three years ago. In addition Facebook has other additional services such as chat that enable instant real time communication between members (Arrington 2008). Months Figure 2: Worldwide unique visitors to MySpace and Facebook. Source: Arrington (2008) Although Facebook seem to pose tight competition to MySpace, its influence is based mainly on international communities. At home that is in the United States, MySpace still dominates the social networking chart (Figure 2). This has major implications to advertising given that it holds a substantial share of the Internet market. MySpace receives 72 million compared to Facebook’s 36 million – a figure that just rose from a recent lower value of 23 million (Arrington 2008). Months Figure 2: Worldwide unique visitors to MySpace and Facebook Source: Arrington (2008) Facebook added abut 75 million unique each month over the last twelve months, out of which only 13 million visitors are located in the United States. At the same time, MySpace added about 5 million United States unique. At this rate, the implication is that it would take four years or more for Facebook to reach MySpace’s level as regards the United States market (Arrington 2008; Fox 2009, p. 133). Whether the high numbers that Facebook seems to have as compared to MySpace are of any significance is amenable to discussion. This is because what mates is the importance of the figures as regards advertising. A notable point is that the United States market is far more responsive to online advertising than the international community. Thus even the less Twitter still commands a large share of online advertising despite having fewer members than MySpace and Facebook (this is illustrated in the appendix) (Arrington 2008; Fox 2009, p. 128). Possible actions to deal with current issues and challenges MySpace should upgrade its facilities from a Web 1.5 feature to Web 2.0 feature or even higher in order to match to the service offered by other social networking sites. Higher number of membership to other networking sites such as Facebook should not be considered as a threat but as an opportunity to focus more in advertising particularly United States and other high potential markets in order to achieve the aim more revenue through advertising. MySpace should integrated the ideas used by other sites such as Hi5, Friendster and so forth to improve it scope by having a wider market and more services to capture the customers, thereby increasing the targets of advertising. There is need to stem the misuse of MySpace by clients for crime and other malicious acts in order to build the confidence of advertisers. Summary of discussion MySpace has grown rapidly since its inception. Much of its success can be attributed its acquisition by News Corporation, which gave it more impetus for growth. Though it seems to have been overtaken by Facebook in terms of worldwide membership, MySpace still holds a large share of clients from the United States. This is good in the context of advertising since the United States has most of the audience. Hence, MySpace can be projected to still hold the lead when it comes to advertising and generating income from this service since it is trusted by many giant advertising companies. Appendix Statistical comparison of MySpace, Facebook and Twitter Statistics obtained over the last few months shows that Facebook has overtaken MySpace in terms of membership (Figure 1). But the impact of this is yet to be realised most of Facebook’s members are international visitors, who have less influence when it comes to the essence of social networking websites- advertising. MySpace still beats Facebook in this aspect. Figure 1: Comparison of membership to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter Source: Compete 2009 Analysis of all MySpace competitors by the year 2006 Name Description / focus User count Registration 43 things Tagging 250,000 Open aSmallWorld European jet set and social elite 75,000 Invite only AIM Pages AOL instant messenger Unknown Open BlackPlanet.com African-Americans 18,000,000 Open Bebo Schools and colleges, UK based 25,000,000 Open Blogger Blogging 2,000,000 Open Blurty Blogs, based on LiveJournal 947,169 Open Bolt General (music and video) 4,000,000 Open Care2 Activists 6,000,000 Open Classmates.com School. College, work and the military 40,000,000 Open Connect.ee Estonia 39,000 Invite-only Consumating “Consumeetings” 21,000 Open Cyworld South Korea 15,000,000 Open DeadJournal “Dark” blogs, based on LiveJounal 490, 310 By invite or payment Downelink LGBT community 250,000 Open Draugiem.lv Latvia 680,000 Invite only Ecademy Business Unknown Free basic level with tiered paid levels Facebook Social networking site for students 7,700,700 Open to high school / college students and people with w work email Faceparty British teens and some people in their 20s 5,900,000 Open Flickr Photo sharing 2,500,000 Open Friendster General 30,000,000 Open Fruhstuchstreff International breakfast initiative 10,022 Open Gaia online General 4,395, 373 Open Goldmic Hip-hop 58,000 Open GolfBuzz Golfers and courses 16,000 Open GoPets Online game and global social 400,000 Open GreatestJournal Users LiveJournal code 1,514, 865 Open Grono.net Poland 830,000 Invite only Hi5 Latin America, Caribbean, Europe, and North America 50,000,000 Open imeem Media-centric social network with instant messaging functionality Unknown Open IMVU 3D chat software 1,000,000 Open IRC-Galleria Finland 350,000 Open iWiW Hungary 1,000,000 Open Joga Bonito Football (i.e. soccer), sponsored by Nike Unknown Open Last.fm Music Unknown Open Linkedln Business 6,500,000 Open LiveJournal Blogging 10, 921,263 Open LunarStorm Sweden 1,200,000 Open MiGente.com Latinos 3,600,000 Open Mixi Japan 5,000,000 Invite only MOBANGO Cell phones 1,000,000 Open MOG Music Unknown Open MSN Spaces Community of MSN users 73 million Open Multiply “Real world” networking with definable relationships 3,000,000 Open Music Forte Music 37,000 Open MyGamma Cell phones 700,000 Open, paid memberships myYearbook General 950,000 Open Neibourhood.com Neighbourhoods 27,000 Open Neurona Hispanic businesses 570,000 Invite only Nexopia Canada 630,000 Invite only OkCupid Dating / Social service 500,000 Open openBC Business 1,000,000 Open orkut Google 24, 359, 314 Invite only Passado General (business) 4,000,000 Open Piczo Teenagers 10,000,000 Open ProfileHeaven British teens 100,000 Open Rediff Connexions General 1,400,000 Open Ryze Business 250,000 Open Sconex American high schools 500,000 Open Sitespaces Adults 6,000 Open Studybreakers High school students 34,000 Open Sulekha Desis, Indian Americans 1,000,000 Open Tagged.com Teens 2,000,000 Open TagWorld General (tagging) 1,850, 692 Open TakingITGlobal Social action 116,000 Open The Student Centre Teens and colleges 800,000 Open Tribe Forums /reviews 300,000 Open Vampire Freaks Gothic Industrial Culture 550,000 Open Vox Blogging, networking, friends, and pictures of friends 550,000 Open WAYN Travel 5,500,000 Open Windows Live Spaces Blogging 30,000,000 Open Xanga Blogs and “metro” areas 40,000,000 Open Xuga Colleges 1,000,000 Open Yahoo! 360 Linked to Yahoo! IDs 2,000,000 Open to people 18 and over Zaadz Social networking for the socially conscious 14, 856 Open, free by invite or application Source: Monas (2006a), p. 291-293 MySpace SWOT analysis External opportunities and threats are the characteristics of the environment that may prevent an organization from attaining its strategic goals. Opportunities are the characteristics of the external environment that have the potential to help the organization attain or even exceed its strategic goals. The task environmental sectors are most appropriate to strategic behaviour and include factors such as customers, competitors, suppliers, and the labour market (De Wit & Meyer 2005, p. 274; Daft & Lane 2009, p. 193). The general business environment contains factors that have an indirect impact on the organization but anyway must be well understood and integrated into the strategic behaviour. The general business environment includes technological development as witnessed in the competition between various service providers on the Internet. Other factors are the economy, the legal aspects and international considerations, availability of resources, as well as socio-cultural changes (De Wit & Meyer 2005, p. 274; Chakravarthy & Lorange 2003, p. 239). In addition to the aforementioned factors, other areas that ay present opportunities or threats to companies such as MySpace include pressure groups, creditors, interest groups, and the potentially competitive peers (Daft & Lane 2009, p.193). Along this line, a SWOT analysis for MySpace must involve an evaluation of the activities being done by rival organizations such as Facebook and Twitter since they present not only challenges but also opportunities for MySpace to be retarded or excel. Table 1 show the SWOT analysis. Strengths The acquisition of MySpace by News Corporation enabled the company to diversify its services and thus targets a wider Internet community. With the acquisition, more investment was done to offer more customized and more user-friendly services that have remained unparalleled for a long time. MySpace has tonnes of traffic daily thanks to being one of the largest server of pages. It is possible for people as young as 14 to build their own pages through the site and this is a guarantee of much more success since the numbers keep growing. Weaknesses With much of its focus on the young populations, MySpace can be sad to have sidelined the adult populations in its social networking services. This is a risky situation given that it is the older populations that are able to spend longer and consistent time on the Internet. Many advertisements by giant companies such as Coca Cola are also likely to target the general population and not just youngsters. Such companies may rethink their decision to advertise using MySpace if they realize that the message is reaching a lopsided market or just a portion of the target market. It has been noted that there too much inventorying at MySpace rather than viable clickthroughs. This problem was projected to cause Fox Interactive Media that includes MySpace, IGN and Photobucket to miss its target $1billion by the end of New Corporation’s second quarter of fiscal year 2008. It has been noted that because of too much inventorying and too few clickthroughs, would make the prospects of growth skeptical. In addition, dumping advertisements on the MySpace website without clearly analyzing the target audience simply does not work as a way to make the site more popular (Schonfeld, 2008). Opportunities MySpace can still capitalize on the United States market in order to achieve high and effective online advertising. The figures for membership may be rising for competitors such a Facebook but this is mostly due to international members (that is those outside the United States. Online advertising by major companies such as Kodak, Coca Cola, McDonalds and so forth usually targets the United States market. Given that MySpace still has a large command over the United States market that is anticipated to last over the last years; strategies should be implemented to ensure that this trend continues in order to obtain more gains from advertising. Such would render the high membership for Facebook irrelevant or inconsequential given that the motivation and major source of income for networking is advertising Threats The threat of abuse of the MySpace website is real. Instances of paedophiles abusing children on the site have been reported. This means that more cost have to be incurred in monitoring and surveillance to get rid of predators and inappropriate material. This has to be done cautiously since it is likely to affect advertising by major companies. Position of MySpace in the last two years (based on April 2007) As of April 2007, MySpace had 185 million registered users of age between 14 and 34. In the same year, the site was recording between 39 to 45 billion page views per month. During this time, the biggest site in terms of visits was Yahoo, which recorded around 35 billion page views per month. At the time, other sites such as Google, MSN, Facebook, Ebay recorded page views far below 15 billion per month. This has tremendously the social networking environment has changed over the last two years and particularly 2009. The performance of MySpace has been augmented by its unique features such as ability to accommodate as many as 25 million songs, a large storage space of 142 tera bytes with an ability to have 15,000 concurrent streams, as well as 60,000 new videos per day. MySpace can accommodate around 4. 5 million people at any given time, which makes it very popular with major advertising companies. This is facilitated by seven data centres, 650 ad servers, 6000 web servers, and 250 database servers. References Arrington, M June 12, 2008 Facebook No Longer The Second Largest Social Network, Available from http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/12/facebook-no-longer-the-second-largest-social-network/ (11 December 2008). Chakravarthy, B & Lorange, P 2003, Strategy process: shaping the contours of the field Wiley-Blackwell, London Compete 2009, Unique Visitors, Available from http://siteanalytics.compete.com/facebook.com+twitter.com+myspace.com/# (10 December 2008). Daft, R L & Lane, P 2009, Management (9th edition), Cengage Learning, 2009. De Wit, B & Meyer, R 2005, Strategy synthesis: resolving strategy paradoxes to create competitive advantage (2nd edition), Cengage Learning EMEA, New York. 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