The Next Great Digital Advantage

In our HBR article, N. Venkat Venkatraman and I argue datagraphs as the next source of competitive advantage.  Datagraphs must drive strategy because they help companies create new pools of value.  Digital companies such as Amazon, Google, and Netflix have come to dominate the market with their Purchase Graph, Search Graph, and Movie Graph, respectively, but the time has come for every company to think about developing its signature datagraphs as a key differentiator.  
Strategy is about more than designing and delivering the best product at the best price; it’s also about knowing in real time how products deliver value as they’re consumed.  The idea may have been farfetched some years back, but it’s now technologically feasible, economically viable, and immediately actionable.  

In a digital world, companies can be customer-centric only by understanding data-in-use and putting datagraphs at the center of strategy.  
 

Of the 4,000 products Amazon sells every minute, approximately 50% are presented to customers by its personalized recommendation engine. When you visit the site, its algorithms select an assortment of products from about 353 million items and arrange them for you according to what they predict you will want at that precise moment. Read the rest of the post on Harvard Business Review.