Objectives of knowledge management

Competitive threats
1
 
Threat of new e‑commerce entrants
For traditional ‘ bricks- and- mortar’ companies this has been a common threat for retailers 
selling products such as books and financial services. For example, in Europe, traditional 
banks have been threatened by the entry of completely new start-up competitors such as 
Zopa (
www.zopa.com
) or traditional companies from a different geographic market that use 
the Internet to facilitate their entry into an overseas market. ING, an existing financial ser-
vices group, formed in 1991 and based in the Netherlands, has used the Internet to facilitate 
Demand analysis
Assessment of the 
demand for e‑commerce 
services amongst existing 
and potential customer 
segments.
Figure 5.10
Competitive threats acting on the digital business
Intermediary
threats
Supplier
threats
Intermediary
threats
New digital
products
New business
models
New
entrants
Buy-side threats
Sell-side threats
Competitive threats
Customer
threats
Organisation
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Part 2
Strategy and applications
Table 5.5
Impact of the Internet on the five competitive forces