Digital Nervous System Of Competitive Advantage

The rising of digital economy, the wide application of information, communication technology and Internet has brought significant and far-reaching influences to the competitive environment of enterprises. They are changing the nature of production and service process, the nature of enterprises and industries and even the nature of competition itself, which have made it possible for building a completely new model of enterprise and a process of value creation. Administrators should clearly see the extensive influences of information and communication technology, and they should create a forceful and durable competitive advantage by using the digital nervous system.This thesis firstly discusses the origin and definition of the digital nervous system, describes the complete picture of application of the digital nervous system by using cases so that the readers can fully understand the digital nervous system and its application. Then, the paper touches upon the relationship between the digital nervous system and competitive strategy together with value chain of enterprises through the analysis of the influences of the rising of digital economy and wide application of Internet on the competitive environment of enterprises. And then, the paper focuses on analyzing in what aspects the application of the digital nervous system will bring competitive advantage to enterprises. After that, the thesis discusses the strategic management and development of the digital nervous system of enterprises. Finally, this paper reviews and analyzes the situations of informationization in U.S.A and major Asian countries, and tries to find out the disparities and problems in this area of our country through comparison and to put forward certain counter measures.The main viewpoints of the thesis are the following.Taking computer, communication, and network technologies as its core, the digital nervous system of enterprises has created a production and management environment with no limit of time and space. It is not only an extension of information technology, but also more importantly an extension of the enterprises' management and organizational management strategy.The upspringing of Internet and the digital economy is of the following characteristics, i.e., high speed development, large market potentialities, significant influence on the ways of the increase of economy; the rapid development of B2B has become the principal component of e-commerce; B2C e-commerce is expanding continuously; and customers' behavior is changing immensely.The rising of digital economy, wide application of information, communication technology and Internet are also affecting the competitive environment of enterprises deeply and significantly, and which has made it easier and cheaper to obtain information worldwide and it has formed a kind of lasting link between the firms and the customers, between the firms, as will as the partners and the customers throughout the world. All this leads to save of time, lowering of threshold for new competitors, increasing indistinctiveness between products and services, further difficulties of products and services for a level higher of industry competitiveness, severer conflicts between the new channels and the old channels, and the higher expectation to the enterprises from customers and shareholders, etc. The influence on the circulation is particularly great. It has promoted a revolution of the ways sales, caused a fundamental change of circulation, and a shift of the traditional business model and process, as will as a revolution of the supply chain.In the era of the digital economy, it is the key for an enterprise to gain its competitive advantage to have all its activities as a system not just a collection of isolated activities. And it is important for the enterprise whether it can manage its value chain in the way of managing a system. The improvement of its competitive position can be realized by the reform of the value chain structure, which will optimize the activities and its way of conn...