Digital Business: Supply Chain, Growth Hacking, and Analysis

This report delves into the multifaceted world of digital business, examining key concepts such as supply chain management, disintermediation, re-intermediation, and counter-mediation. It explores how digital tools and social media platforms are utilized to understand consumer behavior, manage the bull-whip effect, and optimize marketing campaigns. The report further analyzes growth hacking frameworks, using examples like Amazon and Etsy to illustrate rapid experimentation, data analytics, and targeted marketing strategies. It also examines the role of social media and analytical tools in identifying consumer needs and forecasting demand, providing a comprehensive overview of digital business operations and strategies.

DIGITAL BUSINESS.

Table of Contents.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Question 1....................................................................................................................................3
Question 2....................................................................................................................................4
Question 3....................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Supply chain is the network of all organization and individual resources, technology and
activities involved in a sale of a product. It is a network between companies and its supplier to
produce and distributed to final consumers (Agrawal, & Narain, 2018, p.012074) The process of
disintermediation, re-intermediation and counter-intermediation are managed and monitor by the
digital business to supply their products to final consumers. The digital tools help in to monitor
their products interested in the markets and the consumers are looking for the products to fulfil
their needs and wants by applying Bull-whip effect. However, the growth hacking frameworks
is being applied in the e-commerce logistic company that are dealing in door to door delivery to
C2C business.
MAIN BODY.
Question 1.
Disintermediation is the process to eliminate the intermediate or middlemen from the
business supply chain. The value of intermediate varies and changes with the factor of
technology, industry cycle, economic climate and consumer ability. The removal of different
elements from the supply chain help the company to increase its profit margin and minimize its
cost and time of the chain. It influences the overall cost of the product and remains more cost
effective compare to their competitors and have the competitor advantage in the market place.
This approach is mainly implemented by online businesses' industry (Braz, & et.al., 2018,p.
376-389). But it also comes up with some difficulties and creates burden for companies due to
removal of intermediaries, companies need to work more effectively in the process of delivering
the goods or service. Also, to handle the process, companies need more personnel and funds to
maintain the process.
For Example: Dell started the selling of their products to direct consumers when they
analysed that they can meet customer needs through direct contact with consumers and even
offers to customers to purchase their products (Moretti, & Re Cecconi, 2018, p. 46-56). It
shows that customers are able to know about the product specification more in details and
increases customer trust and loyalty towards company. Before this process, company found it
very complicated and expensive to serve their customers where intermediaries were included.
This model creates differentiation of itself from their competitor and hence became one of the
leading brands in PC industry.

Re-intermediation is the process of reintroduction of an intermediary between the
manufacturer and the consumers. It is just opposite to de-intermediaries where it eliminates
intermediary from its supply chain, re-intermediation creates new element in the supply chain.
This re-intermediation arises due to many issues which are related to the supply chain like selling
to direct consumer. It helps in to focus on creating the best end final goods for consumers (Brian
Lee, & Li, 2018,p. 964-993). It involves high cost incurred and lowers the profit margin of
company that create difficulties to maintain their position in competitive market.
For Example: Levis Strauss &co. Once decide to cut-out it's all intermediary and sell its
product directly to consumers without any middle element in the supply chain. With time, when
Levis Strauss & co founds hard to meet the requirement and effectively maintain its new supply
chain by adopting disintermediation process (Aniello, & Caneppele, 2018, p.42-62.). Company
had suffered with 6 million loss and focused on the re-intermediation process and to create the
new elements of intermediaries for the company. By adopting the process of intermediaries it
assists company to capture market again and compete in the market.
Counter mediation is the process when the companies re-intermediate and invest in the
making of new intermediaries on its own by the companies. The whole process is to control the
supply chain to eliminate competitor to gain the competitors advantage in market. The company
wants to gain to new opportunities that are available in the markets and to lead the market.
Companies had showed up with different products in markets to compete with each other and
prevent competitive advantage to lead the market.
For example: Apple.com had come out with its own app store instead of relying on the
google play store. They create the new market segment for their products and provided new
experience to their customers to gain the competitor advantage from their competitor like
Samsung and One Plus (Gilmore, 2019,p. 482-494.). It helps in to attract more of customers
towards experiencing new interface in Mobile devices and gain the competitor advantage in the
market.
Question 2.
Social media helps company to identify the needs and wants of the products that they are
looking for and are available in the market. This can be analysed through various social media
tools like Instagram marketing, Facebook marketing, email marketing and LinkedIn marketing
which are done through campaign created by companies to promote their products. Whereas,

Analytical tools are used to analyse the report made from the campaign and monitor the interest
and behaviours of people in different market, area, age or gender etc. to increase sales in
particular segment.
Bull-whip effect is the phenomena of knowing the forecasted demand yield inefficiencies
of supply chain. It shows the increase in swing in inventory were response to shift in demand as
one change in supply chain. Same as, upstream manufacturer also seen the decrease in forecast
accuracy due to increase in buffer rise in customer and manufacturer. As, the customer demand
are rarely stable, companies need to forecast demand in market to maintain the inventory of
goods and other resource (Forbes, Wilson, & Alsulaiman,2020,p. 450-472). This forecast is
based on the statistical data collcfted from the social media tools and analytical tools.
Social media help to gather the statistical data for the future prediction with the help of
Google Analytical tool, Hot-suite, Facebook marketing and LinkedIn Marketing.
Google Analytical software is one of the most used tool by the companies and also help
in SEO. It is used for Web analytics service that make company to analyse in depth details of the
visitor they are receiving. The tool shows with many options which can be further categorized as
behaviour, interest, age, gender, areas, product, mobile device etc. who are landed on company's
website are shown in the google analytics (Rangaswamy, & et,al., 2020, p.72-90.). This help the
company to forecast the future sales and interest of consumers and inventory to maintain with
sufficient supply chain of companies.
Hot-suite is a social media management platform of the companies that cover every
aspect of social media manager roles. These platform offer to schedule the right content and post
at a schedule time manage by the team. Hot-suite help companies to manage their post and blogs
to be published at the best time to gain the large number of people to engage with the post and
blogs. It manages the company to monitor its future sales and to maintain the average inventory
in a company to meet the demand with sufficient supply chain by analysing the statistical data
that is gathered from the engaged posts and blogs (Sousa & Rocha, 2019, p.257-263.).
Facebook Marketing is one of most used marketing which is used by the E-commerce
business. It involves paid promotions from advertisement and organic post which are used for
promoting the business to large target audience and market. Usually campaigns are run for
marketing to increase the sales, promotion and reach of their posts and blogs created. It assists e-
commerce companies to gather the data of their audience who engaged from the blogs on the

Facebook pages. Amazon can analyse the behaviour of people who show interest in their blogs
and audience and conversion rate from the blogs (Khin, 2018, p.156-158). This statistical data
can help company to forecast their sales in the future.
Question 3.
Growth hacking is the process that optimizes the growth of central business metrics. This
metric can be lifetime value or frequent active users, revenue or other firms that shows business
success. It is mainly used to describe and illustrate shortcuts for growth of company. Growth
hacking is a business activity of rapid experimentation, data analysis, marketing and engineering
work to make possible the fast growth of company (Bohnsack, & Liesner, 2019, p.799-818).
These are the experiments that are tried and tested and need to be followed by company for its
growth and success. Company uses it to bring traffic on their posts and blogs that can engage
customers towards the company website to make transactions.
For Example: Amazon tries many experiments towards generating of traffic in their
website and app to convert them into transactions that increase the growth of company.
Company uses the data analysis process for knowing the behaviour and increase the marketing
on the consumers who had to search for their products. This process is usually called Search
engine optimization. Digital marketing tools are being used by the business to promote their
products and service in online market and target the potential customers.
1. Rapid experiments: One of the core element of hacking growth is to experiments with
creative process again and again till it leads to success of business. The company will
find the best root from the those experiments and make them applied. These experiments
those are properly analysed and chosen very cautiously that make the company grow. The
experiments are done n the market and the consumers find the need and wants of
individual and market to be targeted. This process is followed by the Etsy company
which results in growth of company by applying the growth hacking framework in
company (Troisi, & et.al., 2020, p.538-557)
For example: Etsy is the best example of the growth hacking framework where Etsy
rapid experiments on their handmade crafted products which are offered to their customers and
looking for the best market to establishe. Etsy grows with experiments and these were the main
aspect used by company and further also used marketing and data analysis. Etsy has hacked its
way to household name. The opportunities which are taken by Etsy are that creates favourable

condition with seller which are frustrated from the E-bay institutionalism, provide up with a
platform to accomplish the expectation of consumer. The growth hacking process which is
followed by Etsy are:
 Particular group of people need an alternative to marketplace from the traditional one
with improved condition.
 Offline fair craft are organized to meet the high-quality people of at the same time. They
offered products create the loyal customers towards the company.
 The target group is very active on Niche blogs and forums to promote Etsy store.
 Etsy had offered the best price and wide variety of handmade goods.
 Alternative community are also excited about new market opportunities. The operation team focused more on the productivity and optimization by rapid
experimenting and raised around 54 million users (Nguyen-Duc, 2020, p.81-95).
2. Data analytics: Some companies use the data of their customers and data analytical tool
to know the behaviour of the customers and can be retarget the active customers and
target the new customers who searched for the product which are related to their products
and company. It assists company to grow in the market where the demand of their
products and consumers are looking for their product more frequently.
For example: Airbnb is the American rental online marketplace accessible to consumers on
website and app. After, several experimenting the before seeing increase in listing of houses.
Airbnb now analyse the data to set up in new market and increase their listing on the website
through targeting those market. Company target the existing customers and market to follow up
the leads and target new customers to grow their listing. There main process is continuous their
growth is through iteration help in spanned across product's features. The new market which they
are looking for more listing and available rental places help company to improve their service
and search made by their data scientist. Airbnb gives high quality of listing together customers
within a certain radius based on their recent searches. Company also use data to search by
demographical experience, where they found that Asian countries market had more bounce rate
on website while visiting the Homepage from other countries.
Further, discover that users would click more on Neighbourhood links and remain active
for few times and never return. The engineering team forward the collected report to company to
redesigning the version of product for user in those countries and replacing the neighbourhood

links with top most destinations like Singapore and china. This help company to grow by
increasing the conversion rate from those countries. However, data analyst also help company to
know match with the people who are looking for accommodation to people who want to list their
places. These way data analytics help the company to grow by targeting the key markets through
proper analysis.
3. Marketing: The process of promoting the goods and service towards the market create
the demand of that product can be increased. This promotes the company brand name and
their product they are offered in the market and to engage with large audience.
Traditional marketing are being followed by company but also company are following
modern marketing techniques through online marketing tools. Digital marketing process
help company to reach in wider market and target the audience globally. It helps to grow
in new market and gain new customers base. Online marketing is one of the key tool that
is used by companies nowadays (Joly, 2017, p.79-96).
For Example: Bonobos is the one of the most successful digital native e-commerce company
deals in Men's clothing and accessories through their website. Through proper marketing tactics
bonobos got $1.6 million sales in their first year. They targeted the potential customers through
analyse the market and demand of a product. Bonobos target those customers who are looking
for a well fitted pants on the interested. Targeting Morden man who enjoy convenience from
online shopping, bonobos introduce brick-and-mortar guide-shop to assist the customers to pick
the correct cut and size of pants whereas, after the purchased, delivered to the customers address
given in the information. They promote their brands name that customers gave 74 net promoter
score to company which is quite good score for a company and can be recommand the brand to
others. One of the marketing tactic is also followed is referral link incentive where customers can
earn points or reward money that is credited in the wallet and used for further discount.
However, the company enhance the growth of company by adopting the various process of
growth hacking framework.
CONCLUSION
The report concludes that digital business promote their brand name and their products
through digital marketing campaign. This tools which are used for their promotion are done

through Facebook marketing, google analytical and hot-suite that allow company to analyse the
market needs and wants and their customers behaviour. It also allows company to maintain their
supply chain effectively which are used for logistics to save their cost and time of the company.
However, they bull-wipe effect help the company to balance their demand and supply chain in
the market to make competitor advantage.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Agrawal, P., & Narain, R. (2018, December). Digital supply chain management: An Overview.
In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 455, No. 1, p.
012074). IOP Publishing.
Aniello, S., & Caneppele, S. (2018). Selling stolen goods on the online markets: an explorative
study. Global Crime. 19(1). 42-62.
Braz, A. C., & et.al., (2018). The bullwhip effect in closed-loop supply chains: A systematic
literature review. Journal of cleaner production. 202. 376-389.
Brian Lee, H. C., & Li, X. (2018). Impact of online word of mouth on channel disintermediation
for information goods. Journal of Management Information Systems. 35(3). 964-993.
Forbes, S. L., Wilson, M., & Alsulaiman, K. (2020). Disintermediation: the optimal distribution
strategy for small wineries?. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small
Business. 41(3). 450-472.
Gilmore, J. N. (2019). Design for everyone: Apple Air Pods and the mediation of
accessibility. Critical Studies in Media Communication. 36(5). 482-494.
Khin, D. M. M. (2018). Study the role of intermediaries in electronic marketplace. International
Journal for Advance Research and Development. 3(7). 156-158.
Moretti, N., & Re Cecconi, F. (2018). Blockchain application to maintenance smart contracts-
Applicazione block chain agli smart contracts di manutenzione. In Exco 2018 (pp. 46-
56). ESP.
Rangaswamy, A., & et,al., 2020. The role of marketing in digital business platforms. Journal of
Interactive Marketing. 51. pp.72-90.
Sousa, M. J., & Rocha, Á. (2019). Skills for disruptive digital business. Journal of Business
Research. 94. 257-263.
Bohnsack, R., & Liesner, M. M. (2019). What the hack? A growth hacking taxonomy and
practical applications for firms. Business Horizons. 62(6). 799-818.
Troisi, O., Maione, G., Grimaldi, M., & Loia, F. (2020). Growth hacking: Insights on data-driven
decision-making from three firms. Industrial Marketing Management. 90. 538-557.
Nguyen-Duc, A. (2020). An Analytical Framework for Planning Minimum Viable Products.
In Fundamentals of Software Startups (pp. 81-95). Springer, Cham.
Joly, P. B. (2017). Beyond the competitiveness framework? Models of innovation
revisited. Journal of Innovation Economics Management. (1). 79-96.
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