MIS782 - Analyzing Nettavisen's Competitive Advantage using RBV

This report analyzes Nettavisen's competitive advantages in the Norwegian online news market, particularly against legacy news publishers and new media players like Facebook and Google. It leverages the Resource-Based View (RBV) and IT Portfolio Theory to understand how Nettavisen, despite being a smaller player, achieved significant market share and profitability. The analysis identifies key competitive benefits, including product differentiation, clear strategic intent, freedom in publishing, and a data-driven business model (DDBM). The report also examines how Nettavisen's resources align with the VRIN criteria (Valuable, Rare, Imperfectly Imitable, and Non-Substitutable) and how IT portfolio management principles contribute to maintaining innovation and managing risks, concluding that a well-managed IS is critical for generating business value and improving organizational performance. Desklib offers a platform to explore similar case studies and academic resources.

Running head: VALUE OF INFORMATION
Value of Information: IT Portfolio Theory and RBV
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1
VALUE OF INFORMATION
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Task 1: Competitive Advantages of Nettavisen.....................................................................2
Task 2: Concepts and Principles of RBV and IT Portfolio Theory.......................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

2
VALUE OF INFORMATION
Introduction
Nettavisen is one of the most leading online news web site in Norway. After the 2009
financial crisis, they experienced an increment in their market profits and shares due to the
effectiveness of news and by using some of the major disruptive business models. They even
enabled less number of staff to subsequently outcompete respective powerhouse legacy
publishing companies and efficient media players of Facebook and Google.
Discussion
Task 1: Competitive Advantages of Nettavisen
Major Competitive Benefits that Nettavisen hold over the New Media-Players, Facebook
and Google as well as Legacy News Publishing Firms within Norwegian Market
An online new web site, Nettavisen was eventually competing against several large
and popular news publishing companies or broadcasters in the most rapid and growing
market to publish their news for the readers (Barney & Hesterly 2012). They had the ability
to increase their respective profits and market shares after utilization of few extremely
disrupted business models that allowed them to eventually outcompete the various
powerhouse news legacy publishing firms. In the early days of an online survey, it was
analysed that previously existing news firms thought that their respective brands are quite
efficient and established. Thus, they could easily try with the new digital platforms (Weill
and Aral 2006). Nettavisen however was capable of proving them wrong after establishment
of one of the most prominent online news web site within a short span of time. It was a major
success for them and it separated them from others.
During the year of 1996, Nettavisen became a complete online start up web site and
by the year of 2008, each and every business model was being changed by them. They were
acquired by two legacy firms in news world, one being Spray from Sweden and second being

3
VALUE OF INFORMATION
TV2 from Germany (Cabrales, Gossner and Serrano 2013). Nettavisen was subsequently
separated from the Germany based firm of TV2 in 2008 and then again they became a
completely online service of newspaper. In 2014 the manager of this company announced
that they have decided to move to data driven business model or DDBM, where the buying
patterns of the users would be kept on top priority.
The most significant competitive benefits, which Nettavisen are holding over the
newest media players such as Google and Facebook and few legacy news publishing firms in
the pre-existing and turbulent market of Norway are given below:
a) Differentiation in Products as well as Services: This is the first competitive
advantage, which Nettavisen is holding over the rest is the differentiation in products as well
as services (Bisdikian, Kaplan and Srivastava 2013). The various legacy news publishing
firms such as Spray and TV2 and even the social media players such as Facebook and Google
were subsequently responsible for broadcasting and online activities. Hence, they do not
always update and provide news on the online platform perfectly. However, Nettavisen being
the online news provider has the major goal to directly compete with several online web sites,
which are eventually created by established newspapers and broadcasters (Zonta, Glisic and
Adriaenssens 2014). Due to the focusing on only online news services, they are almost ruling
the entire market of Norway.
b) Clearer Intent of Strategies: This is the second vital competitive advantage, which
Nettavisen comprises of. This organization has involved a proper strategic intent within their
present organizational model. It is being done for the reason that they are absolutely free from
any type of concern about removing the previously existing businesses before emphasizing
on attracting more customers to the web site (Sharkey et al. 2015). The effect of the digital
media is the main reason here since it is extremely dynamic that front market runners can

4
VALUE OF INFORMATION
confront while a continuous exploration of requirements. It is separate from legacy news
publishing firms as well as news media-players since they have been balancing an online
exploration to protect their printed newspapers.
c) Freedom to Publish News: The next competitive advantage of Nettavisen is that
they can easily and promptly publish the news without any type of concern, however on the
other hand, newspaper publishing firms have to consider the important news and have to keep
for next day printing. According to Nettavisen’s manager, they comprises of an agenda to
share the appropriate news irrespective of time (Letier, Stefan and Barr 2014). They are
providing 24 X 7 services by using Internet connection. Moreover, for the presence of this
specific competitive benefit, they can easily manage their news and then share these news
with readers.
d) No Requirement to Protect Journalistic Legacy: This is the next important and
vital competitive advantage that Nettavisen is holding over the other legacy news publishers
is that they do not require to secure or protect the journalistic legacy at any situation. During
2013, Nettavisen has made a significant strategic move that should yield a fast turnover of the
writers after acquisition of blog.no, which is a blogging community of Norway, hence adding
to their pre-existing website portfolio.
e) Moving to DDBM: Data driven business model is considered as one of the most
effective and efficient business model that is extremely vital for providing subsequent
advantages to the organization (Moore, Romero and Paredis 2014). They are eventually
pursuing major strategies of big data after analysing the bulk amount of web browsing
information, data of blogging, purchasing habits as well as social media of the users to drive
the respective decision makers before improving the experiences of both user and advertiser.

5
VALUE OF INFORMATION
Task 2: Concepts and Principles of RBV and IT Portfolio Theory
Combining Significant Principles and Concepts of Resource Based View or RBV of firm
as well as IT Portfolio Theory to assess and explain the Competitive Advantages of
Nettavisen within a Disruptive Turbulent Norwegian Market
RBV or simply resource based view is state as a proper managerial framework, which
is used to determine the various strategic resources for delivering several benefits to that
specific firm (Petter, DeLone and McLean 2013). Each of these resources can also be
exploited by that specific organization to achieve every sustainable competitive advantage.
The RBV emphasizes on managerial attention on internal firm resources with a major effort
for recognizing the capabilities, competencies and assets for delivering better competitive
advantages. This organization of Nettavisen within Norwegian market is comprising of few
of the most important and noteworthy competitive benefits over others. As this entire market
of news publishers is within a turbulence, Nettavisen was acquired by TV2 and Spray and it
became independent again in 2008 (Whittington 2014). It did not however create a problem
for Nettavisen and they were able to obtain the competitive benefits. The resource based view
of Nettavisen involved three distinct tasks that are given below:
a) Identifying the Organizational Key Resources: This is the first step, where the
main resources are being identified in Nettavisen. These organizational resources involved
the employees, computer systems, confidential information and customers.
b) Evaluating whether Key Resources are following VRIN Criteria: The criteria of
VRIN means valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non substitutable and after checking, it
was analysed all the resources passed VRIN criteria (Jouini, Rabai and Aissa 2014).

6
VALUE OF INFORMATION
c) Development, Nurturing and Protection of Resources: This third step is for
development and protection of the resources. With DDBM or the newer organizational
model, the organization had the ability to secure the resources properly.
Thus, Nettavisen had the capability of implementing the respective value creation
strategy within the turbulent market of Norway (Gregory, Beck and Keil 2013). The major IT
portfolio theory concepts could even be included to perfectly assess and explain the several
competitive benefits of Nettavisen in the most turbulent and disruptive market. The IS
information system is considered as one of the most helpful needs to them to maintain
innovation as well as creativity within the work (Petter, DeLone and McLean 2013). This
type of system is also used by a business to eventually help out the individuals for interacting
in the support numerous business procedures.
Information system is even required to provide competitive advantages and even for
removing the main complexities or issues. Furthermore, Nettavisen has even obtained cost
effectiveness and information availability. The value of information is linked to proper value
for decision making only after getting support from organizational information (Zonta, Glisic
and Adriaenssens 2014). An IT portfolio manager eventually manages the regular news
portfolio for planning about the new updates. The main principles of this IT portfolio theory,
which enabled Nettavisen to gain competitive benefits are given below:
a) Aligning the major Strategies.
b) Aligning of governance.
c) Management of Data.
d) Active Leading.
e) Checking for Risks over New Media Player and Legacy News Publisher.

7
VALUE OF INFORMATION
f) Transparency to readers.
Conclusion
Therefore, conclusion can be drawn from this above discussion that an IS or
information system is one of the major and the most important requirement to understand and
generate effective business value for the organization. Furthermore, the entire performance of
the organization is being incremented for all the organizational departments of that particular
company. This above provided report has properly described the entire significance of
Nettavisen case study for obtaining competitive advantages after combining the principles
and theories of resource based view and portfolio theory of information technology.

8
VALUE OF INFORMATION
References
Barney, J.B. & Hesterly, W.S., 2012, ‘Evaluating the firm's internal capabilities’, Strategic
management and competitive advantage: concepts, Pearson, Boston, Massachusetts, pp. 64-
99.
Bisdikian, C., Kaplan, L.M. and Srivastava, M.B., 2013. On the quality and value of
information in sensor networks. ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), 9(4), p.48.
Cabrales, A., Gossner, O. and Serrano, R., 2013. Entropy and the value of information for
investors. American Economic Review, 103(1), pp.360-77.
Gregory, R.W., Beck, R. and Keil, M., 2013. Control balancing in information systems
development offshoring projects. Mis Quarterly, pp.1211-1232.
Jouini, M., Rabai, L.B.A. and Aissa, A.B., 2014. Classification of security threats in
information systems. Procedia Computer Science, 32, pp.489-496.
Letier, E., Stefan, D. and Barr, E.T., 2014, May. Uncertainty, risk, and information value in
software requirements and architecture. In Proceedings of the 36th International Conference
on Software Engineering (pp. 883-894). ACM.
Moore, R.A., Romero, D.A. and Paredis, C.J., 2014. Value-based global
optimization. Journal of Mechanical Design, 136(4), p.041003.
Petter, S., DeLone, W. and McLean, E.R., 2013. Information systems success: The quest for
the independent variables. Journal of Management Information Systems, 29(4), pp.7-62.
Sharkey, T.C., Cavdaroglu, B., Nguyen, H., Holman, J., Mitchell, J.E. and Wallace, W.A.,
2015. Interdependent network restoration: On the value of information-sharing. European
Journal of Operational Research, 244(1), pp.309-321.

9
VALUE OF INFORMATION
Weill, P. and Aral, S., 2006. Generating premium returns on your IT investments. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 47(2), p.39.
Whittington, R., 2014. Information systems strategy and strategy-as-practice: a joint
agenda. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 23(1), pp.87-91.
Zonta, D., Glisic, B. and Adriaenssens, S., 2014. Value of information: impact of monitoring
on decision‐making. Structural Control and Health Monitoring, 21(7), pp.1043-1056.