Building a corporate brand in the digital age: imperatives for transforming born-digital startups into successful corporate brands

The Role of Digitalization on the Internationalization Strategy of Born-Digital Companies

“…BD companies' internationalization strategy relies heavily on digital technologies to exchange information in a real-time fashion and quickly adapt to customer needs using fewer expenses [13], thanks to behavior metrics and openness towards collaboration [3]. By embedding technology into their international activities, these companies can enhance channel-specific assets through effective information exchange and improved coordination of the internal and external environments [54].…”

“…Digital companies do not act alone in building and managing their strategies. They depend on internal resources (e.g., financial, knowledge, skills, human) and external participation of various actors (e.g., users/customers, partners, online communities, freelancers/consultants) [3,11]. Embracing such collaborations helps them to increase value and reduce time and financial resources and to avoid many common pitfalls that tradi-tional (brick-and-mortar) companies encounter when they begin to undertake digitization efforts [55,56].…”

“…To assume internationalization for digital companies would be easy is a misconception (see, e.g., empirical work on the "virtuality paradox" by Sinkovics, Sinkovics, and Ruey-Jer 2013); specific skills and capabilities are needed. Entrepreneurs who understand the implications of and how to leverage analytics and big data, artificial intelligence and automation, and cloud computing enable their companies to connect and collaborate with customers and stakeholders with efficiency and precision, thereby creating new opportunities and staying ahead of competition [3]. One of the common challenges for digital companies is technological uncertainty (due to the need for rapid change and innovation in R&D technology), which is occasionally fueled by a lack of resources [4,5].…”

“…In addition, following the research on bricolage [6,9,18,19], this study posits that the internationalization strategy of born-digital (BD) companies [3,20,21] in dealing with market uncertainties, surviving, and even growing, despite resource constraints, depends on their bricolage capabilities. These companies are defined as any product or services company for which all value chain activities are digitalized at inception or soon after [21], of which some serve international customers shortly after establishment [20] and co-create value with their customers and other stakeholders [3].…”

“…In addition, following the research on bricolage [6,9,18,19], this study posits that the internationalization strategy of born-digital (BD) companies [3,20,21] in dealing with market uncertainties, surviving, and even growing, despite resource constraints, depends on their bricolage capabilities. These companies are defined as any product or services company for which all value chain activities are digitalized at inception or soon after [21], of which some serve international customers shortly after establishment [20] and co-create value with their customers and other stakeholders [3]. Bricolage is about "making do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities" (Baker & Nelson, 2005, p. 333) and is fundamentally important to BD companies in their efforts to build their internationalization strategies [22] and run their value chain activities because, when coupled with digitalization, it makes solutions to challenges more achievable by making critical resources more obtainable and reducing costs [23].…”