Twitter is becoming X because, in the words of Elon Musk himself, they are trying to become an “app for everything”, which would be interpreted as an app that centralizes various functions and services. China already has a successful app called WeChat, known as a “super app” or mobile app that offers communication, lifestyle, travel, financial and shopping services. Another little known term is “decacorns”. “Unicorn” companies, in the first place, correspond to private startups whose value is equal to or greater than 1 billion dollars. This term was popularized in 2013 by the founder of Cowboy Ventures, New Yorker Aileen Lee. However, the term associated with super apps in terms of financial valuation is the term decacorns, or companies valued at more than $10 billion.

The interesting thing about this list of companies is that it is constantly growing and that its members change regularly. By mid-2022, there were 24 decacorns, while there are currently estimated to be 53, 2 of which exceed $100,000 million in value and are already considered “hectacorns”. This continuation of the list is the product of scientific research presented at Harvard Business School by Ph.D. Pablo Collazzo and Ph.D. Carmen Padilla, in December 2022 at the 20th anniversary of the Global Competitiveness Network led by Dr. sc. Michael Porter.

The research analyzed the duopoly formed by the first decacorns “Grab” and “Gojek” in Southeast Asia. Among the findings, it was recognized that, in this duopoly, both companies alternated between leader and follower strategies, which kept them in a common market that complicated the development of other competitors. Duopoly is analyzed from an unusual perspective corresponding to the “red queen theory”, based on the novel Alice in Wonderland, which details the great competition and the struggle for adaptation and evolution related to business strategies, imitations and innovations.

This study was presented to a network of more than 120 researchers from 60 countries specializing in competitiveness., who at the Spangler Auditorium of Harvard Business School (Boston, USA) voted for the research of Collazz and Padilla. With 65% of the votes, they win the highest recognition as research in 2022, the recognition of the Harvard Business School (and a high-impact journal in Great Britain) called the Competitiveness Review Prize. Padilla was the first Ecuadorian researcher selected to present a research project to all members of the network in 2019, and in her second presentation in 2022, she managed to win the award.

Locally, Padilla will present an excerpt of his findings at the International Congress of Administrative Sciences to be held in Espol (October 17 and 18). Later that month, he will raise awareness about the importance of competitive strategy during the Makers program, an initiative of the US Embassy and Consulate in Ecuador with support from the Líderes Hub. (OR)