Exploitation of Crowd as a Source of Competitive Advantage

The objective of this thesis is to research and analyze methods used for exploiting the crowd in business context. The focus is given to crowdsourcing as it is a viable method of involving the crowd in the daily operations. The "crowd" can be defined as a cohesive group of people that are bound together by their specific interest, skill or education. After introducing crowdsourcing as a method, its benefits and downfalls, and potential for companies; the focus is on real-life examples and empirical research performed among companies that have successfully implemented crowdsourcing principles. Using the findings from both literature review and empirical research, a five-step incremental strategy for implementation and best practices have been formulated to provide guidance to companies that wish to employ crowdsourcing or other crowd-based methods into their operations.