Abstract
M.Com. (Business Management)
The legal sector in South Africa has several law firms, the majority of which have great expertise. Owing to the level of economic growth of the country, international law firms have set up offices in South Africa. Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa Inc is a subsidiary of the Norton Rose Fulbright group and has a network of blogs, including an Africa-focused regulatory blog called Inside Africa Law which is the focus of this study. As a firm operating in a competitive sector, differentiation through the use of intelligent content with an African regulatory focus can set the firm apart from its counterparts. The research was conducted with the aim of determining whether content intelligence can be a contributor to the competitive advantage of a firm. The study used qualitative content analysis of the blog posts on the Inside Africa Law blog. The content analysis was done through a two-phase method: the first involved the analysis of the blog content which was done by means of Excel in the preliminary stages of the study, and the second one which was done after the empirical part of the study using Atlas.ti. The research methodology used in the research was a qualitative content analysis to achieve an appreciable degree of depth in the contribution of content intelligence towards the firm’s competitiveness. The ethical orientation of the study was premised on the General Data Protection Regulation applicable to a global organisation. The study hinged on the content intelligence process and the competitive advantage model. The research results indicate that the current format and structure of the Inside Africa blog could be improved through the introduction of more interactive features to encourage engagement with the blog audience. Literature has shown that content intelligence can make a strategic contribution to organisations and the firm is in a strategic position to provide regulatory analysis, although consistency in terms of published blogs will need to be achieved. A limitation of the study is its limited scope, as it explored one blog as opposed to the entire blog network of the firm. Therefore, the results of this study do not portray a statistical representation of the law firm but highlight the role of a single blog focusing on Africa for improving competitiveness.