Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dr A G Beckett
Introduction: Platforms are everywhere
What is a Platform?
1. An architecture which specifies which components will be part of the system and
what their functions are
2. Interfaces that describe how the components will interact, including how they fit
together, connect and communicate
3. Standards for testing a component's conformity to the design rules
Market platforms: the LSE determines how the parties interact, how prices are quoted,
transactions are completed.
Producer product platforms: VW creates cars using a platform system, see case
study. Mobile-phone manufacturers (Apart from Apple) assemble phones from
components based around Google's operating system.
These are known as modularity in use its not designed by a single authority
Platforms and Network Effects
Network effects occur where the value to an individual of adopting a standard or
platform system depends on the number of others who have already adopted it or who
can be expected to adopt it.
Examples:
1. Electric cars and charging platforms: there are currently three different systems
world-wide
2. Deciding where to list shares: LSE is losing some of its advantages to the USA
3. European v UK bed sizes: Issue when buying beds from Ikea
4. EU versus UK product standards (Notice how a standard can act like a platform
hence standards 'wars')
5. Amazon and linking up buyers and sellers
Network Effects: Telephones
Platforms: Scale & Scope
Scale & Scope driven by the re-use of knowledge
Examples:
1. VW create car platforms which are used across multiple different models: scale,
mass product of 'modules' engines from a single factory, scope the costs of
designing the engine are spread across multiple models
Business
Consumer x Supply Networks
Model
Complementors
Value
Exchange
Platform
The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power. Cusumano, Gawer and Yoffie, Harper Collins, 2019
Four Steps to building a Platform
Step 4: Establish
And enforce
Ecosystem rules
Step 3: Design
your business
model
Step 2: Solve
the chicken-or-
egg problem
Step 1: Choose
your market
sides
The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power. Cusumano, Gawer and Yoffie, Harper Collins, 2019
Stage 1: Work out your value offering
Platforms operate by bringing together two or more market actors
One side of the market needs to come on board first to attract the other side
Airbnb example
Etsy, Amazon, Taobao, Twitter- all subsidised one side of the platform to
bring in the other side
Direct network effect: customers attract more customers and so the network
becomes more valuable, traditional telephone network
More users increases the value of the platform and attracts more
complementors and users
Google collects a licence fee for every app used on its platform
Stage 3: Design the Business Model: Transaction Platforms
Transaction platforms generate fees for providing services or advertising
Innovation platforms:
Apple iOS tightly controls App developers
Transaction platforms:
Checking users credentials & general rules of use: Uber/Airbnb
Facebook Platform & Ecosystem: Engaging Multiple Sides of a Market
Side 1: Side4:
Users Platform Partners
Facebook
Platform
Side 2: Side 3:
Advertisers Applications
The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power. Cusumano, Gawer and Yoffie, Harper Collins, 2019
Platforms and Strategy
Platforms do not ‘replace’ strategy, they are new ways of connecting
consumers and producers
New battlegrounds:
1. Voice wars: Siri/Alexa/Assistant
2. Ride-sharing & food delivery: Just-Eat/Deliveroo/Uber-Eats
3. Film/TV streaming: Disney+, Netflix, iQiYi, Tencent