Key Aspects of Platform Business Models
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Key Aspects of Platform Business Models
Platform business models have several key aspects. These include: Homogeneous supply, Collaboration, Scalability, and Asymmetric Growth. Each of these elements is critical for a platform to thrive. These characteristics are discussed in this article. These factors will help you create a platform that is effective for your business.
Homogeneous supply
Platform business models are characterized by the capture of economic value in the form of transaction fees and become major centralizers, in some cases affecting hundreds of small businesses. These models emerged as a result of the Web, which digitized information and communications around the world at large scale.
The success of a two-sided platform depends on the ability to attract enough producers and consumers to participate. However, this is not always possible. In addition, the participation of consumers and producers may not be equal. For platforms to succeed, there must be enough participants to create value for all participants.
Platform business models leverage network effects to connect third-party producers with a large number of customers. They benefit from the unrivaled insight into customer behavior that the platform operator can gain from collecting data. Furthermore, platform operators receive a commission or rent from participating market players.
Communication
In a platform business model, one of the most important factors is communication. It is essential to establish a shared vision and strategy across the organization, so that everyone involved can contribute to its success. Communication between the different business units is crucial, as is collaboration. The goal is to create a highly successful platform that connects stakeholders, reduces transaction costs, and enables externalized innovation.
Platforms typically manifest across three layers of infrastructure. First, the platform layer provides open access connectivity to any service provider. This connectivity infrastructure enables a wide range of customer-facing solutions and services. It also helps enable new business models that leverage cloud-based software and infrastructure. Platforms might also have open APIs and could integrate with existing IT infrastructure.
The ownership structure of a platform will vary depending on its purpose and nature. Some are co-owned by users, while others are owned by their owners. For example, Wikipedia is a platform that is managed by a group of people, while the Danish Agricultural Cooperative is owned by venture capitalists.
The platform business model can also create new economic opportunities. By leveraging scale and standardization, platforms can drive innovation and wide adoption of new technologies. They have the ability to make a huge difference in society. In addition, they help to facilitate new forms of employment and create new avenues for a decent and sustainable life.
Platform business models are based on communication. Platforms are an ecosystem where consumers and producers interact to create value.
Collaboration
Platform business models create value by facilitating interactions among many participants. These interactions may involve short-term transactions or the formation of long-term social relationships. They may also involve collaborative efforts to achieve a common goal, such as the acceleration of performance improvement or the development of new knowledge. The platforms also provide the governance structure, standards, and protocols that enable this process. These platform business models are growing in importance and are now becoming the norm for many businesses.
Platform-based collaboration services go beyond traditional solutions and utilize a unified information system to serve as a cockpit to monitor inter-organizational processes. For example, a collaborative sales service makes use of these capabilities by providing a retailer with insights into the top-selling goods from its partners, and it can also match special offers with products. These services are all powered by a common canonical data component.
Platform-based collaboration services can reduce the size of new collaboration projects and improve inter-organizational processes. In addition, platform-based collaboration services help organizations accelerate inter-organizational processes and decrease project effort. A key advantage of this collaboration service is its speed and flexibility. This feature is not available in traditional collaboration services, and it can help companies boost their profile by enabling faster collaboration.
Scalability
Scalability refers to an organization's ability to grow and expand without compromising its structure and resources. With advances in technology, businesses have become more flexible and able to acquire more customers and expand their markets globally. While the scale of an organization may be limited in the beginning, it can become more profitable as it continues to grow.
If a business cannot scale without hindering its structure or resources, the outcome can be disastrous. It may have to hire additional employees and pay more to serve increased demand, which ultimately reduces its profit. This is known as diseconomies of scale, and can lead to business failure. Scalability is closely related to economics, but the concept is simple enough that it is easy to understand.
Platform business models allow companies to leverage connected technology to connect people and resources. Platforms reduce transaction costs and help businesses to scale up. By building a network of connections, these businesses can create a highly effective platform. As a result, they can create new businesses and disrupt existing industries. It is essential to understand how platforms work to get the most out of this model.
While it is important to scale up, there are times when growth can make an organization inefficient. Using a platform business model allows a company to expand without sacrificing quality. For example, a social networking service may be more effective if it can grow at a steady rate. By using an app to allow users to share data, a company can easily add more users and maintain the quality of its services.
Asymmetric growth
Platform-based markets have become increasingly common over the past several years, from search engines to smartphones. In these markets, a platform serves as the central hub and attracts complementary companies that leverage the platform's managerial, logistical, and technical infrastructure. This model allows companies to diversify their product or service offerings while maintaining their core business.
The ability of platform owners to claim value depends on their understanding of the ecosystem they're operating in and their ability to coordinate the value-creation mechanisms within that ecosystem. By providing affordances and facilitating transactions, successful platforms become a breeding ground for innovation. This is particularly true for the growth of new technology and services.
Platforms may also be costly to maintain, such as the infrastructure and governance of the platform. Furthermore, platform owners can choose to restrict the ecosystem to internal users only, or they can open it up to other complementary entities. The degree of openness will determine the amount of competition that will occur both within and between ecosystems. Platform owners must also balance their control rights against the autonomy of the ecosystem actors.
Platform ownership is an important factor for designing and governing a digital platform ecosystem. It not only refers to the legal entity that owns a digital platform, but it also refers to the way in which power is distributed within the ecosystem. Different platforms have different governance mechanisms, depending on whether they're centralized or decentralized.
Platforms often combine multiple complementary products or services. For example, Uber makes it possible to connect drivers and passengers. Likewise, UberEats allows Uber drivers, restaurants, and passengers to interact with each other on the platform.
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