Strategies and business models

As an increasing part of all transactions will be mediated by platforms, any company will need to consider how it positions itself on – or outside of – available platforms.

As a provider, there are two main business models you can pursue:

 - Make your products and the data they capture available to be coordinated through the platforms of others.
– And/or: build a platform that invites other providers to interact and extend your products and the data they capture.

What you cannot do is try to go it alone. The advantages of collaborating are increasing, the cost of coordination is falling, and the types of solutions that create greater value for customer tend to be too complex and contextual for a single company to provide. You gotta connect – it’s a WE-economy.

Providers must make themselves available
We can’t all create platforms. Most companies will still do business by producing devices, software or services. What’s new is that rather than selling these directly to consumers in a one-to-one transaction, providers will make their products available on platforms, allowing the platform and the user to combine the product with other components to create an instance.

This requires providers to “package” their product in a way, which makes it suitable for re-configuring and combining with other contributions.

- The product should be modular, in small components

- It should be available for short periods

- It should be based on open and common standards in order to interconnect- It should allow users to give feedback and add ratings that allow other potential users and collaborators to choose the best provider for their purpose.

- Providers should understand and develop their products and services as ways to capture valuable data, which can inform coordination with others through platform.


You can download a detailed description of how companies may adjust their business model to fit the new economy here.  
The presentation uses Osterwalder and Pigneur’s Business Model Canvas method to show changes for all elements of company’s business model.