Platforms enable instances. They coordinate, integrate and mediate.They provide a structure and system, which makes it easy, safe and reliable for participants to interact.
Platform create value by coordinating external ressources – in contrast to industrial age companies, which create value by using internal resources, such a their own production facility and employees.
Platforms typically don’t own or produce the resources they coordinate; they merely connect suppliers to end-users. Compared to a conventional company, a platform is very light on physical assets. A pure platform has no production line, no investment in machinery, no inventory and no large staff.
The core assets of a platform are digital. There are 4 basic components to a platform:
- The communities of suppliers and users that interact on the platform.
- The interface, which makes it easy, efficient and safe for users to engage in creating solutions.
- The data about available resources, needs and preferences.
- The algorithm, which processes the data to create the best solution in a given context.