Denial is Accepting Defeat: Only 'Platform Organizations' Can Take on Digital-Native Competitors and Win

LONDON, Sept 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Platforms are enabling technological and social innovations – the benefits are clear and undeniable. Leading Edge Forum's 'Liberating Platform Organizations' report highlights how the platform is rapidly becoming the dominant business model for the 21^st Century.

A new four-part report entitled 'Liberating Platform Organizations' has been released today by Leading Edge Forum, the global research and thought leadership organization. It reveals how traditional, non-digital organizations must transform into 'platform organizations', creating and leveraging new technology in order to remain competitive in a landscape of digital-native companies biting at their heels.

With platform organisations generating more forms of value, at lower cost than a traditional business, the report is designed to help non-digital traditional organizations navigate the decisions and transformational journey that will enable them to remain competitive and reap the same benefits enjoyed by younger, more nimble digital native companies. As such, the paper outlines how traditional value chains are being broken down by platforms and rebuilt into 'Platform Organizations' that facilitate exchanges between two or more interdependent groups – producers and consumers – essentially connecting groups together rather than owning the means to directly provide a product or service. 

The unstoppable tide of the platform

Platforms are driving new ways in which companies accelerate their success, find new opportunities and outgrow competitors. Yet contrary to their size and speed, those companies remain exceptionally agile, and can rapidly respond to customer needs and expectations. The report highlights three undeniable examples that companies should now heed.

• Industrialised learning - The biggest platform users are climbing the experience curve faster than the herd. They innovate new products on new technologies faster and have even earnt the trust of customers to 'experiment on them' with new ideas on an industrial scale.
• Platform cooperatives – the combining of discreet platforms is solving real-world problems and giving power back to citizens. They help gig workers participate more fairly in the economy, raising productivity and reducing the risk of economic dislocation in society. They create markets for individuals and small businesses, sustaining competition and scaling innovation, against big platform dominance.
• You do not need to own a platform – Smart regulators are already exploiting the tactics of companies like Facebook and Amazon to nudge industry players towards better behaviour.  Use the platforms and data they provide to build your own successes – don't reinvent the wheel.

"The platform is rapidly becoming the dominant business model for the 21^st century," says Bill Murray, Senior Researcher & Adviser at LEF, and the report's author. "At LEF we believe it is possible to liberate organisations from the tyranny of the titan platform players, who create an uncomfortable dependency on their technologies. Additionally, established traditional organisations, unlike start-ups, struggle with evolving their businesses to create the agility and low-cost base of digital-native counterparts. The vast majority of platform initiatives fail, but with grit and determination they can bring about transformative value. This report explains the journey traditional non-digital native businesses must undergo to become 'platform organizations'."

The four-part report covers the following areas:

• The Platform Organization Landscape – Lays out the components that make up a platform organization and its ecosystem in a 'landscape', as well as the fundamentals of the platform business model and ecosystems.  It also examines the future structure of platform-intensive industries, to help companies decide where they could fit in the new platform landscape.
• The Machinery of Platform Organizations – Looks at the symbiotic relationship between platform organizations and digital platforms, and the common characteristics such as transacting efficiently, constant innovation and rapid evolution.
• The Brownfield Platform Journey – Building a platform is hard, and much harder in an existing organization than a start-up.  This part outlines the journey non-digital native organizations need to go through to realise the benefits of being a platform organisation.
• The Platform Organization and Ecosystem Gameplay – LEF shows how platform organizations and regulators can build market-shaping strategies from four different categories of gameplay.

You can download the full four-part 'Liberating Platform Organizations' report at https://leadingedgeforum.com/publication/liberating-platform-organizations/

About LEF

Leading Edge Forum is one of the world's leading cross-industry think-tanks and is dedicated to helping clients reimagine their organisations and leadership for a tech-driven future.  It has been evaluating major digital technology developments and shifts for over 30 years – and delivering insights on how these will redefine industries, organisations and the individuals that work within them. Learn more at https://www.leadingedgeforum.com

Media contacts

Duncan Gurney / Jessica Mularczyk
Ascendant Communications
lef@ascendcomms.net
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