Riassunto esame Platform thinking, Prof. Buganza Tommaso, libro consigliato Platfrom Thinking , Tommaso Buganza, Daniele Trabucchi

PLATFORM THINKING

The light bulb, symbolizing innovation, leads us to Thomas Edison, often considered

America's greatest inventor. While renowned for inventing the electric light bulb, Edison

also became a successful entrepreneur, founding companies like General Electric (GE).

Over time, GE expanded into various industries through acquisitions, becoming a giant

with significant market capitalization. However, since 2005, the business world has

evolved, with companies now growing in fundamentally different ways, moving away from

traditional methods like GE's expansion through acquisitions.

To understand what I mean, let's try to follow the story of one of the great giants of the

2000s: Amazon. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 in a garage in Bellevue,

Washington. The idea was to create the largest book warehouse in the world, using cheap

land and the growing internet to allow anyone to order any book, including rare titles that

small bookstores couldn't stock. Amazon began as a digital service offering books

delivered directly to customers' homes with a simple click.

Amazon's strength is its ability to continuously evolve. After starting with books, it quickly

expanded to other products like VHS, DVDs, and CDs, applying the same approach to

different types of goods.

Amazon expanded by leveraging its logistics expertise and focus on customer satisfaction.

This led to the creation of Amazon Marketplace, transforming Amazon into a platform for

transactions between users and sellers. From there, Amazon continued to evolve,

introducing new services like cloud computing, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and purchase

recommendations.

In less than twenty years, Amazon grew from a startup in a Washington garage to a global

giant, surpassing Walmart in market capitalization in 2015.

The key difference between GE and Amazon lies in their growth strategies. While GE

expanded through acquisitions in adjacent and distant industries using basic assets like

capital and expertise, Amazon focused on the platform model, continuously replicating it to

connect economic actors across various industries.

Amazon, along with Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Google, is part of the "Big Five" tech

giants that pioneered the platform revolution. These companies introduced a new, faster

way of creating value, enabling small startups to rapidly scale and challenge traditional

industry leaders by applying the same platform-driven logic.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts, founded in 1969, grew by acquiring hotels across North

America under various brands. In 2016, it was bought by Marriott International for $13.6

billion. In contrast, Airbnb, founded in 2008, disrupted the accommodation sector by

offering a platform for individuals to rent out their spaces, reshaping how people book

lodging in the digital age.The idea was simple: through their platform, anyone with free

space can offer a place to sleep and anyone who wants a way to see the city from the

eyes of a person who lives there, or simply wants to spend less than in a hotel, could do

so. Anyone can become a hotelier. In 8 years, to compare it with Starwood in 2016, Airbnb

surpasses 4 million properties available on the platform, with an evaluation close to $30

billion... with only 3,000 employees.

The comparison between Starwood and Airbnb highlights the shift from traditional

business models to platform-based ones. As platforms like Airbnb, Uber, Spotify, and

Netflix grow, thousands of others have emerged across industries, with many start-ups in

the "Unicorn" club leveraging platform models. While replicating successful platforms like

Airbnb or Uber may seem easy, truly understanding and leveraging their potential is much

more challenging.

The potential for platform innovation lies in the hands of innovators who can create and

evolve platforms over time, as Amazon demonstrated. In this course, we aim to study

platforms not just as business models, but as tools for driving innovation across various

sectors.

Fostering Innovation in platforms Idle Asset Hunters

I began researching platforms in 2014, during a time of major business disruption. Every

day, new startups appeared claiming to be the next Airbnb or Uber, with ideas like Airbnb

for cars, pets, or babysitting. I was excited by this trend and hoped to study many

successful platforms in the coming years. However, after six or seven years, I realized that

despite the launch of countless platforms, most discussions still focus on Airbnb and Uber.

This raised the question: what makes these two platforms successful, and what defines a

successful digital platform?

To explore this, I'll focus on Uber's story. In 2009, one of its founders spent $800 on a

personal driver and wondered if anyone with a car and free time could offer the same

service. Uber was born from this simple idea, connecting users with drivers through a

platform that reduces friction in the marketplace.

The real challenge for entrepreneurs is the misconception that simply identifying friction

and creating a basic platform is enough. Uber, however, developed a complex system that

adds value for both travelers and drivers, which enabled rapid growth. But this was just the

beginning. Uber soon realized there were still idle resources—drivers waiting and users

with other needs. This led to the creation of Uber Eats, using drivers to deliver food, thus

adding another layer to the platform. Over time, Uber also leveraged vast amounts of data

to create services like Uber Movement, offering insights on city mobility. This shows how

Uber evolved by continuously finding new ways to utilize its existing resources, a dynamic

also seen with platforms like Airbnb.

The evolution begins by recognizing unused resources, like cars and time, that can be

utilized to offer a service. From this, a dual value proposition is created to attract both

users needing the service and those providing it, like drivers. However, many platforms

mistakenly believe the process ends once the platform is functional. Uber and Airbnb,

however, realized that the real opportunity lies in continuously identifying and utilizing idle

assets within the platform to create further value and drive growth.

Uber's success lies in continuously identifying underutilized resources, like time,

equipment, and data, to create new value. The process is ongoing, transforming platforms

from simple friction-solvers to "idle asset hunters." Key takeaways: 1) Solving market

friction is just the beginning. 2) Value must be clear to all parties. 3) Platforms can

generate new idle assets as users engage, fueling further evolution. To build a successful

platform, it's essential to identify and leverage idle assets to transform them into valuable

resources.

The concept behind platforms like Uber, Airbnb, eBay, and Amazon is not new; it draws

from ancient market principles. These platforms facilitate connections between those

seeking services and those offering them. The idea of a marketplace, where buyers and

sellers meet, dates back to ancient bazaars in Persia and evolved through history. While

modern platforms are digital, they continue the same basic idea of creating spaces where

demand and supply can meet efficiently, offering abundance of opportunities for both

sides.

The value of platforms lies in their ability to bring together a wide range of sellers and

potential consumers, creating a space where buyers can find almost anything they need,

and where large numbers of consumers can be turned into paying customers. The reason

platforms are seen as innovative today, despite their historical roots, is due to the success

of companies like Airbnb and Uber, which sparked a broader platform revolution. Earlier

examples such as eBay, Booking.com, PayPal, and Amazon set the stage for this, but the

rapid growth and adaptation of the platform model in the 2010s made it a symbol of

innovation across various industries and countries.

The innovation behind platforms like Uber lies not in the model itself but in how digital

technologies have made it more efficient and scalable than ever before. While the model

of connecting buyers and sellers is ancient, digital platforms enable unprecedented reach

and flexibility. The case of Uber highlights this, as its market valuation quickly skyrocketed.

Initially underestimated, its value was later seen as much higher due to the network effects

and the vast potential of the platform model, which could grow rapidly without needing to

go public.

The platform model itself is not new, but digital technologies have made it a powerful

enabler of innovation across industries. Platforms disrupt traditional business models by

acting as value orchestrators for multiple customers at once, creating complex systems

that can quickly reshape industries. Examples like Uber challenge conventional valuation

methods, while platforms like Spotify and Disney+ demonstrate how old industries can

innovate through platform strategies. Platforms shift the focus from direct customer

payment to new business models, highlighting the need for "platform thinking" to uncover

fresh opportunities for innovation.

Product Platforms

The concept of "platform thinking" is based on two key ideas: using platforms as models

for innovation and understanding that platforms can take many forms. The history of

platform evolution in business begins with examples like the Sony Walkman, which

introduced the first definition of a product platform. In the 1980s, Sony launched over 250

Walkman models by building on five foundational generational projects (three architectures

and two key components) that allowed for rapid product development and market

adaptation. This "platform" approach reduced time and cost by reusing components,

leading to efficient, targeted products for different niches.

Similarly, Volkswagen's MQB platform is an example from the automotive industry,

allowing modular design and production of various models across brands. Product

platforms, like Sony's and Volkswagen's, offer benefits such as quicker development, cost

savings, and flexibility in production. However, while these platforms are tools for creating

products, they themselves cannot be monetized directly. They carry a risk: errors in the

platform affect many products over time.

Innovation Platforms

The concept of platforms has evolved over time, expanding from internal product platforms

to industry-wide or innovation platforms. A key example is the collaboration between

Microsoft, Intel, and IBM to create the personal computer, which serves as an innovation

platform. These companies combined their hardware and software to build a central

platform that allowed external developers to create applications, such as Photoshop or

AutoCAD, without rebuilding the entire system. This opened up new value-generation

dynamics, as external developers added to the platform’s functionality, increasing its value

for end users.

Innovation platforms, also known as industry-wide platforms, enable ext