Revisiting the IIoT Platform Graveyard: Key Learnings from Failed IIoT Platform Initiatives

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has led to a competitive race among digital and incumbent players to establish IIoT platforms. However, despite the undisputed potential of the IIoT, a first wave of IIoT platforms failed around 2018, with GE’s Predix being the most prominent one. Nevertheless, building upon valuable lessons learned, the IIoT platform market continued to grow significantly. We now experience a second wave of IIoT platform failures, with companies like Siemens, Google, and SAP divesting or restructuring significant parts of their IIoT platform. Acknowledging this, we revisited the IIoT platform graveyard to challenge and extend existing lessons learned. Hence, we interviewed major IIoT platforms and customers that were impacted by IIoT platform failures. We identified six key learnings that we integrated into a preliminary model for IIoT platform growth, highlighting evolutionary steps for successful platform growth. These findings provide practitioners strategic orientation for establishing IIoT platforms long-term

Value creation and capture mechanisms in platform ecosystems: a case study of a platform ecosystem in the smart building environment

Despite the increasing interest among practitioners and researchers in platform ecosystems, relatively little attention has been paid to ecosystem-based value creation and capture mechanisms on B2B platform ecosystems. This thesis contributes to this research gap by exploring how the B2B platform ecosystem utilizes value creation and capture practices towards perceived benefits. The empirical part of this thesis was conducted as a qualitative case study on an ecosystem in the smart building industry. The empirical data was collected through 7 semi-structured interviews with the representatives of partner companies and the case company that orchestrates the case ecosystem on top of its API platform. The data analysis was conducted using the Gioia methodology to interpret and present the empirical qualitative data based on the theoretical framework. The findings of this study indicate that the primary building block for ecosystem-based value creation is to find complementary resources and different market positions between the orchestrator and partners, which creates a basis for B2B platform ecosystem emergence. The ecosystem was viewed as a strategic asset to find synergies related to functional value, operational efficiency, and innovation capacity, with mechanisms that address cooperative relationships at different levels in the ecosystem and the focal company. First, ecosystem orchestrators have a vital role in developing appropriate integrability and ways of working for engaging partners to maintain long-term commitment. Second, participants should develop resource integration in customer-facing activities that, for example, improves product development processes and the identification of new opportunities in the ecosystem. Third, the findings indicate that APIs and standards are crucial for optimizing ecosystem boundaries and measuring value creation as the ecosystem develops. To conclude, the study provides an understanding of business benefits from platform ecosystems and the mechanisms needed to develop at the company and the ecosystem level to reach those benefits. Furthermore, this study provides insights to incumbents, SMEs, and entrepreneurs looking into opportunities either scaling their own or joining existing platform ecosystems in adjacent industries

Evolution of B2B Platform Ecosystems: What Can Be Learned from Salesforce?

Platform ecosystems are complex ecologies of firms with individual competencies and collective objectives. The sustainable evolution of platform ecosystems is thereby contingent on taking advantage of the individual competencies of the ecosystem’s actors toward obtaining collective objectives. To learn more about platform ecosystem evolution and dynamics, we study Salesforce, a leading and thriving B2B platform ecosystem. We find that the ecosystem’s evolution was closely defined not only by the platform owner’s orchestrating initiatives, but also by its complementors’ and customers’ competencies and particularities. Specifically, we derive three distinct dimensions of evolution, namely the extension of the platform core technology, the extension of the platform’s functional scope, and the industry-specific specialization of the platform. We further identify three cross-dimension levers, namely proprietary developments, acquisitions, as well as partnerships and alliances, which were employed by the platform owner to drive its platform ecosystem’s evolution