The extent to which data-rich firms operating two-sided platform-ecosystem business models are able to use data to gain an innovation advantage over established one-sided companies

It is the purpose of the dissertation to explore the extent to which data-rich firms operating two-sided platform-ecosystem business models are able to use data to gain an innovation advantage over established one-sided companies. The dissertation begins with an analysis of business model theory and identifies two viewpoints based on the static and transformational perspectives. The transformational perspective is analysed in more depth and how data is playing a key role in creating an innovation advantage for two-sided platform ecosystem firms. A detailed explanation of how the platform ecosystem model works is provided in addition to a definition of the four platform typologies and how they compare and contrast with the one-sided business model. This is followed by a critique of the resource-based view of strategy and the relevance of dynamic capabilities, the knowledge-based view and the value chain approaches to strategy. A comprehensive innovation audit questionnaire (based on a sample of one hundred companies) is used to test whether the two-sided firms have a data-driven innovation advantage over the one-sided firms or not. The results reveal a clear innovation advantage for the two-sided firms who score consistently higher marks across all the dimensions of the innovation audit survey

Adoption of Software Platforms: Reviewing Influencing Factors and Outlining Future Research

Software platforms have received attention as the dominant model for cooperative software development. Growing the ecosystems around software platforms through increasing adoption by users and developers is of great importance for platform owners. However, there is a lack of research on how to increase adoption and growth of software platforms systematically. To address this issue, we conduct a literature review and make an in-depth analysis to uncover and organize factors that drive adoption of software platforms. Additionally, we derive effective directions of these factors on the respective sides. Finally, we outline three avenues for future research: aligning research on platform governance and platform launch and growth, taking an evolutionary, growth-oriented perspective on governance of software platforms and further detailing platform launch and growth strategies towards a design theory for platform launch. This paper contributes to the understanding of software platforms by reviewing factors driving adoption and triggering network effects

Incumbent Organizations Transform Through Digital Platforms

Incumbent organizations in every industry face the imminent threat of digital organizations, particularly digital platform businesses, becoming their competitors. Digital platforms enable value exchanges among its users and can quickly scale and generate substantial network effects. Incumbents, as part of their digital transformation and business model innovation efforts, should consider using a digital multi-sided platform business model to remain competitive in the sharing economy. In this research-in-progress study, we identify the digital platform threat, briefly discuss business model innovation and the dynamic capabilities theory, present a research methodology for our study, describe six digital platform initiatives at four organizations, and provide a framework classifying digital platform strategies for incumbent organizations

Miten teollisen internetin sovellukset voivat kehittyä alustoiksi: case-analyysi pohjautuen kolmeen nykyiseen ratkaisuun

The number of smart products connected to the Internet is constantly rising which generates a need for encompassing systems for the control of these products and the data produced by them. For this purpose, multiple companies are introducing various software solutions, which are competing for the status of an industry standard. This study explores what kind for functionalities the software solutions for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) currently provide and how they conform to the concepts presented in the platform literature. The study is conducted as a qualitative case study, which focuses on three existing software solutions: Siemens MindSphere, IBM Watson IoT and GE Predix. The results of the study suggest that the implementation of IIoT software solutions is still in its early phases and the application domain is mostly proprietary and company specific. IIoT software users are discovered to be very protective towards their data, which seems to be the main obstacle preventing IIoT solutions to fully advantage the platform business model.Internetiin kytkettyjen älykkäiden laitteiden määrä kasvaa jatkuvasti, mikä luo tarpeen kattaville järjestelmille, jotka kykenevät sekä ohjaamaan näitä laitteita että varastoimaan ja käsittelemään niiden synnyttämää dataa. Useat yritykset ovat tuoneet markkinoille kyseiseen tarkoitukseen soveltuvia ohjelmistoratkaisuja, jotka kilpailevat määräävästä markkina-asemasta. Tämä tutkimus pohtii, minkälaisia toiminnallisuuksia nykyiset teollisen esineiden internetin hallintaan tarkoitetut ohjelmistot tarjoavat sekä miten nämä ohjelmistot mukautuvat alustakirjallisuudessa esitettyihin käsitteisiin. Tutkimus on toteutettu kvalitatiivisena case-analyysina, jonka keskiössä on kolme olemassa olevaa ohjelmistoratkaisua: Siemens MindSphere, IBM Watson IoT ja GE Predix. Tehtyjen havaintojen perusteella voidaan todeta, että teollisen esineiden internetin ohjelmistoratkaisut ovat edelleen alkutekijöissään ja olemassa olevat sovellukset on pääosin kehitetty yksittäisten yritysten tarpeisiin. Ohjelmistoratkaisujen käyttäjät suojelevat omistamaansa dataa erittäin tarkasti, mikä näyttäisi toistaiseksi estävän alustapohjaisten bisnesmallien rakentamisen kyseisten ohjelmistojen ympärille

Critical Mass in Inter-Organizational Platforms

This paper examines how the critical mass challenge manifests itself during inter-organizational platform development. In previous research, critical mass is treated as an issue that occurs after platform launch. Strategies proposed, such as tactful pricing, opening the platform, user onboarding, and side-switching assume the platform to have already been launched. They may not work well in conditions where the platform is still under development. Over a two-and-a-half-year time period, this study traced the development of a data platform in a revelatory case within the New Zealand tourism sector. It revealed five critical mass issues faced by the platform sponsor in phases of development that occur before platform launch: (i) attracting initial interest, (ii) aligning heterogenous goals, (iii) sustaining commitment to the project (iv), negotiating architecture design, and (v) sustaining commitment to implementation. These findings provide a foundation for problematizing critical mass theory and its boundary conditions in inter-organizational platform development

The Anesthesia Continuing Education Market and the Value Creation From a Sustainable Unified Platform

Practicing anesthesia professionals in the United States are all governed by various profession-specific regulatory bodies that mandate continuing education (CE) requirements. To date, no unified resource exists for anesthesia professionals (i.e., Anesthesiologists, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, and Anesthesiologist Assistants) to explore the CE offerings available within the marketplace. This study endeavored to convey the potential value of a unified anesthesia CE resource. It investigated how to cultivate a sustainable platform to potentially improve how anesthesia professionals search available CE offerings and to potentially enhance how anesthesia CE providers reach anesthesia professionals. This qualitative study was conducted utilizing an integrative review of the literature. The key concepts identified and investigated were network effect, segmentation, first to market, best of breed, search costs, transaction costs, minimally viable product, evolutionary phases of platforms, platform theory, platform business model, platform economy, and types of platforms. Inductive content analysis was chosen as the organizational method for the resultant qualitative data. The goal of the analysis was to create a conceptual, practical, and strategically applicable platform paradigm for the anesthesia CE marketplace driven by the insights and amalgamations from the literature. The analyzed concepts, dimensions, and indicators of platform successes and their applications potentially facilitate anesthesia professionals’ CE explorations and CE providers’ marketing efforts, as well as contextualize the overarching impacts and implications onto the anesthesia CE industry and beyond. The conclusion portrays these impacts and implications

Essays on Business Value Creation in Digital Platform Ecosystems

Digital platforms and the surrounding ecosystems have garnered great interest from researchers and practitioners. Notwithstanding this attention, it remains unclear how and when digital platforms create business value for platform owners and complementors. This three-essay dissertation focuses on understanding business value creation in digital platform ecosystems. The first essay reviews and synthesizes literature across disciplines and offers an integrative framework of digital platform business value. Advised by the findings from the review, the second and third essays focus on the value creation for platform complementors. The second essay examines how IT startups entering a platform ecosystem at different times can strategically design their products (i.e., product diversification across platform architectural layers and product differentiation) to gain competitive advantages. Longitudinal evidence from the Hadoop ecosystem demonstrates that product diversification has an inverted U-shaped relationship with complementors success, and such an effect is more salient for earlier entrants than later entrants. Earlier entrants should develop products that are similar to other ecosystem competitors to reduce uncertainty whereas later entrants are advised to explore market niche and differentiate their products.The third essay investigates how platform complementors strategies and products co-evolve over time in the co-created ecosystem network environment. Our longitudinal analysis of the Hadoop ecosystem indicates that complementors technological architecture coverage and alliance exploration strategies increase their product evolution rate. In turn, complementors with faster product evolution are more likely to explore new partners but less likely to cover a wider range of the focal platforms technological layers in subsequent periods. Network density, co-created by all platform complementors, weakens the effects of complementors strategies on their product evolution but amplifies the effects of past product evolutions on strategies.This three-essay dissertation uncovers various understudied competitive strategies in the digital platform context and enriches our understanding of business value creation in digital platform ecosystems