Exploring platform business opportunities
Re-Imagining Business
Industrial success
“By remapping a linear pipeline of RFP tender responses onto a prototype platform, industrial manufacturer Leonardo is empowering new levels of collaboration in its embryonic Digital & Innovation technology business groups, delivering more innovative & faster transactions within the wider eco-system of providers & customers.”
Steve Maclaren
S3 Digitisation Lead
Leonardo S.p.A.
Platform businesses are being discussed in boardrooms but progressing the conversation to a viable business position isn’t easy. Success calls for early and expert exploration of your unique business and market in order to identify opportunities and avoid costly mistakes.
LEF’s Platform Exploration workshop will guide your leadership team and stakeholders through a discovery process of what a platform business looks like. The first stage of our exploratory journey will cut through common misconceptions and define what platforms are – and are not. You’ll leverage LEF’s research perspectives and insights, gained through numerous platform interventions, to help inform and shape your specific situation.
Understand platform businesses
The defining feature of a platform business is that it doesn’t own the means of production, for example, making products or delivering services. Instead they are the means of connection, bringing providers and customers together. This is what makes the Platform business model attractive: because it’s about orchestrating an ecosystem rather than owning and controlling it. Successful platforms can oversee very high volumes of business with very few assets.
LEF’s Platform Exploration workshop will guide your leadership team and stakeholders through a discovery process of what a platform business could be for you. The first stage will cut through common misconceptions and define what platforms are – and are not. You’ll leverage LEF’s research perspectives and insights, gained through numerous platform interventions, to help inform and shape your specific situation.
Learn about different ecosystem roles
In the ecosystems, there are different roles for an astute business to play. Platform orchestrator is the top job for the digitally ambitious and swift. Creating a platform business is a big bet, but there are other options, such as becoming a ‘super-producer’ that can attract more business than others.
Super-producers use platforms to manage other operators’ business as well as their own, perhaps to create a more seamless customer experience. Being a ‘favourite’ in this way means they get a cut of other deals. Participating in a platform ecosystem brings benefits of access to multiple suppliers at much reduced risk. Ideally, the platform orchestrator de-risks everything by filtering out bad or untrustworthy players and may even underwrite transactions.
Explore platform potential together
In today’s digitally connected world, everything happens and evolves fast – including platforms. If you’ve not explored and fully prepared your position on platforms, you may make hasty decisions or poor judgements.
If an LEF exploration shows that becoming a platform could benefit your business, then you’ll have early mover advantage. It’s then important that your organization swiftly agrees a definition of a platform business, your most attractive opportunities and what you should do next.
The LEF advantage
Through our experience, we have identified 25 critical success factors that you should consider, and their timing in your venture. LEF’s advisors will guide you to think laterally, avoiding common mistakes:
- Think beyond the pipeline: don’t treat a business platform as an extension of your current business
- Think niche: you’ll need to talk to people on the fringes to identify the fresh opportunities instead of sticking to your main market
- Identify how to attract customers to your platform: your products & services might not be as compelling as you think
Workshop agenda
Through a combination of presentations and breakout working sessions, this one-day workshop will explore key topics and challenges. The outcome of the day will be a shared understanding of the opportunity and journey, with an agreed action plan about the next steps to creating a platform business.
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Workshop session
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Outcome
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Introductions & objectives
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Set expectations
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Set the scene
Define a platform organization & ecosystem
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Level set & build confidence in language & approach
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Agitate: fundamental concepts
Explore platform landscape canvas using successful platform business examples
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Understand landscape canvas as model to generate ideas
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Activate: the opportunities (spaces & ecosystem)
Explore potential areas organization could develop
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Prioritized list of market opportunities
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Activate: the landscape for each space
Develop landscape for potential opportunities
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Create up to 5 landscape canvases
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Accelerate: place your business bets
Agree opportunities to move forward on
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Identified opportunities with relevant landscapes
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Action: confirm what next
Review outputs & next steps to progress journey
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Agreed action plan
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Spot opportunities in the platform ecosystem
LEF will help you investigate your sector landscape, & identify potential roles
for your business
Analyze your customer’s journey
Evaluate the potential for a platform business & the partners you could work with
