Understanding Platforms the real powerhouses in Silicon Valley’s business landscape.

Interesting article in TechCrunch by Wadhawa.

In today’s world products are being disrupted by business models and “platforms” are most disruptive of business models.

Uber, Airbnb, Google , Apple & Amazon are all creating platforms

Platform businesses bring together producers and consumers in high-value exchanges in which the chief assets are information and interactions. These interactions are the creators of value, the sources of competitive advantage.

With platforms, the value is in the intellectual property and community. The network generates the ideas and data – the most valuable of all assets in the digital economy.

With platforms, the key is to facilitate greater interactions between producers and consumers. To improve effectiveness and efficiency, you must optimize the ecosystem itself.

Platforms value the ecosystem rather than the individual. Rather than focusing on the value of a single customer as traditional businesses do, in the platform world it is all about expanding the total value of an expanding ecosystem in a circular, iterative, and feedback-driven process.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/03/platforms-are-the-real-powerhouses-in-silicon-valleys-business-landscape/