Enabling connection, collaboration and innovation
Leading-edge companies have adopted a "platform approach" to address the elusive challenge of sustained business growth. Apple, Google, Starbucks, Cisco, Target, Wal-Mart, FedEx and Dell have all used platforms in their growth agendas. A business platform is a configuration of assets - processes, people, and technology - to maximize flexibility, enable close customer relationships, and leverage the capabilities of business partners. Project PBG takes an executive-level look at the opportunities, effects, and growing imperative of a business platform strategy.
Growth and innovation are key elements of the corporate agenda. But too often business growth is elusive or transient. Many corporations fight the problems of single-cycle products or disruptive impacts of short-term growth models. Today a nascent revolution is under way, and the companies at its forefront are reconsidering the essential elements of a growth agenda in the 21st century. The revolutionary notion is the business as collaborative platform.
A platform is a set of assets whose roles and connections are defined so that they can be configured in a variety of useful ways. The approach originated with manufacturers who can efficiently build a variety of products from a platform of standard designs and interchangeable parts. It then migrated to the software industry, first around operating systems (as Microsoft's operating system gained mass adoption, partners began developing their products to work with the Microsoft platform) and eventually software development generally. Some companies have turned business processes into platforms for connection and collaboration with customers and suppliers - Wal-Mart's logistics system is a well-known example. And progressive corporations today are taking a platform approach to their major assets and even their business models.
Why? Because a rigidly configured business is in trouble due to increasing marketplace demands for flexibility and connectivity. Customers want to collaborate in the creation of customized products and services. Capable business partners offer an ever-growing variety of services you can leverage. And the half-life of products, services and processes gets shorter and shorter. But a flexible platform is an engine for growth - because the business is more nimble and responsive, because it is better able to connect and collaborate, and because it maintains a larger portfolio of "options" for innovation and future action.
Building a business platform entails more than simply shared assets and common infrastructure. A platform is fundamentally about defining and publishing the specifications and ground rules for what assets do and how they connect. And the power of a platform grows as it incorporates more assets. When you publish your platform externally - to customers, suppliers, and other business partners - they have better means of collaborating with you, and their assets and platforms become extensions of yours. Meanwhile, you are better able to configure offerings in whatever combinations (including external components) specifically and uniquely address the customers' needs. And, if your platform is robust, you may have the opportunity to be a "platform leader" in your industry, establishing the model for connection and collaboration.
As the platform model takes hold, leading companies are learning to use their platforms as vehicles for increased business agility, innovation and, most importantly, sustainable business growth. The platform approach involves new mindsets, such as options thinking, and a new view of internal and external collaboration. And the platform approach has implications for all aspects of the business: Are your assets ready to be better deployed through a platform? Will a platform approach amplify your growth strategies - or render them obsolete? Is the evolution of business platforms in your industry going to put your current business models at risk?
Re.sults Project PBG will enable participants to address issues such as:
- What are the consequences of inaction? What are the warning signs that an organization is already in trouble?
- How can a platform contribute to our short-term and long-term performance, innovation, growth and competitiveness?
- How can our platform drive more collaborative and profitable relationships with customers and other business partners?
- What are the components of a successful platform architecture for our business?
- How should we prepare our processes, people and technology to evolve to a platform model? How and where should we start?
- How can we encourage customers, suppliers, and other business partners to collaborate through our platform? How do we develop the capability and reputation as a platform leader in our industry?
- How must we change our approaches to intellectual property - both sharing and safeguarding it - with a collaborative platform in place?