The nGenera Business Innovation Platform
Configuration vs. CustomizationLeading-edge companies have adopted a "platform approach" to address the elusive challenge of sustained business growth. Apple, Google, Starbuck's, Cisco, Target, Wal-Mart, FedEx and Dell have all used platforms to propel their growth. A business platform is a configuration of assets - processes, people, and technology - that:
- maximizes flexibility and the utilization of those assets
- enables a new, more interconnected type of customer relationship, and
- best leverages the capabilities of business partners
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 needed to gain efficiency by building 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 will never keep pace with 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 sharing 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 with each other. 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?
nGenera is a Platform-style Company
nGenera has been designed with a highly modular architecture. This means that our capabilities are organized into highly granular assets, which we call "components" - of applications, knowledge and talent - that are easily identified, found and configured on-demand into our offerings. It also allows us to accommodate the overlap between our product offerings - it just means that the same component can be used for more than one product.
There are four major benefits to this style of organization:
- We can quickly and flexibly reconfigure our offerings to meet changing market needs.
- We can reuse a component many times instead of recreating it.
- We can create new offerings by introducing just a few new components.
- We have a great mechanism to assimilate the capabilities (components) of partners and acquisitions.
In fact, we assess the potential of any prospective partner or acquisition by how well (and quickly) it can deliver key new componentry to the nGen Platform.