Today it is clear: digital platforms are “eating the world”, transforming the experiences of consumption of goods and services, and the ways of socializing. Did you take an Uber to go to work? You booked it on a digital platform. During a coffee break, did you read about my latest literature on LinkedIn? You found it on a social media platform. Was it delivered to your doorsteps by Amazon Prime in less than 24 hours? You ordered it on an e-commerce platform.
The advent of “platform economies” is a tsunami for the traditional business culture. Sustainable business performance is no longer based on linear relationships between manufacturers, distributors, and consumers with the logic of incremental production of costs and value. Instead, the main economic levers lie in the ability of new business models to engage users continuously through exponential technologies. Digital platforms can transform entire industrial sectors mainly because they favour the transition from an economy centred on “outputs” (products) to an economy centred on “outcomes” (results). In platform economies, “assets” (products) do not disappear but become peripheral from the point of view of generating value. They focus on the contextualization of user experiences at affordable prices, removing frictions in consumption and user interactions.
As such, I always start my thought leadership engagements with IBM clients discussing what makes “outcome economies” the real domain for fintech competition in financial services.