I have long admired entrepreneur Sangeet Choudhary’s phrase “from pipes to platforms” – it is the key issue confronting almost all organisations in the internet age.
Put simply, the shared plumbing of the internet enables savvy “platform” businesses to bring together ecosystems of producers and consumers in a multi-sided marketplace. Ecosystem players can focus on one part of a value chain, rather than trying to do everything themselves – which makes them much more efficient when they all come together to deliver a service.
That is why in 2013, 14 of the top 30 global brands by market worth were platform companies. In fact, platform organisations are so much more efficient in matching demand with supply, and so different from traditionally organised “pipes” organisations, that we talk about them as disrupting entire industries.
