Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Digital Platforms
Platform-based companies are among the most successful and innovative businesses in many industries. For example, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google's parent company), and Amazon top the list of most valuable companies, closely followed by companies such as Facebook, Alibaba, and Tencent - all of which owe much of their success to the characteristics associated with platform-based systems, such as network effects and scalability (Gawer et al. 2020). Increasingly, companies in traditional industries are experimenting with the use of platforms (e.g. Tesla and the "Volkswagen Industrial Cloud" in the automotive industry).
The success of these companies is closely related to the digital platform ecosystem, which provides space for innovation and entrepreneurship for a variety of associated actors: Members of large companies, startups, hobbyists. Platforms and their ecosystems offer founders interesting opportunities for new business models.
If you are interested, you’ll find further information on the seminar here (in German):
