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Platform Ecosystems

Aligning Architecture, Governance, and Strategy

  • 1st Edition - November 12, 2013
  • Latest edition
  • Author: Amrit Tiwana
  • Language: English

Platform Ecosystems is a hands-on guide that offers a complete roadmap for designing and orchestrating vibrant software platform ecosystems. Unlike software products that are manag… Read more

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Description

Platform Ecosystems is a hands-on guide that offers a complete roadmap for designing and orchestrating vibrant software platform ecosystems. Unlike software products that are managed, the evolution of ecosystems and their myriad participants must be orchestrated through a thoughtful alignment of architecture and governance. Whether you are an IT professional or a general manager, you will benefit from this book because platform strategy here lies at the intersection of software architecture and business strategy. It offers actionable tools to develop your own platform strategy, backed by original research, tangible metrics, rich data, and cases. You will learn how architectural choices create organically-evolvable, vibrant ecosystems. You will also learn to apply state-of-the-art research in software engineering, strategy, and evolutionary biology to leverage ecosystem dynamics unique to platforms. Read this book to learn how to:

  • Evolve software products and services into vibrant platform ecosystems
  • Orchestrate platform architecture and governance to sustain competitive advantage
  • Govern platform evolution using a powerful 3-dimensional framework

If you’re ready to transform platform strategy from newspaper gossip and business school theory to real-world competitive advantage, start right here!

Key features

  • Understand how architecture and strategy are inseparably intertwined in platform ecosystems
  • Architect future-proof platforms and apps and amplify these choices through governance
  • Evolve platforms, apps, and entire ecosystems into vibrant successes and spot platform opportunities in almost any—not just IT—industry

Readership

IT professionals responsible for creating and managing: software-based platforms, and apps for those platforms

Table of contents

DedicationIntroductionPart I: The Rise of PlatformsIntroduction1. The Rise of Platform EcosystemsAbstractIn This Chapter1.1 The war of ecosystems1.2 Platform ecosystems1.3 Drivers of the migration toward platforms1.4 Lessons learnedReferences2. Core Concepts and PrinciplesAbstractIn This Chapter2.1 Introduction2.2 Core concepts2.3 Guiding principles2.4 Lessons learnedReferences3. Why Platform Businesses Are Unlike Product or Service BusinessesAbstractIn This Chapter3.1 Introduction3.2 Why platforms need a different mindset3.3 How products and services can evolve into platforms3.4 Lessons learnedReferences4. The Value Proposition of PlatformsAbstractIn This Chapter4.1 Platform owners4.2 App developers4.3 End-Users4.4 Lessons learnedReferencesPart II: Architecture and GovernanceIntroduction5. Platform ArchitectureAbstractIn This Chapter5.1 How unemployed hairdressers became France’s mathematical champions5.2 Complexity: the Achilles heel of platforms5.3 The two functions of ecosystem architecture5.4 Ecosystem architecture5.5 Four desirable properties of platform architectures5.6 Modularity of architectures5.7 Goldilocks strikes again5.8 Two mechanisms for modularizationChapter summaryReferences6. Platform GovernanceAbstractIn This Chapter6.1 Platform governance as the blueprint for ecosystem orchestration6.2 Three dimensions of platform governance6.3 Aligning governanceChapter summaryReferencesPart III: Dynamics and Metrics of Ecosystem EvolutionIntroduction7. Metrics of EvolutionAbstractIn This Chapter7.1 Three roles of evolutionary metrics7.2 Three guiding principles7.3 An overview of metrics of evolution in platform ecosystems7.4 Short-term metrics of evolution7.5 Medium-term metrics of evolution7.6 Long-term metrics of evolution7.7 Lessons learnedReferences8. Real Options Thinking in Ecosystem EvolutionAbstractIn This Chapter8.1 An introduction to real options thinking8.2 Volatility in technologies and markets8.3 Types of real options8.4 Applying real options thinking in practice8.5 Exercising real options: the devil is in the details8.6 Lessons learnedReferences9. Modular Operators: Platform Ecosystems’ Evolutionary Baby StepsIn This Chapter9.1 An overview of modular operators9.2 Lessons learnedReferencesPart IV: Orchestrating EvolutionIntroduction10. Evolving a PlatformAbstractIn This Chapter10.1 The bathtub model: ecosystem innovation as stocks and flows10.2 Orchestrating platform evolution: a preview10.3 Orchestrating Short-Term platform evolution10.4 Orchestrating Medium-Term platform evolution10.5 Orchestrating Long-Term platform evolution10.6 Lessons learnedReferences11. Evolving an AppAbstractIn This Chapter11.1 Dynamics of platform markets11.2 The Eureka moment and the origin of apps11.3 How app microarchitecture shapes app evolvability11.4 Evolving an app: a preview11.5 Evolving an app in the short term11.6 Evolving an app in the medium term11.7 Evolving an app in the long term11.8 Lessons learnedReferencesPart V: The Road AheadIntroduction12. Every Product Is a Platform Waiting to HappenAbstractIn This Chapter12.1 Idea 1: migration to ecosystem competition12.2 Idea 2: ecosystem orchestration drives evolutionary survival12.3 Idea 3: Orchestration Requires Interlocking of Ecosystem Architecture and GovernanceReferencesAbout the AuthorReferencesGlossaryIndex

Review quotes

"Platform Ecosystems provides an extremely innovative and insightful approach to decode the value creation of platforms and apps. Amrit Tiwana has written a very provocative guide that will help every executive to reconsider their firms' strategic position and potential to deliver products and services via platforms. A must-read for anyone interested in the next generation business."—Eric van Heck, Professor of Information Management and Markets, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University"In “Platform Ecosystems,” Amrit Tiwana delivers a most timely and in-depth perspective of this exciting topic. Ecosystems are at the heart of all modern economic activity and the most powerful known ecosystems have a “platform” at their core, driven by a strong player leading their ecosystem, inviting and mutually boosting the value-add by other players. The combinatorial multipliers of successful ecosystem lead to the competition of entire ecosystems. Understanding the key drivers and mechanisms of platform ecosystems is critically important when contemplating competitive strategies."—Clemens Szyperski, Microsoft

Product details

  • Edition: 1
  • Latest edition
  • Published: December 2, 2013
  • Language: English

About the author

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Amrit Tiwana

Amrit Tiwana is a professor of MIS in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. He has also held joint appointments in computer science and management departments, giving him a unique vantage point to author Platform Ecosystems. Professor Tiwana also advises in the United States, Europe, and Japan industry consortia, government agencies, and major technology companies such as IBM, UPS, NTT Japan, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsui, Mitsubishi Electric, Sumitomo Steel, Kansai Electric, Sony, Eli Lilly & Company, Japan Electronics and IT Industry Association, and Finland’s INFORTE. Platform Ecosystems builds on recent research developments in information systems, software engineering, and business strategy. Professor Tiwana has been a direct contributor to research in peer-reviewed journals in all three fields. Dr. Tiwana is the best-selling author of The Knowledge Management Toolkit (Prentice Hall), which is translated into several foreign languages, widely used in business schools, and has continuously been in print since it first appeared 15 years ago. He received his doctorate from Georgia State University.
Affiliations and expertise
Professor, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, USA.

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