Part II: A Strategy for Platforms
Platforms can play a pivotal role in IT transformation by reducing complexity, harmonizing software delivery, and stabilizing operations, all the while reducing cost. It’s no surprise, then, that they have become a staple in today’s IT and business strategies. But launching a multisided market business model, building an in-house developer platform, or even using a cloud base platform are major strategic decisions that require significant investments in both technology and organizational change.
That’s why success with platforms rarely results from an IT department’s effort alone. Bridging both IT and business strategy is a key aspect of a successful platform strategy. Any gaps in this area can become the source of expensive failures.
“Strategy” as a term sadly doesn’t stand far behind “platform” when it comes to fuzziness and overuse. So, this chapter starts by recapping what it means to define a strategy before zooming into platform strategies. Strategy will never be a “paint by numbers” exercise (nor should it be), but organizations can benefit from common building blocks and recipes harvested from successful platform strategy definitions and executions.
The following key elements play a critical role in defining a platform strategy:
- Let’s first describe what constitutes a sound business or IT strategy for large organizations.
- Becoming a platform company requires organizations to rethink their existing ways of working
- Platforms can overcome apparent opposites such as innovation and harmonization.
- Wardley Maps are excellent models to understand what drives platform adoption and how platforms drive innovation.
- Writing a strategy document can lead to writer’s block, so it’s good to have a mental framework.