The Value of Platform Strategy It's the Ecosystem, Stupid!

Despite an abundant literature on platforms, there have been surprisingly few quantitative studies on their adoption by established firms and their impact on performance. The unspoken assumption is that platforms increase companies’ performance. This paper uses a global, cross-industry, sample of over 1300 firms to show that, while it seems adopting platform strategies is positively associated with firm performance, the effect is confounded by (1) the digital maturity of firms and (2) their ecosystem strategy. Our results refine our understanding of platform strategy’s value by uncovering the importance of shifting to ecosystem approaches involving value co-creation. They suggest that success is not about the adoption of any platform technology, but rather about seizing integration opportunities brought by its underlying ecosystem