MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Competing on Platforms

The dominant online platform companies are now the most valuable companies in the world, and their growing power over other organizations is enabling them to rewrite the rules of business strategy.

In the past decade, digital platforms have profoundly reorganized markets and industries and redefined the dynamics of value creation and competition. They have created marketplaces that have spawned an enormous number of platform-native startups. And as these have grown and prospered, existing businesses have felt compelled to join the platform economy, viewing participation as necessary for growth and even survival.

About the Author

Donato Cutolo is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Bologna. Andrew Hargadon is the Charles J. Soderquist Chair in Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis. Martin Kenney is a distinguished professor of community and regional development at the University of California, Davis.

Learn more about MIT SMR.