Co-evolution of platform architecture, platform services, and platform governance: Expanding the platform value of industrial digital platforms
This research addresses a gap in understanding digital platforms in B2B industrial contexts, offering insights for manufacturers and platform sponsors, but it is incremental as it extends existing literature on platform ecosystems and digital servitization.
The study tackles the need for a holistic understanding of digital platforms in industrial manufacturing by examining how platform architecture, services, and governance co-evolve across three archetypes: product platform, supply chain platform, and platform ecosystem, finding that each involves gradual development and specific innovation mechanisms to expand platform value.
Industrial manufacturers increasingly develop digital platforms in the business-to-business (B2B) context. This emergent form of digital platforms requires a profound yet little understood holistic perspective that encompasses the co-evolution of platform architecture, platform services, and platform governance. To address this research gap, our study examines multiple platform sponsors from an industrial manufacturing context. The study demarcates three platform archetypes: product platform, supply chain platform, and platform ecosystem. We argue that each platform archetype involves a gradual development of platform architecture, platform services, and platform governance, which mirror each other. We also find that each platform archetype is characterized by a specific innovation mechanism that contributes to the platform service discovery and expands the platform value. Our study extends the co-evolution perspective of platform ecosystem literature and digital servitization literature.