Multisided Platforms. A Managerial View on Implementation, Challenges and Obstacles

Seminar paper from the year 2022 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,7, University Witten/Herdecke, language: English, abstract: The purpose of this paper is to capture and highlight the arising opportunities that are embedded in the topic of MSPs and deliver the results in an accessible way for managers. To further establish a basic managerial guide on how to approach the possible implementation of a MSP into an own organization or as an independent start-up, an introduction to the fundamental mechanics of platforms is given. The guide holds a major focus on the challenges that are inherent to the technology, concept, and structure of MSPs to raise the awareness of managers early on and give a balanced overview of the topic at hand. This term paper is written for the seminar Digital Transformation in Organizations and is therefore limited to a theoretical nature in form of a literature review and will not engage in any form of empirical study. Regarding the above mentioned successful and failed platform businesses, the guiding question can be derived: What are the strategic challenges managers need to consider when they want to launch their own successful MSP? Relating to the considerable effort that is linked to these strategic challenges, each chapter will give a short overview of what managers should focus on when they want to tackle this specific problem.

The topic of digital transformation attracts more and more businesses, mostly because they want to ensure their viability in now rapidly changing environments. Others seek to gain an edge over their competitors by utilizing new technologies and structures. Multi-sided platforms fulfill both criteria and their ever-growing success in the recent decade led to many all-out hunts for the next big platform. With seven out of ten of the most valuable businesses worldwide utilizing multi-sided platforms, many strategically acting managers seek to better understand the topic before trying to implement it as any successful multi-sided platform is accompanied by numerous failures. This paper contributes by uniting fundamental knowledge and new findings to create an easy-to-read handbook about the most essential features of multi-sided platforms. In the main part, the challenges that are inherent to the platform technology are analyzed. A focus lays on creating condensed guidelines that managers should consider when facing specific problems.