Digital Platforms Business Models

Abstract

Digital platforms have been recently studied in the literature as their relevance and impact is increasing rapidly. The purpose of this paper is to investigate based on the available literature the business models of digital platforms, and to form some typologies for understanding them better. In this endeavour we extracted 25 cases of digital platforms through a literature review process, continued with analysing them in detail to create four taxonomies of various business models of digital platforms. Results show a large variety of business models for digital platforms, and also an evolutionary trend. We grouped the data using the business model canvas, including key partners, key activities, key resources, value proposition, customer relationships, channels, customer segments, cost structure and revenue streams, resulting in four archetypes such as: marketplace, social community, software ecosystem and digital product. Future research may test qualitatively the evolution of a business model within each category, but also the Software Ecosystem model is studied from a managerial perspective, as it has only been explored from the information systems lens.

Keywords

• digital platforms
• business model
• marketplace
• social community
• software ecosystem
• and digital product