The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power

In recent years, digital platforms have become the dominant force in the marketplace. Overtaking the industry of product creation, these platforms create ecosystems where individuals and organizations can innovate or interact in ways not otherwise possible—and they comprise the most valuable business organizations in the world, with firms such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Google at the top of the list. The rise of platforms in the wake of the digital revolution has allowed for unprecedented innovation and sharing of information; but it has also raised pressing ethical questions about data privacy and antitrust concerns.

In The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power (HarperBusiness; May 7), a trio of experts on high-tech business strategy reveal the principles that have made platform businesses the most valuable firms in the world, question whether there are limits to their market dominance and expansion, and discuss the role that governments should play in rethinking regulations that could rein in abuses from these powerful businesses.

Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer, and David B. Yoffie are widely published authorities on this subject matter, and their goal is to help managers and entrepreneurs build platform businesses that can stand the test of time and win their share of battles with both digital and conventional competitors. The Business of Platforms is the most authoritative and timely investigation yet of the powerful economic and technological forces that make platform businesses the dominant players in shaping the global economy, the future of work, and the political world we now face.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Michael A. Cusumano is the Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, with a joint appointment in the MIT Engineering Systems Division. He began studying the software business in 1985. He is co-author of a classic best-seller on the company, Microsoft Secrets, as well as Platform Leadership: The Business of Software, and Staying Power and Competing on Internet Time with Yoffie. His latest book, Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy & Innovation in an Uncertain World, was named one of the top business books of 2011 by Strategy + Business magazine. 

Highly-cited author of two books (Platform Leadership and Platform, Markets, and Innovation) and over a dozen articles in top international journals, Professor Annabelle Gawer’s seminal research on platform leadership and innovation ecosystems explains how innovation and competition interact to shape platform-based markets and the digital economy. Gawer’s work has been featured in the New York Times, The Times of London, Financial Times, The Economist, and Wall Street Journal. A pioneer of international stature in the field of digital platforms, Gawer is a leading voice in advance research, as well as managerial practice and European policy. She advises the European Commission, the UK Parliament House of Lords, and the OECD on issues related to the future of ICT research directions in Europe and on the question of regulation of online platforms.

Professor David B. Yoffie is the Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He first met Andy Grove in 1987 and joined the Intel board of directors in 1989. He remains the longest-serving member of the Intel board. Yoffie has also written forty Harvard Business School cases on Intel, Microsoft, and Apple, including the most widely uses cases on these companies. He is the author of nine books, including the bestselling Competing on Internet Time with Cusumano. He has also written extensively for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review.

This giveaway is brought to you by Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. We have 20 copies available.