Plataforma nos materiais de construção

Os trechos que se seguem, retirados de "Rethinking the Value of Customers in a Digital Economy", estão escritos com exemplos e a pensar na economia digital:

"As platform companies ... relentlessly disrupt — and redefine — mainstream industries, we see network effects as their “secret sauce” for success. Network effects increasingly determine innovation opportunity, value creation, and growth in digital markets.
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Technically, economists say network effects — known also as network externalities — exist when the value of a product or service to users increases as the number of users grows. But this traditional definition is woefully incomplete. Quality of use — and users — matters as much or more to value creation as quantity. In other words, how networks are used is as important as how much they are used.
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The crucial economic and business insight should be obvious: Network effects turn users into assets. Enabling network effects empowers users/customers to both directly and indirectly create new value. Network effects don’t merely create more value for more users, they make users more valuable to both the enterprise and to each other. Network effects, therefore, are special economic phenomena because they make their contributors more valuable to everyone in and on the network.
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The more users participate, and the more innovatively they engage, the more value — and valuable data and experiences — can quickly be generated. In turn, the more value created, the more users — and innovative uses — materialize.
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Understanding the impact of network effects should fundamentally shift strategic investment perspectives toward investing in one’s users. As noted, in digital economies, sustainable success comes not just from improving products, services, and user experiences, but from improving customers, clients, channels, and suppliers, as well. Networks make that possible and affordable. The next step is for marketing and innovation executives to explicitly address key questions about assessing returns on their network-effects investments and making it easier for users to participate and create connections.
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network effects are about “customers creating value for other customers.”
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If customers are viewed as king in today’s platform markets, it’s only because the kingdoms they rule are now larger and more valuable thanks to their networked nature."

E recuo ao final dos anos 90... quando conheci e trabalhei com um grupo de empresas: a casa-mãe produzia um material de construção e tinha uma empresa industrial que usava esse material como matéria-prima.
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A casa-mãe controlava essa empresa com uma preocupação: o objectivo não era maximizar o lucro ou o poder dessa empresa a jusante mas o de criar valor para todos os clientes da casa-mãe. A empresa funcionava como criador de novos mercados, desenvolvendo novos produtos que disponibilizava aos "concorrentes", dando apoio técnico para resolver problemas com máquinas e receitas de fabrico aos "concorrentes". Por exemplo, a empresa recomendou-me a vários "concorrentes" para os apoiar na certificação da qualidade ou na marcação CE. Quanto mais os concorrentes da empresa estivessem bem, mais a casa-mãe vendia e mais a categoria como um todo seria forte.
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Tudo começou a ruir nos últimos dias de Outubro de 2008... mas a plataforma estava lá e a funcionar bem num sector o mais analógico-tradicional possível.