Nine of the top 10 currently most valuable companies in the world are technology majors, Tesla is already worth more than the next nine major car manufacturers combined, Apple is worth more than the entire FTSE 100. Unicorn startups such as Revolut, Klarna and Adyen are disrupting financial services whilst innovative rising stars disrupt other sectors as varied as car rental (Car2Go and Greenwheels) and Accommodation (Booking and AirBnB).<\/p>\n
For any business trying to market itself on internet, it is difficult to surpass the power of Google\u2019s AdWords.\u00a0 Buying a car? Check out the market on a car trading app.\u00a0 Get recognised as a professional? You need to be on LinkedIn.\u00a0 In fact, in almost every sector of the economy, from government, security and military, to financial services, manufacturing, healthcare and telecoms \u2013 a new type of business model has arisen which is changing the rules of competition. Once established this new model is very difficult to compete against \u2013 as many traditionally organised businesses have discovered.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start by setting some context.\u00a0 Around 2015, the rise of a new model was becoming all too evident in the valuations of Technology players who replaced traditional businesses in the ranks of the most valuable companies in the world.\u00a0 By 2018, Apple broke through the magical barrier of $1trillion value and was quickly followed by Microsoft, Alphabet (Google) and Amazon.<\/p>\n
The World Economic Forum describe this as the 4th<\/sup> Industrial Revolution \u2013 we have progressed from the 3rd<\/sup>Industrial Revolution – driven by hardware (microchips) and software – to a new revolution driven by one key factor: data<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Our physical world is being mirrored in a parallel world of data.\u00a0 The geography of our world, most of the tangible objects that exist in it, intangibles such as our relationships and movement, money and financial assets, all businesses, our homes, our jobs, and even our own existence including everything that we do and our psychological profile \u2013 this is all now represented in a world of data!<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the companies who leverage that data are changing the physical world \u2013 the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated this very clearly \u2013 we forecast the rise of the pandemic with data and took measures to shut down many business activities, we analysed the spread of variants using data to assess their impact and the vaccine has been developed using models of how our genes will adapt to resist the effect of Covid. We now have a “feedback loop” from the data world which is changing the physical world.<\/p>\n The key to understanding the new business model is to understand this feedback loop which is now in place between our physical world and the data world \u2013 and how a number of businesses are organised around it.\u00a0 I will call it the Data Driven<\/em> or Platform<\/em> business model and describe it briefly here.<\/p>\n Every business manager, board and supervisory executive, and professionals in government, business and not for profit organisations should take heed.\u00a0 This new business model is the blueprint for organisational design and business strategy.\u00a0 When established this model is a \u201cwinner takes all\u201d story – as we observe in the stock markets and key sectors of the economy already.<\/p>\nA new business model is changing our world<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nMany cases of this model bring demand and supply together on the platform and can dominate a market without owning any of the physical assets that are central in that market as AirBnB demonstrates by being a dominant accommodation provider without owning any accommodation.<\/li>\nImplications?<\/strong><\/h4>\n