Digital Business Designs and Platforms

Despite fueling a once-in-a-century downturn of global business activity in spring 2020, the pandemic was more a tailwind than an impediment for the development of digital and platform Business Designs. This chapter introduces a scientific framework for such Business Designs by defining the four mission critical elements of platform firms, by describing five distinct platform patterns and by discussing the financial and strategic characteristics of platforms. Based on this framework, three novel scientific concepts to assess, design, and evaluate platform Business Designs are introduced: The 10C Business Design enables the strategic analysis of existing and innovation of new business models by defining the ten mission-critical architectural cornerstones of a digital firm. The eight platform value levers, as second strategic tool, assess a platform’s strength. The latter is defined by a platform’s scalability, its dominance within a defined ecosystem, and its value creation potential. The Reverse Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) pairs strategic diagnostics with financial valuation. It builds upon the well-known Discounted Cash Flow concept of corporate valuation but applies it upside down. The valuation’s origin is the steady-state description of a distinct Business Design embedded in a “picture-of-the-future” scenario.