Platform Thinking

Platform thinking is the model evolving across industries. It is the equivalent of having one brand catering to a particular need through various product and line extensions, in the FMCG world. The same brand has products in multiple categories all providing the same core need through various uses throughout the day becoming a part of your lives in an intrinsic manner and building a mega brand in the process.

One good non-FMCG example of a platform brand is Wechat in China which takes care of a gamut of stuff for the consumer, right from the smallest transaction to the smallest interaction, it is all routed through this super app. Fundamentally, I believe Wechat as a brand stands for “enabling and simplifying interactions”. It is a super app of any interaction (financial or otherwise).

Similarly, there could be a platform for various big needs that the consumer has. There are hordes of experiences that the consumer today is struggling with; With a fragmented approach and individual  gateways for each of these experiences it is not ideal, and thus someone who manages to consolidate these experiences in a useful manner would manage to create immense value.

In the software world, Cloud and Artificial intelligence would of course be important tools that would be used to provide these services. A point to note here is – Cloud, Machine learning, AI, etc.. are all in the backend to achieve the consumer’s need. The consumer is not looking for AI, he wants to get a job done and is employing a particular piece of hardware/software/service to accomplish that in the best possible way. What Brand would he trust to accomplish that particular “job” is where the moolah lies.

Companies and new age startups that think on these lines would have a chance to build a Mega integrated business capturing opportunities at multiple areas of the entire value chain. In the digital space, with the window of our digital devices, some of the spaces that I think are ripe for disruption – 

Entertainment – one platform for all my needs

What are the various avenues I reach out to entertain me in the digital world? I consume content. Be it by reading, listening, watching (from a 5 minute short film to a marathon season of a series), experiencing it with gaming, etc.. Before I get to that, I currently need to have gatekeeper apps to figure out what content, where can I access it, and blah, blah, blah, creating a friction between the experience. Can we have one place that I can access all of it?

• Movies
• Music, Podcasts,
• Gaming
• Reading – News, Magazines and Books

I feel the most poised to win this battle would be Apple. It already has a presence in all of these with their individual platforms – “Apple TV”, “Apple Music”, “Arcade”, “Book”, “News”, etc.. I am sure it is a matter of time when they figure out a smart way to integrate it all into one. A one stop solution for all the content that you can consume..

Health – one stop solution where one can access all my health needs

The four basic tenets of Health all mixed into one. The consumer would want to think of Health holistically and ideally want to lean on to one player for all his/her Health Needs. The four tenets of good health – 

• Food
• Physical
• Emotional/Mental
• Financial 

The super app platform could be that one place where the consumer gets access to reliable information regarding all of the above, take online/offline classes for any of the health programs, have access to his entire medical/financial portfolio and history along with an advisor, schedule appointments with a doctor/diagnostics, order medicines, etc..

I think Cultfit in India is well on its way to build this, and with a wide offline presence complementing its online platform. It is well placed to build trust and reliability which is the most important tenet for any player in this space. Gaia is another player in this space that has potential and a vast adoption.

What are the other areas that you think are ripe for disruption?

This post originally appeared on my LinkedIn profile- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/platform-thinking-bharat-jhurani/