Innovation Tactics

Develop innovation ideas you can be proud of

Amazon business model [part 3]: the Kindle system and its 10 business models

The Kindle is generally described as an Amazon gadget that mainly generates revenues through its own sales and the sales of ebooks. But what if I told you that there are at least 10 business models enabled by the Kindle system. How many would you be able to list?

The Kindle is a much bigger endeavour than just a product. It is not only disrupting brick-and-mortar bookstores but also the publishing industry. And there is yet more. Amazon Kindle, Fire TV, Tablet, Echo and Alexa are gateways to something much more complex behind the screen. And they have a number of characteristics in common:

Amazon Business Model [part 2]: Three customer value propositions

Jeff Bezos regularly points out Amazon’s three customer value propositions:
1. Low prices
2. Fast delivery speed (often same day and with options of free 2-hour delivery) and a
3. Vast selection (“Earth’s biggest selection”)
Today, we are going to look at all three elements and how Amazon makes them work on scale

Amazon Business Model [part 1]

“in our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, ‘Jeff I love Amazon, I just wish the prices were a little higher;’ ‘I love Amazon, I just wish you’d deliver a little more slowly.’ Impossible. …When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.”
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO Amazon Inc.
Amazon has built the backbone of their retail business over many years using a lot of innovations and a multitude of business model. And that’s exactly what we are going to look at today. Join me for an intriguing tour…

Sharing Platform Business Model Value Chain [Updated]

Airbnb and Uber are the two most prominent examples of how to apply the platform business model to the sharing economy. But there are countless other sharing economy platform businesses as you have seen last time in the explanation of types and examples.

The sharing economy is one of the most significant socio-economic trends of the last decade. For innovators, it is still early days with countless ideas and opportunities to be discovered.

But how do we innovate within a large trend? One of the most important aspects is to understand which business models are suitable to bring the strength of the trend to light.

And that’s exactly what we are going to look at today: I am explaining the sharing platform business model using the value chain strategy tool!

The single biggest risks to Airbnb, Uber and your sharing platform idea

The biggest risks to Uber, Airbnb and sharing economy platform business models doesn’t come from technical or commercial dimensions but from their social impacts, yet these are being largely ignored.

The large for-profit sharing economy platforms, such as Uber and Airbnb, come with social risks and opportunities and I will give a balanced overview over both. The critics see them as leading to a “dystopia, with increasingly powerful platforms facing disempowered workers” [“that deliver a latte in a rainstorm to the more fortunate ones”]. Optimistic observers spot utopian possibilities of a crowd- and trust-based economic system and the emergence of a “networked society of micro‐entrepreneurs”

With a number of recent blows to both Uber and Airbnb in the US social and regulatory risks become crucial … understand what’s going on and how it may affect your ideas!

Platform Business Model

One of the biggest innovation opportunities right now is the revolutionary platform business model (click here for an overview) that fuels Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, ... a great opportunity for start-ups and established companies.

Innovate like Uber & Airbnb

Get a knowledge burst on sharing platform business models (click here) with ebooks & infographics
sharing platform business model

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