by Robert Solomon | Oct 7, 2016 | B2B Software, Consolidating Competition, Financial services, Indirect Spend, Industry Concentration
For those of you interested in software platforms, marketplaces, networks, ecosystems– whatever you want to call them–it was a big week for news of giant platforms doing battle in a variety of venues. Smart Home Platforms Photo courtesy of Cnet. Google...
by Robert Solomon | Sep 30, 2016 | Indirect Spend, Industry Cloud, Procure to Pay
New Year’s Day should be in the fall, not January. After all, fall is when: we have a change of season, the new school year starts, Muslims and Jews are already celebrating the New Year, the harvest comes in, etc. Apparently, fall is also the new year for...
by Robert Solomon | Sep 27, 2016 | B2B Software, E-invoicing, Pricing, Supply Chain Finance
Early (and Fuzzy) Saas Metrics From B2B Networks Until a B2B Network catches on, the metrics can be gloomy. (The first few years of the Ariba Network were pretty dismal, for instance.) The result is that for the first few years of a B2B network’s life you tend...
by Robert Solomon | Sep 20, 2016 | B2B Software, E-invoicing, Ecosystem, Key Success Factors, Payments, Procure to Pay
As mentioned in the last post, the notion of an ecosystem from the world of biology is a useful analogy for the ecosystem digital platforms must foster. It turns out, another biological concept, the “bow tie”, is also a great analogy for how B2B SaaS platforms must...
by Robert Solomon | Sep 16, 2016 | B2B Software, Ecosystem, Enterprise Software, Key Success Factors, Payments |
One of the first great books about platform business models was The Keystone Advantage by Marco Iansiti and Roy Leven. The book was published in 2004, so it pre-dated the success of SaaS platforms such as Uber, Google, AirBnB, Facebook, and many others. As a...
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