Top-Performing Companies Reuse Four Digital Platform Designs

MIT CISR

Stephanie Woerner reads MIT CISR's May 2025 research briefing, which she co-authored with Peter Weill. See the text version and related content at https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/2025_0501_DigitalPlatformDesigns_WoernerWeill. Abstract: People use the term “digital platform” to mean lots of different things—an internal business capability, a business model, a technology, a business service, or a mindset, among other things. To help executives discuss, design, and manage digital platforms, we studied platform designs. We identified four dominant digital platform designs—platform as a service (PaaS), multisided marketplace, internal platform, and X as a service (XaaS)—and found that companies that effectively managed one or more of the designs had above-average financial performance. In this briefing, we describe the designs and share the financial performance of companies using each design.