Top-Performing Companies Reuse Four Digital Platform Designs

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.