The Platform Company

The Art of Resilient Strategy: A Guide for Leaders Inspired by Nature's Competition

Jan-Jacob Koomen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040782415
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

The Platform Company will help you tackle your organization's key strategic challenges with out-of-the box concepts based on solid principles from game theory and ecology. Building blocks are introduced in an easy-to-read story of an executive on safari and translated into practical steps and methods. The book addresses the key challenges confronting any organization, such as branding, sales channels, innovation, supply chain, strategy formation, leadership, and purpose.|The nature of business is changing, and organizations experience the need to change accordingly. In this book, Jan-Jacob Koomen takes the reader on a fascinating journey, revealing how firms can successfully adapt to and become part of the new market reality. Using exciting insights from nature as metaphors, he discusses why and how firms need to re-invent themselves in today's increasingly interconnected world. The book provides the reader with insightful and ready-to-apply ideas, concepts, and frameworks in a unique, storytelling way. As such, the book empowers and inspires at the same time. I highly recommend it to managers of medium-sized firms seeking to grow their business and create value for its stakeholders. —Ruud Frambach, Professor of Marketing, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam , It is an excellent read for start-ups that want to evolve into scale-ups, and companies wanting to co-operate with such scale-ups. —Auke van de Hout, Managing Partner Graduate Entrepreneur, An interesting book that introduces the concept of the platform company and explains how to be successful in a highly dynamic and unpredictable world. —Quintin Schevernels, Consigliere for start- and scale-ups, Serial Entrepreneur and Former CEO of Funda and Layar, The Platform Company provides great insights that can accelerate modern strategy formation in corporations. It takes you out of the comfort zone, and forces you into a tough evaluation of the competitive position of the organization. —Eric van Westbroek, Director Consumer & Online PostNL, Managing Director Innovation Studio PostNL, A fascinating read that takes marketers and managers on a safari through their own business. Over the course of Jack's safari, the author is able to simplify seemingly complex business issues using practical concepts and actionable insights. —Ivan Roth, Chief Commercial Officer NetRom and former Global Marketing Director, specialized nutrition division, Danone

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Structure of the book
• Introduction: The start of the six-day journey
• 1. Utilitarian brands: Reimagining brand value creation in a connected audience
• 2. Channel conflict: Building rich revenue through value adding channels
• 3. Innovation in the crowd: Switching attention from startup to scaleup
• 4. Supply chain competition: Creating localized, personalized, and relevant value leadership
• 5. Platform company: Designing a platform to achieve a sustainable competitive position
• 6. Leading through purpose: Defining the core value that your organization is meant to produce
• Background & Acknowledgements
• Further reading
• Index