Tips of Construction of Platforms by Device Makers

From the Perspective of CPS and Servitization

Abstract

Many discussions on Platforms or two-sided market so far focused on Business and Technolgoy separately, using mainly Western IT cases. And there are also few cases which deal with now-a-day's technological trend like IoT among them. This paper took up the case of platform building by Komatsu, a maker of construction machines (devices) to analyze it from the perspective of CPS, especially focusing on data feedbackloop. As a result, it found at least 6 points important; (1) installed base of devices and their SW are prerequisite for platform building, (2) aggressive open innovation is used for acquisition of technology which Komatsu dosen't have, (3) customer-orientation discussed in Service dominant Logic would greatly contribute on getting lots of information from users for attractive solutions, (4) Rental and Maintenance Services enable Komatsu to keep asset value and control information inflow, (5) these all enrich their business model positions, (6) Komatsu platform initially is built as closed system but there is possibility left to open it by using standard networks.