立即打开
耐克是怎么变成平台公司的?

耐克是怎么变成平台公司的?

《财富》 2016年04月13日
利用平台的能力已经不再局限于互联网新贵,传统企业的反应也不再只是防守反击,或是在本行业被强占殆尽后去跟风建个往往以失败收场的平台。传统行业中的领军者一旦理解了新商业模式,就可以着手搭建面向未来的新平台,过程中不仅可以撬动存量资产,还能加强壮大实力。

平台公司正从各方面搅乱传统商业世界的版图,不只是一些全球大公司地位被取代,而且还在改变价值创造、消费者行为等一些习以为常的业务流程,改变主要行业的结构。

固守旧模式的传统公司若想与平台公司对抗,首先需要重估自身商业模式的价值。这些公司得彻底审查在推广、销售、送货以及客户服务等多方面的支出,仔细想想在无缝连接日益普遍的当今世界里,哪些支出可以减少,哪些可以剔除。此外,还应该研究下有业务交流的个人和公司,找出维护关系的新方式以创造新价值。

在这个平台统治的世界里,耐克无疑是想尽办法求生存、找发展而且表现最优异的公司之一。有些举措看起来平谈无奇,其实不然。

Platform businesses are disrupting the traditional business landscape in a number of ways—not only by displacing some of the world’s biggest firms, but also by transforming familiar business processes like value creation and consumer behavior and altering the structure of major industries.

And if they hope to fight the forces of platform disruption, entrenched companies need to reevaluate their business models. They’ll need to scrutinize what they spend on marketing, sales, product delivery, and customer service and imagine how those costs might be reduced or eliminated in a more seamlessly connected world. They’ll need to examine the individuals and organizations they interact with, and envision new ways of networking them to create new forms of value.

Nike has proven to be one of the most intelligent incumbent companies seeking new ways to survive and thrive in the world of platforms. Some of the competitive steps they’ve taken may seem obvious. They aren’t.

《平台革命:紧密联系的市场如何推动经济转型——你如何能从中分一杯羹》

封面设计:W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

从传统上来说,耐克之类做渠道业务的公司要扩张无非有两种方式。一种是纵向整合,就是垂直拓展上下游渠道的长度,比如,收购上游供应商或是下游经销商。另外一种则是扩充渠道自身的容量,目的是让渠道能输送更多价值。如果消费品公司通过推出新产品或新品牌推动增长,就是在做横向整合。

2012年1月,耐克收购了一家名为FuelBand、专做可穿戴设备的公司,其产品可以追踪用户的健身活动,包括计步、能量消耗等。和许多其他公司一样,耐克也一直在开发应用,确切点说是与运动和健康相关的应用。看起来有点像传统产品线的延伸,但耐克其实是在测试新的业务模式,如果成功就能带来新增长,这也是苹果等公司率先尝试的平台业务模式。

苹果在过去十年里实现高速增长,一部分原因就是通过云服务连接各个产品和服务。用户可以通过iTunes和iCloud同步内容和数据,因而,比起拥有其他品牌,比如索尼或日立多个产品,用户会觉得拥有多个苹果产品更有价值,也更实用。在令多个产品和服务协同工作方面,数据是最关键的整体黏合剂。

云服务也推动了新的增长方式。通过数据让多个产品和服务连接和互动起来后,渠道公司开始向平台转化,一方面创造了新价值,另一方面也鼓励用户多参与互动。

耐克旗下配备FuelBand设备的跑鞋可以与手机移动应用实时互动,向用户反馈信息和建议,提醒运动表现、锻炼计划以及健康目标等。耐克不再像传统运动公司一样单纯卖装备,而是利用搜集的数据打造用户生态圈。再过段时间,耐克就能根据积累的数据改进装备提高用户体验,还能将用户凝聚起来,促进用户之间互动。

运动装备公司安德玛(Under Armour )也在积极行动,打造自己的健身用户生态圈。2013年11月,安德玛收购了业内领先的健身训练追踪平台MapMyFitness。2015年2月,安德玛又收购了两家健身平台——专门研究营养的MyFitnessPal和主要服务欧洲客户的“移动私教”Endomondo。三家公司的收购总价高达7.1亿美元。一位分析师评论说:“令人震惊的是被收购的三家公司没有一家是真正做设备的公司。所有人的关注点都在平台和数据上,最重要的其实是用户。”这三笔收购号称涉及1.3亿平台用户。安德玛也跟耐克一样,认为行业的发展前景就是基于平台的业务,而且决心要当行业颠覆者。

那么,有产品和服务就能成为平台业务的基础么?可以测试下:如果公司可以用信息或用户社区为产品提供附加值,就有潜力打造出切实可行的平台。对很多公司来说,这是个巨大的机会。

想想已有126年历史的味好美(McCormick Foods),公司主要产品为香草、香料和调味品。味好美一直沿着传统发展战略前进,直到2010年迎来改变。

味好美的业务触角已然伸到调味品领域的各个角落,在供应链上下游的地位也很稳固,找不到什么可以进一步增长的方式了。首席信息官杰瑞•沃尔夫听说过耐克打造平台的举措,味好美能不能也尝试下呢?

沃尔夫去纽约找了业内领先的设计公司R/GA合伙人巴里•瓦克斯曼,他也正是协助耐克设计平台战略的人。两人想出个主意,就是用食谱和味觉档案打造以食物为基础的平台。沃尔夫和瓦克斯曼通过味好美的味觉实验室提炼出36种典型味道——例如薄荷味、柑橘味、花香、大蒜味、肉香等——这些味道组合起来就可以描述几乎所有食谱。口味系统可以根据个人爱好预测用户可能愿意品尝的新食谱。

此外,在味好美社区平台上,用户还可以修改食谱,上传更新的版本,尝试无数的新口味,还能预测食物流行的新趋势,平台汇集的信息不仅对用户有用,对杂货店经理、食品生产商以及餐馆老板都会有所帮助。

如今,利用平台的能力已经不再局限于互联网新贵,传统企业的反应也不再只是防守反击,或是在本行业被强占殆尽后去跟风建个往往以失败收场的平台。

事实上,传统行业中的领军者一旦理解了新商业模式,就可以着手搭建面向未来的新平台,过程中不仅可以撬动存量资产,还能加强壮大实力。(财富中文网)

本文节选自《平台革命:紧密联系的市场如何推动经济转型——你如何能从中分一杯羹》,作者为Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary.版权属于Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary.本文已或出版商W. W. Norton & Company授权发布,版权所有。

译者:Pessy

校对:詹妮

Pipeline businesses like Nikehave traditionally scaled in one of two ways. Some expand by vertical integration, owning and integrating a greater length of the value-creation-and-delivery pipeline—for example, buying upstream suppliers or downstream distributors. Others expand by widening the pipeline to push more value through it. When consumer goods companies grow by creating new products and brands, it’s an example of horizontal integration.

In January 2012, Nike brought out a wearable technology device, the FuelBand, to track user fitness activities, including steps walked and calories burned. Like many other companies, Nike has also been developing apps—in this case, apps related to sports and fitness. While these might seem like traditional product-line extensions, Nike is actually testing an approach that, if successful, will lead to a new form of growth—one pioneered by platform businesses like Apple.

Over the last decade, Apple has grown in part by connecting its products and services to one another in the cloud. The ability to sync contents and data over iTunes and iCloud makes the ownership of multiple Apple products particularly valuable, and much more useful than, say, the ownership of multiple products from Sony or Toshiba. Data acts as an integration glue to make all these products and services perform in concert.

This leads to a new form of growth. When multiple products and services connect and interact using data, pipelines can start behaving like platforms, producing new forms of value and encouraging users to engage in more interactions.

Nike’s FuelBand-connected shoes and mobile apps they constantly interact, providing users with information and advice about their athletic performance, their fitness regime, and their health goals. Unlike a traditional sporting goods company, Nike is building an ecosystem of users using the data it captures about them. Over time, it can leverage this data to create more relevant experiences for its users and connect them with one another to enable valuable interactions.

Under Armourhas been moving quickly to build its own fitness ecosystem. In November 2013, it purchased MapMyFitness, a leading workout and exercise tracking platform. In February 2015, it followed up by buying two more fitness platforms—MyFitnessPal, which focuses on nutrition, and Endomondo, a “trainer in your pocket” that mainly serves consumers in Europe. The total purchase price for the three companies: a hefty $710 million. “What’s really astounding,” one analyst commented, “is that none of the companies acquired make actual devices. Instead, everything is about platform and data. And—more importantly—users.” The three acquisitions boast 130 million platform users. Like Nike, Under Armour sees that the future of its industry is platform-based, and it is determined to be a disruptor.

Can any product or service become the basis of a platform business? Here’s the test: If the firm can use either information or community to add value to what it sells, then there is potential for creating a viable platform. This creates huge opportunities for a lot of firms.

Consider McCormick Foods, a 126-year-old company that sells herbs, spices, and condiments. By 2010, the company’s traditional growth strategies had run their course.

McCormickhad already expanded into a full range of food seasonings and established a foothold up and down its supply chain. It was running out of growth options. CIO Jerry Wolfe heard about Nike’s move into platform-building. Could McCormick do the same?

Wolfe reached out to Barry Wacksman, a partner at R/GA, a leading New York design firm that had helped Nike design its platform. Together, they hit on the idea of using recipes and taste profiles to build a food-based platform. Wolfe and Wacksman used McCormick’s taste laboratories to distill three dozen flavor archetypes— such as minty, citrus, floral, garlicky, meaty—that can be used to describe almost any recipe. Based on personal preferences, the system can predict what new recipes an individual is likely to savor. And the McCormick platform community can modify recipes and upload the new versions, creating ever-expanding flavor options and helping to identify new food trends, generating information that’s useful not only to the platform’s users but also to managers of grocery stores, food manufacturers, and restaurateurs.

The ability to leverage platforms is no longer restricted to Internet upstarts. Nor is the incumbent’s response restricted to merely attempting to fight back, or trying, usually in vain, to build a copycat platform after their industry has been colonized.

The leaders of incumbent companies who understand the new business model can begin building tomorrow’s platforms in a way that not only leverages their existing assets, but strengthens and reinforces them.

Excerpted from Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy—And How to Make Them Work for You by Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary. Copyright 2016 by Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

  • 热读文章
  • 热门视频
活动
扫码打开财富Plus App