Introduction


Today’s world runs on a digital pulse and businesses rely upon digital applications and data heavily. Large organizations and new start-ups are leveraging digital platforms to innovate and sell products and services. Now a days, businesses are helping one another grow by sharing their platforms and services. Competition in the market is forcing the business to reach out to stakeholders to their doorsteps and deliver the required product or service. To make these services and products cost effective, they are forced to utilise help from different stakeholders. Also, every day, data is becoming the core of business. Moreover, digital form of data is much important for accuracy, decision making and prediction. All of these are encouraging development of digital platforms.

Future of Digital Platforms

Trends in the industry:

• Platforms are needed to manage innovations and information/product exchanges as businesses grows. Stakeholders are looking for a location that can meet all their needs. Furthermore, the data collected is becoming increasingly important for both sides of the business (innovation/information exchange).
• Growth, competition, and innovation are all forcing businesses to work hand in hand with each other to cater to the demands of modern users. Success is built on innovative ideas and inventions; thus, companies must adapt. Existing businesses & digital platforms must adapt to these developments or reinvent themselves to meet the demands of the market in order to survive. Technological developments like AI, ML, and bigdata analytics are a few examples of elements that have begun to significantly impact the platforms.
• Stakeholders are finding it difficult to rely on multiple platforms to meet their needs. As a result, platforms will need to help aggregate a variety of services and/or collaborate/integrate with various platform providers.
• With the evolution of digital platforms, it becomes mandatory to comply with several statutory regulations and standards and some of these might require legal verifications.
• Many platforms will become service-oriented, assisting other organizations to conduct business by utilising the services provided by the platforms.

Immediate changes:

• Rather than providing curated content from business owners, stakeholders are more interested in content generated by users. As a result, most platforms allow users to create and publish their own content. This assists business owners in lowering the cost of producing the content required for the audience. This also enables the business to generate more data from its users.
• Technology developments (like ML, AI, AR, VR, Data analytics etc.) drives platforms to adopt as quickly and widely as feasible. These technologies are used by new and future platforms to offer features that give users a feeling that is close to reality about the features of goods and services. These technological advancements are also applied to the goods and services offered by the platforms. Additionally, new platforms promise to provide stakeholders with more precise data and projections, assisting them in making decisions.
• Another feature that all platforms need to provide is the ability for users and stakeholders to work together to create communities. A variety of options include live streaming, live audio chats, and AR and VR.
• The social media landscape is evolving quickly, and several platforms have unforeseen effects on one another. Platforms therefore offer fresh strategies and tools, and they are frequently reassessed. Newly built platforms will either have their own social media features are they might have integration with one of the successful social media platforms.
• This is one of the most promising developments for digital platforms. Computing platforms are evolving to the point where digital platforms can provide unrivalled processing capacity, security, speed, and storage capacity. A few examples include cloud infrastructure, 5G networks, and cloud services. Web3.0, Industry 4.0, and other emerging standards are also contributing to this.
• The user interface with which stakeholders will interact is a major factor in user acceptance of a platform. New generation platforms need to ensure that a more intuitive and user-friendly interface is provided. A lot of research is being done on this to increase acceptance.

Future platform builders need to know:

• Simplify tasks for users: Allow people to accomplish their tasks faster with a user-friendly platform.
• Ensure participation by stakeholders (users, owners etc.): i.e., take into account their vision/objectives. Platforms are more likely to succeed when stakeholders become co-creators in a variety of ways. When it becomes a two-way communication platform, relationships are formed, and platforms are well accepted.
• Provide personalization options: Platforms should allow users to personalise it for themselves. The goal should be to make the platform a friendly go-to source of the user.
• Integrate products: In the future, platforms and products may be integrated, and a close communication and network may be established. The development of IoT and the internet is paving the way for this. This will enable a company to provide proactive service and support.
• Streamline the process: Digital platforms are evolving to the point where they can help streamline business processes ranging from employee communication to professional development, performance management, marketing, sales, service, and support.
• End to end service: Partnership and collaboration will be the backbone for platforms. Customers may not like to use more than one platform for a purpose. Platform providers should bring all partners under one digital platform to meet customer demands.

Few other trends:

• Reduce the labor/skills gap using low-code/no-code tools. The industry is looking for low-code platforms to solve more straightforward problems.
• Automate the processes across all departments. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is now making an impact on small and medium-sized enterprises. RPA benefits include improved efficiency, increased security and compliance, improved analytics, streamlined scalability, and improved customer experience.
• Decisions made on time with data analytics. Big data analytics is assisting the industry in analysing the data generated to produce information that will assist organisations take appropriate decisions. This will also aid them in overcoming crises.
• Privacy – Cybersecurity. Data is now the most valuable commodity in the market, and every organisation is constantly researching ways to improve the security of their data. People began remote work even more in the pandemic era, which increased vulnerabilities and the need for greater data security.
• Remote work – multi-cloud. Many businesses are shifting away from on-premises solutions and opting for on-cloud solutions. Multi-cloud strategies are adopted to improve security and protect their data.
• Enhanced decision making – improved data quality. One of the parameters of digital transformation is to improve data quality and thus generate more accurate information for decision making. Because the platforms can generate more data from a larger user base and cover more areas of business, the information generated will be more accurate.
• Thorough digital experience – 5G. This is one of the developments for which most of the business are waiting for. This will help them to improve digital experiences of the platforms and services. Customers will expect more responsive and data driven services.

Conclusion

Future platforms are expected to have cutting-edge technology, an unparalleled user experience, the ability to adapt to changing business requirements, end to end solution, collaborate with co-existing businesses, and above all, innovation should be the primary focus. As previously stated, platforms assist businesses to grow in the market. Every company should have a clear vision and policy in place to define, build, and improve digital platforms.