We read a lot about new companies who use digital platforms to disrupt an industry and create immense value (and wealth for themselves in the meantime). What can the traditional players in these industries to protect themselves from these "uberisers"?

1. Uber-proof
your company
Creating value with
digital platforms.
Yves Eychenne
Carolyn Strong-Eychenne

2. Uberisation
Platforms such as Uber, Booking, Airbnb, Apple and Google have
upset entire economic sectors.
The elements of uberisation:
• The transformation of usage
• The « Wow » Effect
• Disruptive innovation
• Rethinking the technical and economic fondamentals of a sector
At the head of this battle, digital platforms, firmly place the client in
the center.

3. What are the issues companies face?
Passive consumer >>> active client >>> producer
Product , Service, Experience
• Rolls Royce moved from selling aircraft motors to
selling available flying hours
• From service to “client experience“ (smartphone,
Google,…)
• The consumer’s role changes: he is now connected,
better informed, active, changes easily between the
role of consumer and producer, and expects to be
listened to.
• The economy of sharing 2.0 (BlablaCar, Uber,
AirBnB)
Ource image:https://datafloq.com/read/rolls-
royce-shifts-higher-gear-big-data/514

4. New values ?
• Sleep in the bedroom of a stranger?
• Share a car with someone you don’t know?
• Borrow money from private individuals?
• Share, exchange, make bargains.
New behavior for a new economy:
22 % of French people have already tested a service in the sharing
economy and 30% think they will try it within the next 12 months. 13%
are ready to propose their services.
Source: OpinionWay « EcoScope – Baromètre OpinionWay pour Axys Consultants – Le Figaro –
BFM Business » sur l’adoption de l’économie du partage

5. The Wow Effect
• The Wow Effect: The surprise of
discovering a service or product which
saves time or money or offers an
extraordinary simplicity of use.
• The Wow Effect is key to acquiring new
clients and developing their loyalty to
the platform.
• The repetition of this positive
experience transforms the client into an
ambassador.
• The Wow Effect pushes the exponential
growth of this kind of platform.
Source image : www.usine-digitale.fr

6. Disruptive Innovation
• Disruptive innovation– or “technological rupture“ – is a new technology
which is radically different from those existing and which ends up replacing
the the older technology. A disruptive innovation is not limited to digital
technologies; nylon disrupted silk stockings, Gutenberg disrupted
monestary copyists.
• The dilema for established companies is how to allocate resources and
manage their financial priorities.
• The management of investments in R & D tends to target established
markets and those market segments which are the most profitable.
• Although companies avoid markets which are too small or market sectors
which they do not know, these are the markets which are targeted by
disruptive innovation. Ex: Amazon, Uber, Netflix
• The references on the subject: Clayton Christensen

7. The Plateform: the marketplace of modern times

8. The Network Effect
• The reason for the remarkable speed
which with markets are penetrated:
• Uber has become a dominant actor in the
market of taxis in three years;
• Instagram, in only six months in the
crowded market of photo-sharing sites,
gained 400 milliion users and 75% market
share.
• The Network Effect and its hyper-growth
create value for all the participants of
the platform (producers and
consumers).
Mettre un schema
Source: PARKER, Geoffrey G., VAN ALSTYNE,
Marshall W., CHOUDARY, Sangeet Paul “The
platform revolution” Norton & Company, 2016

9. The client in the center
• Reviews from other users help users make their choice and
also reassure those who give their opinion that the platform
cares about them. A new form of customer service.
• Clients’ reviews allow suppliers to know what the user thinks about
them and helps them improve their service
• In the information era, the consumer is connected, informed and
active.
• Companies and brands must
• listen to the client when he expresses himself on social
networks,
• understand him, accompany him, and capture new trends
Source
www.marketing-professionnel.fr

10. Creating value via a digital platform
Often the company who manages the platform does not manufacture
the products nor furnish the services exchanged on his platform. His
value consists of:
• the breadth and depth of his catalog,
• quality control (curation),
• clients’ reviews and critiques,
• the exclusion of bad suppliers… and also bad clients.

11. How does a platform work?

12. Key technologies for uberisation
• A mobile application requires geolocalisation capabilities, as the main
support to numberous interactions.
• The cloud allows web and mobile platforms rapid growth, globally, at
a lower price.
• Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are used to connect and
build a network of partners.
• Big data and artificial intelligence allow the platform to make relevant
propositions to consumers.
• The internet of objects helps to build new
value-added services.
Source IBM

13. The
importance of
the business
model….
Les géants numériques vs l'économie traditionnelle
Capitalisation Economie Capitalisation
Economie nouvelle Région (milliards), 2016 Secteur traditionnelle Région2 (milliards), 20162
Apple USA $583 éléctronique Sony JPN $45
Google USA $516
Facebook USA $340 publicité Publicis USA $13
Baidu CHN $281
Microsoft USA $439 logiciel Oracle USA $170
Salesforce USA $50
Amazon USA $281
Alibaba CHN $192 commerce Walmart USA $221
Priceline USA $65
eBay USA $27
Yahoo! USA $36 actualités News Corp USA $7.6
Uber USA $40 taxi Medallion Corp USA $220m
Taxi G7 France
LinkedIn USA $15 recruitement Manpower USA $6
Netflix USA $45 média Vivendi France $24

14. Business model and two-sided business platforms
A meeting place where some economic actors come to consume a
service or product and other actors come to propose their services.
Often, the latter group subsidizes the platform.
Exemples of two-sided business platforms:
• In a newspaper or TV service, the readers / viewers come looking for news and distraction.
Advertisers pay for the opportunity to expose the readers/viewers to their brand, product or
service.
• Google’s search engine: searches are free for users, but here, too, advertising subsidzes the
service. Google had over $50 billion in revenues in 2015.
• Apple goes even further: everybody pays. The user pays to have a terminal (iPhone, iPad,
Mac, iPod) and pays to see content (Apps, music, books). Suppliers of content pay an average
commission of 30% to Apple (in its role as marketplace).

15. Uberisation of the future
• Above and beyond digital applications and mobile apps, platforms
will be built around 3D printers (additive manufacturing)
• With 3D printers, the manufacturer can listen to his clientèle to
improve and develop his product more often (the customer in the
center).
• Products can be built by consumers:
• FabLabs are being created in France and throughout the world.
• Service providers and users, who in turn become suppliers of this
service to their neighbors
• New plateforms will also be built around robots
and drones

16. Transportation and hotellery
• Hotellery is the most active sector among digital platforms: Expedia,
Trivago, Booking, and TripAdvisor.
• The SNCF (French national railway company) started its e-commerce
very early on. It has developed web and mobile apps to improve
customer experience and an internet of objects to help make the
trains run on time.
• Transdev is on the front lines against Uber for its taxi activities in the
U.S. It has created Digital Factory to spearhead innovation.
• The group AccorHotels has reacted to Booking and Expedia by
creating its own reservation platform, open to outside partners.
AccorHotels has also puts its focus on superb customer experience.

17. Transdev
• Transdev is in the process of inventing a layer of integration for “Mobility as
a Service“, thus moving from the role of public transport to mobility.
• Moblity as a service: an agregator of all modes of transportation
• Physical plateform: the train lines, the bus network, shuttle buses, taxis and VTC
• Plateform of data, to help the user choose the best combination of transportation
modes.
• A monthly mobility plan, just like cell phone/data.
• The data platform will be accessible to all transport companies, local authorities, as
well as developers and programmers who wish to create applications for mobility
solutions.
• Transdev started this project in
Finland: maas.global
A platform can hide another… and another... And another

18. E-commerce
• E-commerce was one of the first activities to be
developed when internet was opened to
commercial activities in 1992. Despite this long
history, it represents only 6% of commerce in
France and has not had the destructive effect
once feared.
• The large majority of actors in e-commerce in
France are French companies who have
succeeded in transforming themselves, growing
their sales via a web site, bettering their
profitibility, and increasing customer loyalty.

19. • Carrefour has a digital program to increase its sales in stores via
mobile applications. Carrefour has purchased Rue du Commerce to
strengthen its e-commerce.
• Click and collect vs. home delivery. Having a home delivery includes
certain constraints, which makes “click and collect“ attractive. The
client purchases his products on-line then goes to the store to pick
them up, at a time which is convenient for him. This allows the store
to take advantage of the client being on site to increase the amount
of his purchases.
Carrefour

20. Retency: transforming in-store visits to
purchases
• Retency uses new technologies such as beacons and big data to analyse
customers’ behaviors within the departments of the retail store
transforming a simple visit into a purchase.
• To win the battle on the shop level, Retency analyses in real time the
percentage of sales per department. The result can be advice on
restocking or reorganising the department’s displays, special sales
promotions or targeted marketing to clients who
went to that department without purchasing
product.
• The shop shelves become a plateform.

21. The service sector
• Uberisation of energy? Private individuals invest in mini-generators and
high capacity batteries, for only ten or twenty thousand euros. Science
fiction? Elon Musk’s companies are already proposing full solutions.
• On-line banking, with 4 % market-share in France, is a practical service but
not revolutionary. Uberisation is coming from new platforms for
payments, cooperative loans, and the re-invention of the accounting
ledger (blockchain).
• Insurance companies are reinventing themselves with policies linked to a
behavior: a connected car can deliver data on driving style which then
allows the insurer to propose individualised pricing.

22. E.on
• E.on is working as an agregator, mastering the technologies of smart
grids, smart meters, and on-site energy production.
• The electrical network becomes a platform with a two-sided market
which links producers of energy with consumers.
• A consumer can decide to install solar panels on the roof of his house or
a wind turbine in his garden and become a producer.
• E.on has to manage the impact of these new producers on the totality
of the network.
• When we know that high-tension electricity lines lose 40% of the energy
they carry, we better understand the need for a revolution of energy
platforms.
Source http://www.eon.com/en/business-areas/energy-networks.html

23. The role of Fintechs
• Payments with PayPal. Google is
entering the fray with Google
Wallet. Apple already has credit
card information for 800 million
clients.
• Other FinTechs are entering the
loan industry such as Lending Club
or Amazon who offers loans with
low interest rates to small
companies.
Blockchain:

24. Public Service
• Post offices worldwide were among the first to confront a profound
transformation of their sector: the development of emails, digital
advertising, dematerialised invoicing, a move from printed to digital
press.
• Education is seeing a rapid digitalisation with the popularity of
MOOCs (Massive Open On-line Courses).
• For the medical sector, several platforms such as Doctolib.fr offer a
list of doctors with additional information and allow the client to
make an appointment on-line. Doctissimo.fr allows for auto-
diagnosis, while Deuxiemeavis.fr in France and the Cleveland Clinic
aux Etats-Unis offer services for long-distance diagnoses.

25. Education
• MOOCs have received a lot of attention since Harvard and MIT announced
their attention to reach 1 billion students. MOOCs will represent 10% of all
classes given worldwide by 2020. 70 % of students enrolled in a MOOC do not
reside in the same country as the platform.
• The inversed classroom:
• Ecole 42 rejects the traditional notion of lectures and bases its classes on
peer-to-peer learning. Instead of a professor giving a lecture, students
complete projects which vary in size and difficulty, leading the
“learner“ to take initiative and be ingenious and creative
in order to achieve his goals.
Source http://www.lepetitjournaldesprofs.com/blog/2013/04/16/classe-inversee/

26. Healthcare
• The platform Honestica targets doctors allowing them to share
patient medical information among healthcare professionals and to
participate in public health research projects (via data analysis).
• Platforms of connected objects via watches and bracelets with
sophisticated captors which can follow physical activity but also
conditions such as diabetes.
• 3D printers are also going to transform the healthcare sector, from
dental implants to prosthetics (hands, legs), medication and even
body parts created from human tissue.

27. Manufacturing industries
• The uberisation of manufacturing industries comes to play in two
aspects: distribution channels and the transformation of products
into services. As platforms gain more traction in distributing products
in a market, the manufacturer must be careful to retain direct contact
with his client base.
• Industry 4.0 is a transformation of the factory in which the value
chain is completely digitised, from supply, production, delivery… all
the way to the clients.

28. Michelin
• “Michelin Man-as-a-Service“ : Instead of buying his
tires, a transporter can now lease them. Michelin
remains the owner of the tires and handles
installation, inspection, and maintenance, and
intervenes in the event of damage or breakage.
• Michelin purchased Tyredating, BlackCircles.com
and Allopneus. The manufacturer now has direct
access to client data. It can study users’ searches on
the web sites and buying trends in order to improve
customer experience and anticipate market
evolution.
Source http://blogpneu.com/puce-rfid/

29. Trumpf, industry 4.0
• Trumpf has already integrated smart
technology into its machine tools, thus
allowing data capture which can be
agregated from a distance to develop new
services (maintenance, inventory
management) or to optimize factory
planning and production.
• This platform is based on an internet of
things, the “things“ being machine tools
from Trumps and other companies, both
partners and competitors. Source : Trumpf

30. Societal impact
• France has become a host country to the new economy. As such, she
must navigate the issues before other European nations, since the
impact of this change will be felt more quickly and stronger here.
• What is the impact on work and the status of workers?
• What is the impact on governmental finances and social programs?
• What are the risks related to the monopoly that certain platforms
succeed in creating in certain markets?

31. France is a host country to uberisation
Sociovision – “French society is a mirror to Uber“. Uberisation develops following five
basic trends in society:
• Gain time and simply one’s life : 54% of French people want to save time and 70% look
for the means to simply their lives.
• Wheeling and dealing : Crossing the line is not a problem for the French, where
government is seen as as a stickler for details, wanting to regulate everything. Public
tolerance for undeclared work has increased from 42% in 1997 to 61% in 2015.
• “Respect“ is a word dear to French people’s heart (62%), in front of “freedom“ at 46%
and “trust“ at 43%. The French want to buy products at a fair price.
• Short supply chain: 46 % of the French already use short distribution channels (a more
positive term than desintermediation!) and 56% are ready to use them in the near
future.
• A world of entrepreneurs: 71 % of the French are favorable to a society in which people
create their own companies or their own employment. 50% are ready to take the plunge
themselves.
http://www.sociovision.com/sites/default/files/note_sociovision_uberisation_juillet_2015.pd

32. The status of the worker in the new economy as seen by…
Thibaud Simphal, General Manager of Uber France:
In the mondialisation of the 21st century, which is fluid and agile, what matters is to protect the rights of the
individual person, not to attach those rights to a contract.
David Ménascé, author of the report “La France du Bon Coin“:
The question is more about what form an intervention by public powers should take to regulate the new
economy. This intervention must be subtle, since breaking the dynamic of collaborative platforms, under the
illusion of eliminating abusive situations, risks marginalising even more the fragile populations who have no
other way out (of poverty), and pushing them to the informal economy.
Gaspard Koenig, founder of the think thank Génération Libre:
We want to prepare for the emergence of a post-salarial digital economy. This implies a reform of the labor
laws, with the creation of a status of worker which includes a certain number of rights, for example the right to
paid vacation, for this new form of workers who are neither salaried nor entrepreneurs, like the drivers of cars
(for Uber). Another major reform concerns the insurance system in its globality ; we should create a unique
social account which would allow each person to manage his time and fusion the different systems of
unemployment insurance, continued education and retirement benefits.
http://www.usine-digitale.fr/editorial/exclusif-rencontre-avec-le-patron-d-uber-france-qui-prone-un-debat-national-sur-l-economie-a-la-demande.N398012
Ménascé, David, Synthèse du rapport, « La France du Bon Coin », Institut de l’entreprise.
Lemarchand, Jean-Louis, « Pour l’abolition des privilèges », GenerationLibre.

33. Government’s role as a regulator
• The report by Pascal Terrasse gives many interesting ideas
• Bridge the gap between the status of self-employed or “autoentrepreneurs” with that
of salaried worker: disability benefits and complementary pension, access to renting and
bank loans. It is better to protect the person, by ensuring that this type of employment
also gives access to continued education and allows the validation of diplomas and
certification by gaining experience
• Terrasse proposes that platforms automatically transmit information concerning revenue
earned to a centralized platform which will transmit this information once a year to the
government (ie, tax offices)
• Manage the risk of a natural monopoly. The network effect leads to hyper-growth in a
platform, creating a large risk for a natural monopoly. When one platform becomes too
powerful, it can impose conditions which harm the producers or the consumers on the
platform.
• Manage the risk of exclusion. A platform/monopoly can fix high costs and over-exploit
its dominant position. It can benefit from margins which are higher and higher
compared to other actors in the industry or even threaten to exclude certain producers.

34. How can a company manage the
uberisation of its market sector?
• Capture the « weak signals », the needs and desires
of the client, which are indicators of opportunity.
• The company must master the network effect, those positive trends
which attract client and suppliers, and minimize the negative forces
related to an imbalance between these groups.
• The company must learn to use external ressources.
• Accept the risk and error related to new projects and be prepared to
abandon some of them.
• Stay receptive to happy accidents.