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Software and tech leaders are likely under pressure to drive growth through deeper customer relationships even as propositions like artificial intelligence continue to shift the operating environment and industry value chains. But while demands for innovation are speeding up, expectations for profitable and scalable execution may not be going away. According to PwC’s 2025 TMT Innovation and Investment Readiness Survey, nearly three-quarters (74%) of executives in the technology, media and telecommunications sector rank driving revenue growth and market expansion among their top three priorities. Close behind, two-thirds (66%) are leveraging AI and modern digital infrastructure. Together, these priorities point to a larger transformation. Organizations that are positioned to lead are those exploring platform-centric business models powered by AI and other business innovations.
“Platformization” has moved beyond buzzword status in the world of product management. It’s helping shape strategic priorities and business models. But the term can still be interpreted in different ways, mirroring the varied approaches companies are testing to scale platform models.
We define platformization as the shift from offering individual products and services to providing an integrated ecosystem, one where developers, partners, customers, and even competitors can co-create and deliver value through shared infrastructure, aligned incentives, and interoperable services. It’s the shift from many separate, point solutions or linear products to a unified platform that becomes the main way value is created, delivered, and orchestrated.
Platformization is about building a scalable foundation for innovation and growth. By unifying multiple offerings on a single platform, businesses can unlock new ‘as-a-Service’ revenue streams, increase customer stickiness, and create network effects that help amplify value.
This isn’t only about digitizing a product or a usage experience—it’s about creating a scalable foundation for innovation, collaboration, and shared experiences. Taken together, a platform-centric model can offer your enterprise a scalable path to growth. We’re seeing companies shift from disconnected apps and tools to a shared platform (for common data, user interfaces, governance, etc.) that other products and teams build on top of. They’re evolving from a traditional “pipeline” business to a multi-party ecosystem where customers, partners and developers can interact and create value on top of your core capabilities.
The product to platform progression
Platforms help unify multiple products and services into a single, integrated experience with consistent value delivery, harmonized user interactions and standardized pricing. They can span both digital and physical environments, becoming a core part of the value proposition. Illustrative examples are highlighted in the framework below.
From point solutions to ecosystem plays across digital and physical realms
Key ingredients of a successful platform typically include:
- An infrastructure layer that brings together the control plane, identity management, APIs, software development kits (SDKs), and enablers that support product trials
- Ecosystem enablement that empowers partners and developers
- Headless commerce enablers, including connections for the order to cash (O2C) cycle
- A governance model with enforceable standards applicable across personas and participants, including customers, partners, creators, developers, enablers, and complementary players (e.g., implementation partners)
- Network effects (e.g., for one-sided or two-sided marketplaces)
- Analytics and insights based on data capture through the platform
You don’t need all of the ingredients to get started. Usually, a company invests in a prioritized set of areas aligned with customer needs, competitive intensity, and strategic business goals.
If you’re aiming to unlock new growth vectors with platformization (especially within your products and offerings portfolio and roadmap), you should refresh customer segmentation, refocus go-to-market strategies, and evolve operating models. A clear platformization vision and strategy can help align and bring together new AI capabilities across your enterprise.
Platformization: The customer value proposition
“Platformization is the convergence of... point products into a single set of solutions... instead of deploying four different products and trying to get one to talk to the other... you can have one platform [and] the products talk to each other....”
In today’s platform-driven market, customer experience is emerging as a core driver of enterprise strategy. Platformization helps replace disjointed point solutions with a connected ecosystem—one that’s designed to meet customer needs across multiple use cases and touchpoints. Instead of siloed propositions that solve only for stand-alone use cases, your company can build, or integrate with, unified platforms where individual offerings function as connected capabilities. In doing so, platformization helps transform fragmented journeys to a unified experience.
Providers may begin with single offerings and then evolve into orchestrators of broader ecosystems. Moving toward a platform model is rarely a short-term move. It’s more often seen as a foundational element of future-ready business architecture. A significant number of our firm’s leaders who specialize in working with software and tech leaders say they believe platform business models are poised to significantly reshape the industry in the next few years.
This shift often includes integrating third-party apps, offering developer APIs, or embedding adjacent services like payments or analytics. Done right, this can help you scale value without starting from scratch.
Some businesses take a vertical approach, such as developing industry-specific platforms for sectors like healthtech or fintech. This can create deeper relevance and faster adoption—and even help a company expand from a niche product into a multifunctional platform.
“It's going from 'Hey, this is a really good way to do accounting' to ‘this is the all-in-one platform where [you] can... run [your] entire business....’ It's about every part of the business.... You can basically use this as your all-in-one platform, and you never have to leave.”
Industry-leaders are already applying these strategies at scale. Uber evolved from a ride-hailing app into a travel platform by leveraging its platform to offer rideshares, rentals, e-bikes—and soon even charter flights—within one experience. Instacart, once a grocery delivery service, launched an enterprise platform to license its logistics stack, co-created white-label offerings for retailers, and integrated with Uber Eats for restaurant delivery—these moves helped extend reach, improve frequency and diversify revenue streams.
Platforms enable businesses to treat user experience as a distinct value driver. When services are designed around the customer—and data can move across the platform without friction—personalization can scale more easily and becomes a stronger lever for monetization. And when accompanied by insights-as-a-service, platforms can also fuel additional sources of revenue.
The outcome: A force multiplier for monetization and multiple avenues for revenue growth—accomplished through enhanced customer experiences that attract more users, more partners, and more innovation.
Platform design and monetization strategy
Choosing the right platformization strategy can be challenging. First, you have to decide whether to build a proprietary platform, join an existing ecosystem, or orchestrate across multiple platforms. Each route carries different implications for monetization, investment, and competitive positioning.
Some of the key platform strategy challenges we see with our clients are monetization strategy and cross-functional execution. Building the platform is step one. And then you have to figure out how to monetize across your offerings and get all your functions—product, sales, finance, operations—working in sync to make it happen. Execution has to be enterprise-wide for the platform play to succeed.
Transitioning from a single offering to a broader platform often means rethinking revenue models such as bundling features, launching tiered subscriptions, or capturing value across interconnected offerings. There’s no single blueprint. Instead, platform strategies are shaped by customer needs, partner dynamics, and the broader competitive landscape. This flexibility enables industry leaders to design models that reflect their unique market position and fuel targeted growth.
One of the key strategic choices is whether to own the platform or participate in someone else’s. Building a platform in-house can provide greater control over data and user experience, but it also requires significant investment and a strong network of users and collaborators. By contrast, integrating into an existing platform can offer faster access to scale. A company may determine that working within a broader ecosystem offers more value than building from scratch. Larger companies, like hyperscalers, can allow partners and developers to ‘plug in’ (APIs, app stores, integrations). That may turn the brand from a single product into an ecosystem. Research on multi-sided platforms1 shows that as more participants join, the value for each user grows via network effects.
1. Suuronen, Sami, Juhani Ukko, Minna Saunila, Tero Rantala and Hannu Rantanen. “The implications of multi-sided platforms in managing digital business ecosystems.” Journal of Business Research, vol. 175, March 2024, Article 114544.
“The question becomes, how do you make sure that those two business units are synergistic and remain in lockstep and make sense to be under one holding company? I think that is where the ecosystem of ecosystem approach came in, which is the holy grail. If you have a strong enough network on both the merchant and the consumer side, the hypothesis was that you can basically have one reinforce the other, and there would be a stronger flywheel as a result.”
Another option involves orchestrating across multiple platforms to generate mutual reinforcement. By creating interlinked flywheels—where consumer and partner networks amplify each other—businesses can create more momentum. Even platform owners often integrate with other ecosystems to extend value for users. In platform strategy, flexibility is often more powerful than a purist stance.
Delivering on this kind of strategy can take more than technology. It requires organizational alignment, and that’s a significant challenge we’ve seen with our clients and across relevant industries. Two-thirds of software and tech executives say they involve cross-functional teams—finance, IT, strategy and business leaders—when evaluating and approving major technology investments. It’s a reminder that platform strategies are enterprise-wide plays, not isolated tech initiatives. It’s also a realization of the role of data as the real driver for the orchestrated “platform of platforms.”
That alignment challenge doesn’t stop at systems and data. It extends to the workforce. As companies shift toward platform-based business models, workforce strategy should prioritize AI-enabled collaboration. The good news is that technology sector employees are already leading this change by actively engaging with AI and seeking opportunities to strengthen both digital and human capabilities.
To translate this momentum into action, coordinate with your product, corporate development, and strategy leaders to explore platform opportunities. These may include partner integrations, capability extensions, or acquisitions.
What’s your path to platformization?
Salesforce, Shopify, Microsoft and AWS can show how platform strategies can create a lasting competitive edge while unlocking new opportunities for innovation—both within the business and through broader ecosystem collaboration. But you should figure out how your next platform moves in ways that make sense for your business. And you should move fast. The companies pulling ahead may continue moving forward even when conditions aren’t ideal. They’re launching, learning, and adapting in real time. While others are executing, testing and scaling, the window for standing still is closing. Waiting risks losing ground.
At its core, a platform approach can help your enterprise deliver standout customer experiences. With the right support across the business, it’s possible to scale without losing the personalized connection that keeps your customers engaged, delivering both relevance and reach.
Whether you’re building your own proprietary platform, expanding through partnerships, or tapping into a broader ecosystem, success starts with a clear, intentional strategy— and the speed to act on it.
Ready to explore what platformization could mean for your organization’s revenue growth and accelerated innovation?
PwC’s Technology, Media, and Telecommunications team is here to help you shape a strategy that leverages platform thinking and AI to support lasting, scalable growth.
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