The context
It was 2013 when we released our first version of Platform Design Toolkit.
On October 2016, we published the Platform Design Toolkit 2.0 and the companion White Paper “From business modeling to platform design” becoming real pioneers of a new way of thinking organizations and products. The Toolkit and the White Paper have been fundamental since then in instigating and shaping the practice of Platform Design with a community that today counts more than sixty thousand adopters worldwide.
We’ve been active in research and consulting with an impressive range of stakeholders: from Fortune 500s to startups, from organizational transformation pioneers such as Chinese Haier group to United Nations. Such experience puts Boundaryless among the leaders of Platform-Ecosystems thinking worldwide.
After more than three years we’re now aware that the context and scope of platform-ecosystem thinking have changed and have grown widely: New Foundations of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking are now needed.
This is what this white paper is all about, and this fundamental piece of content is released in Creative Commons like everything else we do, so you join us in the process of building the future of organizations and business models.
The Boundaryless Team
This white paper will help you understand
How scalable strategies are essential to engage with new socio-economic trends and global risk factors characterizing these unpredictable times.
How organizations can keep—or gain— a central position in business ecosystems while embracing governance models that ensure whole-system development.
What opportunities exist for platform thinking as markets become more complex, heavily regulated and investment intensive.
How new frontier technologies such as blockchain, machine learning, AI, biotech and more are opening new possibilities to mobilize and connect ecosystems.
How the boundaries and the shape of a traditional organization are now blurring into interconnected, distributed and collaborative organizing.

The Sensemaking Webinars
We just launched a series of webinars featuring special guests, helping us go further in the exploration of the next wave of platforms and ecosystems that we explore in the Whitepaper.
Our second session exploring Platforms in the 2020s – held on Febraury 3rd – was moderated by Work Futures writer Stowe Boyd, and featured Boundaryless CEO and Platform Design Toolkit creator Simone Cicero and the Platformation Labs founder Sangeet Choudary, who released The State of the Platform Revolution in late 2020, recapping what the peculiar year of 2020 meant for platforms. Together they zoomed out from a micro- to macro perspective on the platform revolution, including what governments have to keep in mind when dealing with tech giants as they start to shape our geopolitical landscape through country-as-a-platform strategies. Watch the recording below!
From our Sponsor
“The competitive arena in the financial and banking industry is going to change much more rapidly that we could ever expect. The resilience and flexibility of our organizational structures face enormous challenges: to adapt from a hyper-regulated world, where most of the products and services are mature, to a new one where Environmental, Social and Governance propositions need to coalesce: every client, sector, activity will be impacted by this evolution.
Change is often accompanied by resistance, bureaucracy, short-termism, and we're often slow to respond to a fast-changing environment: now it's time to embrace a new paradigm and a new approach to design where people in networks can translate big transformative visions into concrete actions.
Intesa Sanpaolo is pleased to support this research initiative, and to collaborate with Boundaryless and its network in envisioning a modern approach to the evolution of the organization that is flexible, outside-in and proactive.”

Gian Marco Salcioli
Head of Strategic Marketing
Corporate & Investment Banking
Research Updates
Read all the updates
Latest update
Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #7
Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #6
Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #5
Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #4
Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #3
See Older Posts
Support the research plan for a new whitepaper from the Platform Design Toolkit team
Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #1
Podcast Interviews
Listen to all episodes
Latest episodes
Season 2 EP #11
Mapping, Doctrine, and Culture in the Future of Organizing
with Simon Wardley
Season 2 EP #10
Control and Coherence in the New Strategy Playbook
with Rita McGrath
Season 2 EP #9
The Present (Future) of Work: Beyond Platforms
with Albert Cañigueral and Laëtitia Vitaud
Season 2 EP #8
Becoming Anything you want in the Platform Value Chain
with Adrien Nussenbaum
with Robyn Scott
with Juho Makkonen
with Dave Snowden
with B. Joseph Pine II
Season 2 EP #3
Platform Talent: Jobs & Skills for the Age of Networks
with Peter C. Evans
with Alicia Hennig
Season 2 EP #1
Re-bundling the Firm around Problems to Be Solved
with Sangeet Paul Choudary
with Bill Fischer and Lisa Gansky
Zappos — with John Bunch
with Jeremiah Owyang
with Marshall Van Alstyne and Geoffrey Parker
with Nicolas Colin
with Joe Norman
with Martin Reeves
with Alex Osterwalder
with Joost Minnaar
with Indy Johar
with Stowe Boyd
with Michel Bauwens
with Ana Andjielic
with Tomás Diez
with James Currier
with Arthur Brock
with Simone Cicero & Stina Heikkilä
Timeline
