The How to Succeed in Multi-Sided Markets. This was the question recently posed in Munich to a group of FEGIME Future next generation entrepreneurs by partner Supplier Siemens. After a day of extensive discussion and workshops with several experts from the industry (e.g. Siemens MindSphere, IBM, Boldly Go) there were a lot of good ideas, but no quick or simple answer.

But why examine this question at all? Traditionally electrical wholesalers play an important role in the purely linear supply chain from manufacturer to end customer. However nowadays the digitalization of products, processes, and services is forcing the market model away from this linear supply chain and onto the next level. In future we will encounter multi-sided markets, not only in the Internet of Things sector, but also in traditional business fields. So, the sooner we start looking into solutions and possible new business models, the better. Valentin Dinkelbach (Siemens AG Corporate Account Manager), Dagmar Bleilebens (Siemens AG Global Head of MindSphere Application Center for Internet of Energy) and their team established the three goals for the workshop: to understand the mechanics of a multi-sided market; to identify digital value services which could be provided by an electrical wholesaler in a multi-sided market and to identify & shape FEGIME’s (and their partners’) future role in such a market. The “test project” was defined as a small/medium-sized Shopping Centre to be built in 2025 in a FEGIME country and throughout the day participants were to think themselves into the roles of the various stakeholders: (Hardware) Supplier, Software & Data Intelligence Provider, Electrical Wholesaler, Electrical Contractor, Investor & Operator. The day progressed in 3 “sprints”. The first examined the questions: How can you best serve your customer? What are their pain points? What can you do to relieve that pain? This was done for the categories Pre-Sales, Planning, Product Information, Warehouse Management & After Sales. The plan was to provide as much “pain relief” as possible for the customer. We all know that today “Data is the new oil”. So, the logical questions for Sprint 2 were: What data/information is needed? Where do we get the information from? Do we have to pay for it? Tracing the potential flow of money and information was a very informative exercise. And then to the finale: Sprint 3 – Creating a Value Ecosystem. Two FEGIME Future groups got down to work on each of the topics Predictive Maintenance and Planning. How could our fictional Shopping Centre benefit from improved digital systems? How to charge for them? Who wants money from whom? Who wants to pay for what? After a lot of brainstorming and discussion each group presented their proposals individually and the most promising was selected by common vote. This was “Uptime Flat” an idea for predictive maintenance of the mall promising no downtime at all. Second place was taken by “Mall as a Service” in the Planning category. Simon Gineiger (Boldly Go Industries) commented on the day: “This was interesting. There’s a particular mindset to the FEGIME Future organisation – many being future CEOs and company heirs and having that results oriented drive – but with the spark of scientists. This led to a very well-rounded conceptual result.”