Supporting efficient platform designs through the use of simple rules A study identifying and classifying simple rules in multi-sided platforms derived from existing literature

The creation of economic value has shifted during the last decades from individual contributions by single firms to the integration of customer knowledge to the cocreation of value in complex service ecosystems. Service platforms have emerged as a dominant model and represent the center of an ecosystem of different actors. Building a business platform is a challenging process and a large amount of complicated strategic decisions have to be made in a short amount of time, while simultaneously processing a great number of information. In order to simplify these complicated decisions, this paper proposes the use of simple rules. The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive collection of simple rules sorted by type of platform, stage of development and type of rule. The main research question in this report is formulated as follows: “How can simple rules support multi-sided platforms in becoming the dominant platform in their corresponding development stage, role or type of platform?”. This report starts with a theoretical framework to provide definitions of multi-sided platforms and simple rules based on the works of Sull & Eisenhardt (2015) and concludes with a collection of simple rules derived from the literature available.