Dive Brief:

• Speakers at the MIT Platform Strategy Summit said companies looking to boost their IT infrastructure with agile technology to appease increasing demands for outcomes are creating a “platform economy.”

• The platform model — in which companies move from a traditional product service model to one based on a digital platform — is gaining popularity.

• Before moving to a platform model, speakers said companies should first consider possible major challenges, including the need to decide whether they want to “be the platform” and create that business or be a partner and adjust their business models to be part of a platform.

Dive Insight:

"One's not better than the other, but they're very different, and I think a lot of companies now are confused about which they want to be in," Paul Daugherty, CTO at Accenture, said of the two options.

Daugherty said first and foremost, CIOs need to consider whether they have the resources and budget required to create a commercial platform that can scale over time.