The anatomy of a digital platform: requirements and architecture design

Digital platform development is a critical strategy for organizations aiming to thrive and innovate. These platforms provide access to new markets, improve organizational agility, and enable data-driven insights, ultimately unlocking new revenue streams and enhancing customer engagement through seamless interactions. How?

• A well-architected digital platform serves as the backbone for innovation, enabling businesses to adapt quickly to market changes and consumer demands.
• It acts as a foundation for building a robust ecosystem of partners and developers, allowing for the integration of diverse services and applications that enhance customer offerings and drive growth.

As the demand for integrated digital solutions grows, leveraging domain-specific platforms becomes crucial. These platforms streamline operations and provide the flexibility needed to accommodate evolving use cases. By harnessing data-driven insights and nurturing an ecosystem of innovation, organizations can achieve sustained success and drive significant growth over time. Embracing these strategies can lead to transformative outcomes and enhance overall organizational effectiveness.

While this all makes sense, what’s often missing is a formal definition of what a platform that supports this sort of business model looks like at the technological level. This paper defines the technology model in two parts by:

1. Understanding the requirements of a platform, and;
2. Designing an architecture to satisfy them, including an example reference architecture.

After reading this paper, the hope is that you will be armed with a practical framework to ask the right questions, make the tough decisions and execute successfully.

Explore the full Platform Guidance Series

We also invite you to explore companion pieces in our Platform Guidance Series below, including:

• Built for the long haul: architecting an intelligent fleet management platform describes a practical framework for designing and building a platform that incorporates AI into every facet to deliver fast results — plus adaptability for long-term agility and the integration of emerging tech.
• For an industry-specific complement to this paper, Architecting a transportation cloud focuses on the type of modern, backend platform necessary for an organization to take advantage of connected vehicle data.