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• Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2019 (Revised December 2019)

  Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature

  Marco Iansiti, Michael W. Toffel and James Barnett

  Indigo Agriculture used a digital-enabled research and development (R&D) process to launch its initial product, microbial coatings for agricultural seeds, which increase crop yields while reducing the need for fertilizers. In doing so, the company developed direct relationships with farmers, in contrast to typical agricultural supply chains that use intermediaries. The company then launched a marketplace platform to link growers directly to crop buyers, again disintermediating the market. Indigo Agriculture is now considering launching an initiative to incentivize farmers to engage in regenerative agricultural practices by setting up a carbon market that could pay them for sequestering carbon into their soils. If scaled globally, the idea could sequester as much as one trillion tons (a teraton) of carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere into agricultural soils, but pursing the idea has many risks.

  Keywords: carbon sequestration; Agribusiness; Technological Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Supply Chain; Market Platforms; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;

  Citation:

  Iansiti, Marco, Michael W. Toffel, and James Barnett. "Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature." Harvard Business School Case 620-024, November 2019. (Revised December 2019.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018 (Revised August 2019)

  The Boston Beer Company: New CEO

  Christina R. Wing and Marco Iansiti

  Keywords: Beer/brewing industry; supply chain; succession; Leadership; Change; Supply Chain; United States;

  Citation:

  Wing, Christina R., and Marco Iansiti. "The Boston Beer Company: New CEO." Harvard Business School Case 619-021, October 2018. (Revised August 2019.)  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review | January–February 2019

  Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't

  Feng Zhu and Marco Iansiti

  In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost of adding new customers—work for challengers too. What, then, allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow profits? Their ability to manage five aspects of the networks they’re embedded in:
  
  • network effects, in which users attract more users
  • clustering, or fragmentation into many local markets
  • the risk of disintermediation, wherein users bypass a hub and connect directly
  • vulnerability to multi-homing, which happens when users form ties with two or more competing platforms
  • network bridging, which allows platforms to leverage users and data from one network in another network
  
  When entrepreneurs are evaluating a digital platform business, they should look at these dynamics—and the feasibility of improving them—to get a more realistic picture of its long-term prospects.

  Keywords: Technology Platform; Competition; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy;

  Citation:

  Zhu, Feng, and Marco Iansiti. "Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't." Harvard Business Review 97, no. 1 (January–February 2019): 118–125.  View Details

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