LeWeb: Jeremiah Owyang's new corporate business model - sharing

*Liveblog of Jeremiah Owyang at Le Web London 2013. Prone to inaccuracy and howling errors. Warning: here be typos. *

What role do corporations have if people don’t want them or need them?

A new economic model – where ownership and access are shared. Corporations have to let go in order to gain more.

Sharing is not new, but it’s happening with more speed and velocity than ever before. We can use Lyft to skip taxis. We can skip hotels with AirBnB. We can get funding from LendingClub rather than the banks. We can use oDesk or TaskRabbit to skip hiring agencies. LiquidSpace allow us to cut out the real estate business, and rent excess space from other businesses.

A shared car could have $270,000 to $1m impact on the ecosystem of manufacturers, financiers, insurers and so on…

So, is this a fad or a trend?

Three major themes:

1. Societal: Right across the age range, people expect to share more.
2. Economic: Earth’s population is ever-growing, but its resources are fixed. People need to do more with what the have – and products which can be shared, resold and reused are more important.
3. Technology: There 87 phones per 100 people on the planet. Most star ups use social information rom Facebook. 200 startups are funded to a total of $2billion.

What do you do if you’re being disrupted? King Frederick saw the revolution coming to his gates. Did he fight or collaborate? He chose the latter.

And so, they have the collaborative economy value chain.

1. Company as a service. You need to rent out your products or services, rather than selling them. Software as a service has done that for a while, but it needs to move to physical goods. It’s an opportunity for a longer-teem relationship with customers.
2. Motivate a marketplace: Could Marriot certify guests via its loyalty scheme for services like AirBnB – could it offer concierge services to people staying in such properties?
3. Provide a platform: getting your marketplace to build products. Co-ideate, co-fund, co-build, co-distribute… It blurs the distinction between customer and employee. Nike allows you to design your own shoes – but that’s just co-creation on top of an existing business. This is unexplored in the market.

Why would you do this?

• You become more efficient, as the crowd helps
• You build a deeper, more long terms relationship with customers
• You add value in the relationships between customers
• No-one’s doing the yet. Go no, and you have first mover advantage.

King Fred is a hero. He stopped bloodshed, gave his people what they want – and his family still live in that palace today. He let go of his throne to gain the kingdom.

Corporations: let go of your company to gain the market.