With more than 60 stock exchanges in 40 countries presented and hosted on eddbbee, which gives us the ambition to seek more local presence in the future in all regions with our platform.

The platform economy is emerging as one of the most powerful manifestations of the digital revolution, which we also refer to as the “fourth industrial revolution.” Thanks to rapid advances in the cloud, mobile and analytics, and the falling cost of these new technologies, digital platforms are creating the next wave of disruption, growth, and breakthrough innovation.

Digital platforms bring together vast communities of customers and partners, including developers. They create markets of enormous scale and efficiency. And they enable new levels of collaboration between companies from different industry sectors that can result in the conception of entirely new products and services.

Indeed, eddbee’s involvement in the FinTech market will show the power of platforms in driving radical new forms of lending, such as Neo Banking, Crowdfunding. And in our work for some of the world’s largest industrial companies, we see how incumbent leaders are embracing platforms to extend into adjacent markets with new offerings. However, the opportunity for digital platforms is perhaps the most exciting for the small businesses that most countries rely on for economic and employment growth.

In China, where we aim for is actively supporting the B20 discussions, our research of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) found that nearly two-thirds generated at least 10 percent of their revenues from platform business models. More than a third expect to generate in excess of 30 percent of revenues through platforms in the next three years.

Small enterprises are well placed to benefit from the large-scale marketplaces that platforms offer. But they are also well-positioned to establish platforms of their own. After all, it is largely due to platforms that the most successful start-ups have reached US$1 billion valuations after just four years when, on average, Fortune 500 companies have taken twenty years to do so.

Our country-by-country analysis shows that the conditions in which platforms can flourish are often lacking. As a result, government policies will be required to support platforms. For example, the digital savviness of customers is as vital as the sophistication of businesses. A willingness to embrace open innovation largely depends on bringing public and private sectors.