Internet Platforms as Digital Resources: A Network Approach

Firms have been investing in the adoption or increase in the usage of digital technologies for connecting people, systems, firms, products, and services. This paper aims to analyze how two-sided internet platforms affect and are affected by the business network. A business network is a structure of firms and business relationships connected that entail actor bonds, resource ties, and activity links. Our case focuses on a retail firm in the electronics sector that has substantially expanded its e-commerce activities in recent years through an Internet platform. After the implementation phase of the new digital resource, buyer-supplier involvement rapidly decreases. An internet platform allows the routinization of linked activities leading to substantial efficiency improvements. As a digital resource, an internet platform, also affects the business network, for instance by allowing the expansion of the supplier base. Thus, the relationship tends to become distant as a set of new routines, the automation of information processing, between firms comes into operation.