Leading the Platform Transition

The Leadership Challenge

When ING's Chief Financial Officer presented the bank's 2019 transformation strategy to the supervisory board, she didn't discuss cost reduction or efficiency gains. Instead, she described how ING was becoming a "platform for financial services" where traditional banking products would become components in customer-controlled financial ecosystems.

This represented a fundamental shift in how functional leaders—CFOs, CIOs, CHROs, General Counsels—must think about their roles. The platform transition demands that functional leaders evolve from optimizing internal operations to architecting capabilities that can participate in external ecosystems.

The Four Transitions

Platform leadership requires functional leaders to master four simultaneous transitions:

1. From Cost Centers to Value Platforms

Traditional functional organizations optimize for cost efficiency. Platform organizations optimize for ecosystem value creation. This requires functional leaders to:

• Measure success by ecosystem participation, not internal efficiency
• Design capabilities for external consumption, not just internal use
• Build for modularity and composability, not monolithic integration

2. From Process Owners to Capability Architects

Platform leaders don't own processes; they architect capabilities that others can use. This shift requires:

• Designing for API-first architecture in every function
• Creating self-service capabilities instead of managed services
• Building for autonomy rather than control

3. From Risk Mitigation to Ecosystem Governance

In platform ecosystems, governance isn't about preventing problems—it's about enabling safe experimentation. Leaders must:

• Establish guardrails instead of approval processes
• Design for rapid iteration within boundaries
• Create transparency rather than oversight

4. From Operational Excellence to Strategic Orchestration

Platform leaders orchestrate external capabilities rather than building everything internally. This requires:

• Mastering buy-build-partner decisions at capability level
• Managing supplier ecosystems as strategic assets
• Balancing control and flexibility in real-time

Practical Implementation

Functional leaders can begin the platform transition by:

For CFOs:

• Redesign financial planning for ecosystem metrics, not just internal performance
• Create real-time financial APIs that business units can self-serve
• Build financial risk models that account for ecosystem dependencies

For CIOs:

• Architect technology capabilities as composable services
• Create developer platforms, not just IT services
• Measure success by ecosystem integration, not system uptime

For CHROs:

• Design talent systems for ecosystem participation, not just employment
• Build capability marketplaces instead of job hierarchies
• Create learning platforms that span organizational boundaries

For General Counsels:

• Design legal frameworks for ecosystem participation
• Create contract templates for platform relationships
• Build governance systems for decentralized decision-making

The Strategic Imperative

The platform transition isn't optional. Companies that fail to develop platform leadership capabilities will find themselves trapped in dependent relationships with platform leaders who control their strategic options.

Functional leaders who master these transitions become strategic architects—designing the capabilities that determine whether their organizations lead platforms or follow them.

The question isn't whether to make this transition. The question is whether you'll lead it or be forced into it by competitive necessity.