Die Zeiten, in denen der Fokus eines Unternehmens allein auf dem Kerngeschäft liegt, scheinen langsam vorbei.

Die Großen machen es vor: diversifizierte Business-Modelle und stete Flexibilität sich und seine Produkte neu zu erfinden. Single-Product-StartUps sollten sich das genau ansehen und sich fragen, welche weiteren Wege ihr Produkt zulässt. Heute ist es nicht mehr das Kern-Produkt allein, das über Gewinn und Verlust entscheidet, sondern nochmehr  als früher die Frage der eigenen Flexibilität sich neu zu erfinden und Veränderung zuzulassen – nicht nur im Produkt, sondern auch im Unternehmen selsbt.

Much of the discussion surrounding high valuations of internet companies is besides the point. The valuations of successful internet companies are justified, because they reflect an increasing capability to monetize internet reach and traffic.

One way that this capability is manifested is through the diversification of dominant internet companies away from their traditional business models towards business model combinations. These companies are transforming themselves into multi-faceted and increasingly individualized monetization platforms, serving both an ecosystem of business partners and millions of end customers.

While the dominant companies Google, Amazon and Apple are still generating over 90% of their sales with their traditional business model, sales from alternative revenue sources are growing fast. Each of these mega-platforms now make a billion dollars or more from new revenue sources. Google’s new businesses – worth one billion – are enterprise subscriptions for its hosted email, office and search software, licence sales on Android Marketplace and the Google Checkout payments solution. More will follow, like Google Offers. In its financial reporting, Amazon unfortunately combines its direct internet retail sales with its third-party marketplace commissions. The split would be interesting. But Amazon Web Services for enterprises and other new businesses contributed very close to a billion in sales in 2010. More than four billion Dollars of Apple’s sales comes from its nontraditional internet segment: Selling software and music licences on iTunes and the App Store.

 

eBay beats them all with a whopping 40% of its sales originating from non-marketplace activities, mostly payments solutions and advertising. For eBay, alternative business models are a three billion Dollar business.

This trend towards using combinations of business models like building blocks can be observed among dominant internet companies, as well as new challengers. Once they achieve a dominant position in terms of reach and traffic, internet companies new and old are becoming very savvy about which business models to combine in what way. Twitter took a long time to develop its business model it is gradually launching now, which actually is a combination of two building blocks: Advertising for those enthusiasts who don’t mind sponsored Tweets and subscription payments for those that want a pure, unsponsored desktop. This is what personalized business models are about, payment in whichever way fits the individual best.

For established businesses and start-ups which are only now beginning to focus on growing their internet activities, the trend is good and bad. The dominant players are offering a number of standardized payment services which can be more or less easily integrated in a plug and play fashion. But there is always a dependence which often means giving up a significant share of revenues.

Setting up one’s own dominant monetization platform is difficult, but despite the challenges, a few companies have achieved this recently: Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Zynga and Airbnb. Their valuations are high, but their powerful ability to monetize is unique.

Some of these companies are from the start not relying on a single business model, but are diversified into different monetization approaches. Facebook relies on advertising, but is also evolving its virtual currency, Facebook Credits. In the case of Zynga, developing outside revenue sources which are independent from Facebook is critical for long-term success. All these successful newcomers took their time to carefully select and test different monetization approaches and are still fine-tuning them.

Sources: 2010 Annual Reports of Apple, Amazon, Google and eBay.