Roland Berger study on empowering people and anchoring AI in the corporate mindset to unlock its transformative potential.
Crafting tomorrow: How shared capabilities drive AI-first organizations
Platform structures unlock scalable performance
This latest spin-off report from our Crafting Tomorrow series on shaping future-proof organizations explores how platform structures support scalable, AI-driven performance. It examines why organizations must move beyond rigid hierarchies and redesign their operating models around shared capabilities with clear ownership and funding.
"In the agentic era, platforms form the structural backbone to scale AI effectively."
Across industries, traditional structures struggle to keep pace with accelerating change. While many companies have established technology platforms, only a small minority have extended platform thinking into business and customer domains. Notably, sixty percent of companies that scale below industry average operate no platform at all. Our research shows that organizations combining multiple platform types achieve materially higher scalability and adaptability than those relying primarily on hierarchical models. Why? Because platforms concentrate capabilities and create the architectural backbone required to deploy and govern AI systems at scale.
Unlocking the full value of platforms
Most organizations remain confined to isolated initiatives or technology-only foundations, limiting platforms before they can generate structural impact. Without cross-functional teams supported by dedicated funding, platforms lack the authority required to deliver meaningful results. As AI becomes a pervasive capability, this gap becomes increasingly visible. Agentic systems depend on standardized interfaces and governed environments, and in organizations still operating through fragmented silos, they cannot scale consistently or safely.
How platforms enable AI-first organizations
As AI becomes embedded in business processes, organizational architecture becomes a critical factor. Agentic systems work best where data, services and decision logic sit on shared structures rather than being scattered across silos. Platform models create these conditions by bundling capabilities and making them available across the organization, allowing intelligent systems to connect directly to business workflows and operate on a consistent foundation. In this way, platforms provide the structural backbone for AI-enabled work across the enterprise.
The report outlines how to identify high-potential platform domains and pilot the agentic-team model, then expand as adoption increases. For more information, download the full report below or contact one of our experts.
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