Collaborative platforms for digital societies in Asia Pacific

In their continued quest to become fully fledged digital societies, many countries across Asia Pacific are increasingly exploring collaborative digital platforms – internet-enabled, two/multi-sided services with at least one side open to the public – to facilitate interactions across all areas of the digital ecosystem, from mobile operators, vendors and governments to consumers, businesses and myriad connected things.

By enabling collaboration within the mobile ecosystem, between industry verticals, or even across national governments, digital platforms enable a connected ecosystem of customers, vendors and third-party players, simultaneously supporting and benefiting from the key components of a digital society. Collaboration is particularly important as we enter the 5G era. As numerous countries in Asia Pacific launch 5G operations over the next few years, a thriving ecosystem needs to be in place to help drive the creation and delivery of 5G products and services.

In this report we examine how both mobile operators and government have a key role to play: mobile operators need to engage with the broader ecosystem, especially in helping innovative start-ups reach scale, while governments must seek to create an enabling environment for such collaboration, encouraging the growth and development of innovative services for the 5G future.