9. Consumer Synergies: Simultaneous Utilities and Multi-Sided Markets

By employing a systemic approach, which is completely dissimilar to those used in the literature, this chapter, which is mainly based on (Forrest et al., 2019, Proceedings of the 2019 annual meeting of national association of business, economics and technology (pp. 101–121)), scrutinizes issues related to the following problems: (1) What are the most fundamental decisions a retailer can make in terms of its offers to consumers? (2) When can simultaneous consumer utilities be produced by collocating products and/or services? (3) When can a positively correlated multi-sided market be formed? And (4) without particular talent and luck how can a synergistic innovation be introduced? Due to the specific approach taken, we are able to describe how simultaneous consumer utilities, two-sided markets, and consumers’ willingness to pay additional react with one another and how the previous problems can be addressed by establishing a series of 6 propositions. To explore the possibility of systemically generating new ideas instead of waiting for the seemingly sudden and random appearance of disruptive technologies, a mechanical procedure is developed for the potential of producing synergistic innovations on either the producer or the demand side. Because of the certainty systems science offers, the general conclusions developed in this chapter are expected to provide practically useful recommendations for entrepreneurs, managers, and retailers to create and to capture values for consumers and their companies.