Platform Strategy, Platform Risk, and Market Failure in the Swedish Healthcare Industry; Single Case Study of Siemens Healthineers with a Comparative Outlook towards the Norwegian Healthcare Industry

Abstract: Today, the Swedish public healthcare industry experiences difficulties with absorbing the benefits of the platform innovations that several MedTech suppliers recently have been introducing. So far, researchers have studied the superior possibilities of platforms, however not paid as much attention to platform risks. By analysing platform strategy from the perspective of platform risks and market failures, this thesis aims to investigate the main challenges for the Swedish healthcare industry to absorb the benefits of platform innovations. The thesis furthermore aspires to examine what internal and external changes are needed to alleviate these challenges and facilitate the absorption of benefits for the Swedish healthcare industry. The methodology used for this thesis is a qualitative case study, with Siemens' MedTech division Healthineers as the chosen case object being analysed. The study is not a single-case study, but a comparative case study, with the Norwegian healthcare industry functioning as the comparative variable. Through a data collection process, primarily based on in-depth interviews with different stakeholders within the Swedish healthcare industry, we find that the main challenges exist on a political- and juridical level. The comparative study with the Norwegian healthcare industry emphasises other necessary, but not individually sufficient explanations, namely that a resistance towards digitalisation and AI-solutions from medical professionals, mainly from the 'older generation', is further hampering the benefit absorption for hospitals. We argue that these challenges could be alleviated by either changing the market dynamics or by changing the business model for platform innovations.