I have been leading a research effort to understand the impacts of the growing Collaborative Economy trend. In case you are new to the collaborative economy, there's an unstoppable wave of people trading, renting and borrowing all kinds of services and goods. The disruptive impacts to brands are potentially very high. Consumers are already buying and trading among themselves, often without purchasing items directly from the brands themselves. Companies that don't pay attention to this trend are leaving themselves in a state of risk, as technology and society continue to quickly innovate.
I have been leading a research effort to understand the impacts of the growing Collaborative Economy trend. In case you are new to the collaborative economy, there's an unstoppable wave of people trading, renting and borrowing all kinds of services and goods. The disruptive impacts to brands are potentially very high. Consumers are already buying and trading among themselves, often without purchasing items directly from the brands themselves. Companies that don't pay attention to this trend are leaving themselves in a state of risk, as technology and society continue to quickly innovate.
To stay relevant with this unstoppable trend, every corporation must evaluate a business model of products as a service, marketplaces, tapping the maker movement and crowd collaboration as market behaviors shift.
Recent history is littered with companies that didn't adapt to this Collaborative Economy model. From Blockbuster to Netflix, from newspapers to Craigslist, a few were able to harness this change. Much of the media has deployed a variety of methods to curb peer-to-peer sharing. As part of my research method, I like to lean on the community to source examples and case studies. The following list contains examples of companies which have harnessed Collaborative Economy tactics to supplement their business strategy of innovation. Here's what I see:
Collaborative Economy: List of Brands and Corporations
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This list started with just five companies when I started it back in 2013, and it's grown to over 70 since then. If you know of cases not featured below, do share them in the comments section below and we'll keep growing the list.
- BMW's DriveNow premium car-sharing in San Francisco by BMW i, Mini and Sixt
- Volkswagen's Quicar car share
- Peugeot's Mu Mobility Services
- Daimler's Car2Go service
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RelayRides Uses OnStar technology, partner with GM
- Toyota Rent a Car: Offers a wide range of cars to be rent, at dealer
- Barclays Cycle Hire: Barclays, a financial services firm, offers bike share
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BarclayCard Ring crowdsources many functions, including content, and crowd determines where profits go
- Minneapolis and St. Paul have a bike-sharing program called Nice Ride, sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield
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Radiohead gifts media, asking fans to pay what they want
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Dodge Dart Registry: Crowdfund your next car
- Ford now was carsharing in Germany
- Walmart considers having customers ship their own products
- Google rents Chromebooks for $30/month
- Enterprise ridesharing and vanpooling for individuals, employers and government
- Patagonia partners with eBay (Commmon Threads) to foster a marketplace of used goods for sale
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NBC partners with Yerdle as a media partner for one year to promote ideas of reduced consumption and swapping
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Virgin Airlines partners with Taxi2 to enable social matching of guests who want to carpool after a flight
- Citibank sponsors Citi Bike in NYC
- Microsoft Windows taps into crowdfunding, paying 10% down and asking for others to chip in
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ScotteVest promotes used goods to be purchased and sold on eBay
- Two community banks partner with LendingClub, a peer-to-peer financing site
- Retailer West Elm features Etsy creations in its physical stores
- A number of companies, such as REI, are cooperatives that have shared ownership and or a democratic governance system
- Enterprise Holdings purchases Zimride from Lyft
- Quirky and GE partner in co-ideation and working with crowd
- Regus and Zipcar (Avis) partner
- ING's co-working space in downtown Toronto
- Marriott experiments with Liquidspace for rapid booking
- Lincoln Motors partners with CustomMade to allow the maker movement to create custom artifacts for new owners
- Comcast invests $1m in Maker's Row
- Google Ventures invests $258 million in Uber
- W Hotel partners with DesksNearMe
- IKEA encourages ridesharing in Canada and France
- NFL partners with Uber to curb drunk-driving athletes
- eBay launches services marketplace Secretguru in UK
- B&Q, a home-improvement retailer in UK, launches neighborhood sharing project called StreetClub
- Retailer Argos launches toy-swapping website
- EasyJet airlines launches a car sharing service called EasyCar
- General Electric launches partnership with SkillShare
- Home Depot rents delivery trucks and tools
- Uber partners with GE for DeLorean car promotion in San Francisco
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UHaul investor club allows for peer-to-peer lending based on assets
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Kaggle, a marketplace of top global scientists is tapped by GE, AllState, and Merck
- Razorfish, a digital agency, provides free bikes that tweet in "Use Me, Leave Me" experiment at SXSW 2013
- H&M takes in older clothes and provides store credit
- Uber partners with StubHub (owned by eBay) for game day
- Nordstrom and Etsy partner for handcrafted goods to be sold at retail scale
- Toyota releases a new 3-wheel I-Road, intended to be shared, not bought
- Nokia releases 3D-printing software files to encourage people to print out their own phone cases
- MasterCard sponsors NYC's Citi Bike program, as a Preferred Payment Provider
- 3D-printing service Shapeways is a successful spinoff with investment from Philips
- GE and TaskRabbit team up for free delivery, under the Brilliant Machines campaign
- Fon launches a wifi router that's designed to share, producing a second signal for all Fon customers via Facebook connect
- Patron partners with Uber to offer Halloween revelers a safe ride home
- Samsung taps crowd innovation startup Marblar
- Ikea launches secondhand marketplace, encouraged used goods to be sold, rather than bought new
- Airbnb partners with Western Union for international payments
- TOMs launches a marketplace featuring products from 30 socially conscious vendors
- Uber partners with GM and Toyota to get more cars on road, in exchange for price discounts
- Uber partners with Ford to provide free rides, and promote a new vehicle
- Uber partners with Home Depot to deliver Christmas trees on demand
- Uber and Paypal partner at LeWeb to give entrepreneurs a unique place to pitch
- Philips is partnering with Indiegogo to host an Innovation Fellows Competition
- Kelly Services and oDesk partner
- Thredup and Diapers.com partner for recommerce
- Walgreens and Taskrabbit partner to deliver cold medicine to shut-ins
- Hotels such as Hyatt and Kimpton now renting jewelry, hairspray, waffle irons and clothes
- Home Depot and Quirky partner to co-innovate new products for Home Depot shelves
- Uber and Pepsi partner for Super Bowl celebrations to bring a "personal half-time show" to your local corner in NY
- Uber partners with the Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas, providing ride and room from LA to Vegas
- Rent the Runway partners with the Cosmopolitan hotel for dress rentals
- Many more B2B examples available via Sharetribe
- Add a brand or corporation to this list by leaving a comment below!
Published Feb 4, 2014 4pm EST / 1pm PST / 9pm GMT / 10pm CET