• Korean small business review
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.59-86
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• 2021

The platform concept has been used for business operations in various forms: product platforms, transaction platforms and industry platforms. All these platforms have common characteristics of having 'core' that is reused frequently and 'peripherals' that are less reusable and changed often. Companies use platforms to enable efficient development and creation of product family, transactions and innovation. These platforms provide new opportunities for many small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) by bringing changes to traditional industrial structures focused on the products rather than platforms. The service robotics industry in South Korea is mainly composed of technology-intensive SMEs due to its small market size. Although these SMEs succeed in developing technologies, they have difficulties creating and expanding markets to sell products. Thus, this study addresses the characteristics and problems of the South Korean service robotics industry and analyses how ROBOPRINT, one of the SMEs in the service robotics industry, successfully creates and continuously expands the service robot market by adopting platform concept. The results indicate that ROBOPRINT has been applying two types of platforms: product and transaction platforms. First, ROBOPRINT created art robots that were apartment mural service robots. Rather than selling art robots, the company developed various robots such as painting robots, building exterior wall-cleaning robots by reusing the core technology of the robots. The company also developed various robots according to the buyers request. In addition, the company used the robots to directly provide apartment mural services for customers. This mural service has been extended into various areas, not only in apartments but also in soundproof walls, underground passages, and retaining walls. Besides, ROBOPRINT added new services continuously by developing technologies such as virtual reality. Second, ROBOPRINT mediated mural service buyers and mural designers. This platform reduced buyers' workload, which necessitates requesting mural services to ROBOPRINT and searching for mural designers. For designers, this opened up new opportunities to participate in the mural business. The platform attracted both mural buyers and designers who were scattered before. Finally, ROBOPRINT seeks to expand the platform's scope to outside company. To share internally reused ROBOPRINT's technology with other companies, the company participated in Daegu city's 'New Technology Platform Industry'. Furthermore, ROBOPRINT is trying to share the service platform by leasing robots to other companies. This allows external agents to develop technologies and provide services by reusing resources from ROBOPRINT. This study contributes to existing theories by showing that SMEs continuously create and expand markets by building various platforms. Moreover, it provides useful implications for practitioners by describing the firm's specific platform-building strategy.