What managers need to know about the B2B sharing economy
For decades, managers have been taught a simple rule: if a resource is critical, own it. Ownership meant control, reliability, and competitive advantage. But that logic is quietly being challenged.
Across industries, firms are beginning to access rather than own. Idle warehouse space is shared across companies. Specialised machinery is rented on demand. Even highly sensitive assets, like medical equipment or manufacturing capacity, are being made available through digital platforms connecting businesses that would never have interacted before.
This is often framed as the “B2B sharing economy.” But the term can be misleading. This is not about generosity or collaboration for its own sake. It is about efficiency, flexibility, and, increasingly, survival in uncertain markets.
For managers, this shift raises a set of uncomfortable but necessary questions.
If your competitive advantage depends on owning assets, what happens when access becomes cheaper and more flexible than ownership?
If your expensive resources sit idle even part of the time, are they really strategic assets, or just underutilised costs?
And if other firms can access what you own, what exactly are you competing on?
The implications go beyond cost savings. The B2B sharing economy is fundamentally about reorganising how value is created and captured. Instead of bilateral buyer–seller relationships, managers must navigate triadic (and often more complex) arrangements involving platforms, providers, and users. Control becomes distributed. Trust becomes central. Governance becomes more complex.
This also introduces new risks. Sharing assets means sharing dependencies. It can expose firms to operational uncertainty, coordination challenges, and even reputational risks. Not everything should be shared, and knowing what not to share may be just as important as knowing what to share.
Yet, the opportunities are equally significant. Firms can unlock new revenue streams from idle capacity, lower barriers to entry for innovation, and access resources that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. For startups and smaller firms, this can be transformative. For established companies, it can be a way to become more agile without large capital investments.
Perhaps the most important shift, however, is conceptual. The question is no longer “What do we own?” but “What can we access, and under what conditions?”
Managers who continue to think in terms of ownership alone risk missing this shift. Those who begin to think in terms of access, orchestration, and ecosystems may find entirely new ways to compete.
This is not a distant trend. It is already unfolding, quietly, unevenly, but decisively, across industries.
And it may well redefine how you run your business.
This phenomenon has been the focus of my PhD research over the past several years, where I have explored how businesses engage in and manage these emerging forms of resource sharing.
KELVIN IVANKOVIC 