picture from The Economist
Recently, I watched a TED speech “The Future of Business Is the Mesh”, given by Lisa Gansky. In the video, Gansky predicts that mesh economy (also called “sharing economy”) will play a more important role in the future business. By giving examples about car-sharing companies, she explains that because of the advances in information technology, people are able to create new platforms which make access to get goods and services more convenient and less costly in many cases than owing them. Thus, mesh economy can benefit the society as a whole.
One of the key words in sharing economy is “collaborative consumption”, a peer-to-peer business model where people can rent their assets (like houses, cars) to others when they are not using them. I was inspired by this brilliant idea. I think this is a good exercise of creating shared value since it allows companies to earn profits by reducing unused value of resources, which benefits individuals, business and the community. 
The concept “collaborative consumption” inspires me to think about “collaborative service”. The “collaborative service” I am thinking about is that different companies in an industry or even cross industries collaborate to build facilities that are high-cost but will benefit the whole industry. For example, in electronic-car industry, power stations play an essential role in popularizing electronic vehicles. However, building up appropriate number of stations across the country is very costly for single company. Then, companies in this industry like Tesla, BMW could cooperate to split the cost so that they could invest the money that saved from collaboration to improve their points of difference. Meanwhile, the standardized power station enables consumers charge their cars more conveniently. I agree with Gansky that sharing economy will be a new trend and probably a core value in many industries in the future because it creates shared value satisfying both companies and societies.
Sources:
Video Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_gansky_the_future_of_business_is_the_mesh?language=en#t-869193
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy