Bi Ya,Zhang Shuhong
Online available: 2026-02-12
With the deep advancement of the digital economy, the digital transformation of industrial internet platforms under institutional constraints has exhibited structural stagnation. Pharmaceutical commercial platforms, owing to their high dependence on the external institutional environment, are confronted with more complex challenges. Multiple constraints from policies, regulations, industry standards, and social responsibilities have has heightened the complexity of resource integration and business expansion for pharmaceutical platforms while fundamentally transforming their value creation paradigms. Meanwhile, traditional value creation theories, which are rooted in the monopolization of resources and control over single processes, contradict the core nature of platforms (openness, integration, and convergence) and thus fail to guide or explain the evolution of pharmaceutical business platforms. Therefore, it has become an urgent key issue to thoroughly explore how pharmaceutical business platforms achieve value creation through phased open iteration under institutional constraints. This study employs a single-case research method, using Jiuzhoutong as a case to explore the process of open iteration of platform ecology, the evolution path of service strategies, and the mechanisms of value creation under service-dominant logic. The study adopts a grounded theory methodology, systematically conducting open coding to generate 22 constructs from 31 initial concepts. Axial coding was then performed to identify six core categories, including resource integration, service exchange, institutional arrangements, as well as resource, structural, and rule advantages. Selective coding was subsequently utilized to distill service strategy and value creation as the overarching phenomena. Analytical rigor was enhanced through continuous, "data-logic" cyclic iteration, multiple rounds of member checking with executive participants, cross-source comparative verification, and theoretical saturation testing. Findings reveal a three-stage open iteration path: bilateral embedding, network expansion, and boundary permeation. Jiuzhoutong's journey demonstrates this path. Its survival-focused bilateral embedding phase targeted underserved primary healthcare/OTC markets, bypassing monopolies via operational innovations: a "Quick Batch-Quick Distribution" model, precision logistics, and cost control, building a foundational physical network. Capitalizing on liberalization, the network expansion phase involved horizontal mergers creating a vast certified warehousing network and vertical integration into TCM cultivation and B2C/O2O e-commerce. Establishing key functional platforms marked its shift to a service provider. Facing tightening regulations and public health demands, the boundary permeation phase featured cross-industry alliances, "Pharma+Tech+Finance" integration, and solutions like its Prescription Outflow Platform. Crucially, this process exhibited dynamic adaptation, forging asynchronous adaptive advantages that sustained growth under constraint and drove service strategy evolution. Service strategy evolution, governed by co-creation imperatives, links iteration to value creation across three phases: service deepening, service radiation, and service coupling. Service deepening established operational excellence and trust through cost control, guaranteed service accessibility, and consistent rules, ensuring stability. Service radiation diffused proven logistics/cost models nationally, adding advanced resource configuration across the pharmaceutical chain and sophisticated data integration via the "FBBC" mechanism, alongside business process standardization and relationship coordination tools, enabling reliable scalability. Boundary permeation necessitated service coupling-integrating diverse service forms beyond provision, manifested in the "Three New and Two Transformations" strategy( which refers to new products, new retail, new medical services, digitalization, and real estate investment trusts) and embedded governance, creating holistic ecosystem solutions. Value creation advanced progressively: transactional value, relational value, and ecological value. Bilateral Embedding generated transactional value via scale economies. Building resource advantages, structural advantages, and rule advantages established the transactional base. Network Expansion cultivated relational value: enhanced resource advantages from deeper partnerships/data synergy; structural advantages empowering participants; solidified rule advantages as standards became industry benchmarks. Boundary Permeation unlocked Ecological Value-emergent synergy from cross-domain co-creation: resource advantages via cross-industry recombination; structural advantages through distributed, collaborative networks; rule advantages culminating in active industry rule-setting. This delivered significant implicit social value alongside economic returns, including improved pharmaceutical accessibility and reduced health disparities. This study proposes a "Platform Ecosystem Open Iteration-Service Strategy Evolution-Value Creation" framework that extends service-dominant logic by elucidating complex dynamics within institutionally constrained industrial platforms. It fills critical theoretical gaps concerning platform evolution under institutional pressure, the dynamic co-evolution of openness and service strategies, and the integrated co-creation of economic and social value. For platform operators in regulated sectors, the framework yields actionable insights on stage-specific strategizing, synergistic orchestration of resource-structure-rule configurations, and the dual imperative of efficiency and societal welfare.