At VivaTech 2026, Frédéric Fréry, Scientific Director of the Sonepar ESCP Business School Chair “New Platform Strategies”, and Olivier Thivent explored how platform logic could profoundly reshape B2B distribution. Their message: as the industry evolves, traditional distribution models may no longer be enough.
“B2B Distribution’s Amazon Moment: Platform or Perish?” This was the deliberately provocative title chosen by Frédéric Fréry and Olivier Thivent for their session at VivaTech 2026.
Behind the catchy title lies a major question for the future of B2B distribution: could the platform revolution that transformed B2C markets now be reaching B2B industries?
This question is at the heart of the work conducted within the Sonepar ESCP Business School Chair “New Platform Strategies”. Bringing together more than ten ESCP professors and researchers, the Chair supports research projects and cases examining platforms in B2B industries.
Sonepar, a €40 billion company specialising in B2B distribution of electrical equipment and services, provides a particularly relevant context in which to explore this transformation.
As Frédéric explained during an interview at VivaTech, the industry is changing rapidly and being a distributor “like before” may no longer be possible. Against this backdrop, moving towards platform models is becoming an important strategic question.
Is B2B having its “Amazon moment”?
For Frédéric, the concept of an “Amazon moment” refers to what happened in B2C markets when traditional business models were challenged by the emergence of a major player built around a platform and an ecosystem.
Could something similar happen in B2B distribution?
The answer is not straightforward. B2B markets have their own specificities, including legal and financial considerations, which mean that the transformation cannot simply replicate what happened in consumer markets.
Yet the broader platform dynamic is increasingly relevant.
As Frédéric explained, there is a growing expectation that platforms will emerge across B2B industries as well. Understanding what this could mean for distributors, and how they should respond, is precisely one of the questions being explored through the Chair.
At VivaTech, Frédéric and Olivier highlighted how B2B distribution is already being reshaped by platform logic, data and changing customer expectations.
Their central message was clear: the future will belong to players able to combine digital scalability, ecosystem orchestration and deep domain expertise.
Building knowledge around B2B platforms
The Chair approaches these transformations through research.
Each year, a call for projects allows professors to propose research questions related to platforms. The selected projects receive funding through the Chair, which now involves more than ten researchers and professors from ESCP.
The partnership also creates opportunities for knowledge to circulate beyond research projects themselves. Conferences are organised around the Chair’s topics, while people from Sonepar contribute to teaching in ESCP programmes.
For Sonepar, Frédéric explained, one objective is to accumulate knowledge on platform-related questions through the work conducted at ESCP. The Chair also gives the company greater visibility among students and contributes to its attractiveness as an employer.
But beyond the Chair itself, VivaTech provided an opportunity to address a broader question: how should established companies think about innovation when their markets are changing?
For Frédéric, part of the answer involves challenging one of the most familiar principles in business.
From gaining market share to enlarging the market
This distinction leads to another way of thinking about growth.
Frédéric contrasts companies focused primarily on increasing their market share with those seeking to increase the size of the market itself.
The first approach means competing for existing customers and trying to gain an advantage over competitors. The second requires companies to identify people or organisations that are not yet customers and understand what could bring them into the market.
From a strategic perspective, Frédéric argues, finding new customers can be far more interesting than simply “stealing” customers from competitors.
This perspective resonates particularly strongly with the platform transformation discussed at VivaTech. Platforms can challenge established boundaries, bring new participants into an ecosystem and change the way companies, suppliers and customers interact.
For B2B distributors, the question may therefore extend beyond how to digitise an existing model. It is also about understanding how the market itself could evolve and where entirely new sources of growth might emerge.
Platform or perish?
The title of the VivaTech session was intentionally provocative. But it captures the scale of the strategic question now facing B2B distribution.
The transition towards platform models will not necessarily reproduce the transformation of B2C markets, and the specific characteristics of B2B industries remain essential. Yet the rise of platforms, ecosystems and data is creating new possibilities and challenging established ways of doing business.
Through the “New Platform Strategies” Chair, Sonepar and ESCP Business School are exploring these questions at the intersection of academic research and business practice.
And perhaps Frédéric Fréry’s advice at VivaTech provides a fitting way to approach that uncertainty: do not look only at what today’s customers are asking for. Look at the market that could exist tomorrow
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