By Andrea Silvello

The term sharing economy is widely perceived as a synonym of “collaborative economy” or “on demand economy”,

but it actually represents a very wide concept which lacks a common definition.

Rachel Botsman defines the collaborative economy as “a system that activates the untapped value of all kinds of

assets through models and marketplaces that enable greater efficiency and access1”. The concept behind the sharing

economy is indeed very simple: anything that is not being used can be rented out. This framework includes services

such as renting, bartering, loaning, gifting, and swapping of underutilized material or immaterial possessions. These

idle resources are useful to create an efficient circular system by reallocating or trading them with people who want

or need them. Recycling, upcycling and sharing the lifecycle of products are common features of the sharing

economy. “Waste” is the result of a misallocation of resources: today technology often allows us to easily correct

that misallocation, by redistributing or trading a great variety of “sleeping” assets and resources (table 1). For

instance, Uber and AirBnb platforms allow customers to share cars and homes, while TaskRabbit connects people

with free time with people who need someone to perform small tasks.

1 Rachel Botsman, What’s Mine is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption is Changing the Way We Live

Table 1 – assests and actors in the Sharing Economy

Asset Kind of asset Actor

Tangible

Financial

Intangible

Automotive

Property

Food

Crowdfunding

Lending

Professional

Personal

Uber

AirBnB

Talent Garden

Cookening

Lending Club

Kickstarter

RocketHub

TaskRabbit

Tint Travel

Reoose

Technology is an important driver. Almost all sharing economy services use online platforms, keeping low fixed costs

while providing access to a huge base of customers. The central role of smartphones in modern consumerism makes

on-demand sharing economy services even easier to access, for example through the creation of two-sided market

platforms, thus enabling local and global peer to peer communication. Furthermore, big data analytics and

advanced algorithms are now used to match supply and demand and to set prices: for example, Uber takes

advantage of its vast database to predict where and at what time a customer will need a ride.

Collaborative consumption contemplates a variety of forms of exchange, incentives and value creation, not only in a

purely financial perspective but also from an environmental and social responsability point of view. Sharing economy

fosters a more efficient use of resources, relying both on material and nonmaterial (or social) rewards while

inevitably raising accountability, security and trust issues - frequent weaknesses of any digital platform dealing with

sensitive data. Accountability issues are more relevant for those businesses that act as intermediaries in two-party

transactions: AirBnB , for instance, has often failed to take full responsibility for any material damage caused to

apartments rented by their users. Since companies will want to stay clear of such unexpected events, issues about

insurance coverage will also emerge. Sharing economy users might as well expect problems with calculating their

taxes correctly : for example, low income taxpayers entitled to benefits or tax credits might even lose them, when

reporting revenues from “task-sharing” services.

The sharing economy is currently the talk of the town. According to compareandshare.com2, it is growing faster than

Facebook, Google and Yahoo combined: PWC3 estimates that the sharing economy sector generated 15 billion $ in

global revenues in its first seven years, compared to the combined growth of the three giants, 11 billion $ in the

same range of time. PWC again, estimates that the sharing economy has a potential revenue opportunity worth 335

billion $ by 2025. During that period, the collaborative economy sectors are likely to grow much more quickly than

traditional rental sectors. For instance peer to peer accommodation, car sharing and music & video streaming should

grow at a two digit rate from 2013 to 2025, contrary to B&B & hostels, car rental and DVD rental which will grow at a

very low rate over the same period. The least developed sectors today, peer to peer finance and online staffing,

could grow at the fastest rate out of all the other traditional or sharing economy sectors.

2 http://www.compareandshare.com/blog/did-you-know-that-the-sharing-economy-is-growing-faster-than-facebook-google-and-yahoo-combined/ 3 PWC, The sharing economy – sizing the revenue opportunity, 2015

Sharing Economy Sector

Traditional Rental Sector

Sharing Economy Sector

Traditional Rental Sector

2013 202515 B$ 240 B$ 335 B$335 B$

Sharing Economy and Traditional Rental Sectors growth

Source: PWC

Given the growth expectancy of the sharing economy, investments in it are booming with 28 million $ a day invested

in startups4, where 37% of them are VC funded. With the new means of raising money, such as crowdfunding,

finance became more democratic: in fact 80% of sharing economy startups see crowdfunding as the best way to

raise capital. Sharing economy startups primarily base their business on apps and try to reach their customers online.

In fact, consumers tend to automatically check the app store by searching a company’s name or product or service

type. In 2013, on-demand mobile startups raised 670 million $ and just a year later, funding ballooned to more than

4 billion $ in 2014. The funding explosion has continued through 2015 as giant funding rounds, including Uber and

Lyft, have raised funding in the first four months of 2015 to 3.8 billion $. Excluding Uber’s juggernaut funding rounds,

on-demand startups have raised 3.9 billion $ since the start of 20105.

Everyone can participate in the Sharing Economy: individuals, communities, companies, organizations and

associations. All these actors can be embedded in a highly efficient sharing system where they all contribute and

benefit from. The fact is that people will always consume and what is changing is the value they assign to the “act of

possession” and the role they wish to play within this system. This role is already an established habit in the native

4 http://www.compareandshare.com/blog/did-you-know-that-the-sharing-economy-is-growing-faster-than-facebook-google-and-yahoo-combined/ 5 CB Insights

Sharing Economy and Traditional Rental Sectors CAGR 2013-2025

4% 2%

-5%

Car rental

3%

Book rental

63%

17%

Music & Video

Streaming

P2P lending Car sharingP2P accommodation

37%

5%

B&B and hostels

23%

31%

DVD rentalEquipment rental

Online staffing

Sharing Economy sectors

Traditional Rental sectors

Source: PWC

349 366 414

98525843

2

2012

371

2011

5

2,800

2,401

392

2010

57

55

2014

4,124

1,723

2013

672

2015

3,785Funding minus Uber

Uber funding

On demand mobile services financing trends - USA

Data in M$Source: CB Insights

digital generations. Millennials are guiding the other generations towards embracing and experimenting new sharing

formats, but members of every generation are starting to have a more active and mindful approach to

consumption6. A study from Havas Worldwide reveals that 28% of population shares globally, and 68% of adults in

the world are willing to share or rent goods for money- a participation rate that is estimated to double in the next

year7.

It is important to remember that many of the transactions that take place in a sharing economy framework are

actually not captured by official statistics due to the nature of the exchanged goods and services. Furthermore, it is

hard to determine if the surge of sharing economy businesses is caused by the overwhelming importance that digital

platforms are gaining in the current global landscape, or vice versa. What we know for sure is that sharing economy

has permanently changed our approach to services consumption: in the years to come, further technological

advancements will shape new revolutionary business models, just as digital platforms are allowing us to efficiently

reallocate our resources.

Andrea Silvello is Founder and Managing Director of Business Support Spa, a Strategy Consulting & Financial Advisory

"boutique" which focuses on SME's in Italy.

6 Nielsen, Global share community report, 2014 7 Havas Worldwide, The new consumer and the Sharing Economy, 2014

Share community global participation willingness

35%

17%

Generation X (35-49)

7%

Generation Z (under 20)

Millenials (21-34)

Total adults

7%1%

32%

Silent Generation

(65+)

Baby Boomers (50-64)

Willing to shareNon willing to share

100%

68%

Source: Nielsen