Master's Thesis from the year 2021 in the subject Economics - Innovation economics, grade: 1,1, University of applied sciences, Munich, language: English, abstract: This thesis analyses the most innovative platforms from China and the United States of America in order to provide the key success factors through internal organisation and external cooperation. The findings are concluded in a role model for digital innovation and an innovation scorecard, that helps to compare the innovation level of a company in electronic markets with its competition. In digital markets, the level of innovation as well as state-of-the art technologies are massively influencing the success of companies. Here, innovation takes place on two different levels: first, it describes the transformation of incumbent companies towards a digital platform, and second it depicts the innovative pressure within the highly competitive environment of native digital platforms such as Google or Alibaba, that must constantly and fast evolve in order to maintain their leadership position. In the native platform segment, innovation is mostly achieved with business cooperation in order to gain technological knowledge, whereas innovation relating to incumbents mostly deals with an internal reorganisation of existing structures, that is often very individual and varies from company to company.