The advent of Internet technology and business logic of the Internet has brought new commercial opportunities to traditional manufacturing. At the same time, it challenges the traditional bureaucratic organizational form of enterprises. To cope with the developing demands of the new era, some leading companies tried to transform into a flat platform organization. The emergence and growth number of platform-based organizations attracts the attention of researchers in the organizational theory filed. Previous studies show that platform as a special organizational form has two significant advantages which are network effect and evolution ability. It is for these advantages that these platform firms can meet the requirements of gathering multi-party resources in a short time and adapting to the environmental changes dynamically. Usually, researchers focus on macro-level and exogenous factors when analyzing the driving factors of platform transformation. The main factors include technology change, transaction costs and social division. Whereas over emphasis on macro and external factors leads to the neglect of individual factors, such as companies’ creativity and agency in facilitating platform transformation. As an important strategic change and organizational adjustment, it is meaningful to explore the endogenous factors that drive and support firms to achieve platform transformation. In particular, it helps to answer the question why some firms transform earlier than their peers do, especially considering that they face the same environmental conditions. It also explains the heterogeneity of firm behavior. The case study of transformation process of three major platforms in the Haier Group reveals that total innovation is the key endogenous factor leading Haier’s platform transformation. Based on the perspective of total innovation management theory and platform theory, we illustrate how total innovation initiates the establishment of intelligent manufacturing platform, open innovation platform and entrepreneurship platform in the Haier. This research shows that Hair’s platform transformation is closely related to its implementation of all-factors innovation, all-employees innovation and all time-space innovation. Specifically, all time-space innovation breaks the physical constraints on traditional business activities and provides a cross-border access to resources for the development of platform. All factor innovation strengthens the internal relationships and the development of different factors, and provides a new way of value creation for platform transformation. All employee innovation provides new forms of employment relationship and making the general staff more willing to innovate and run their own business. This paper explores how total innovation drives transformation of organizational forms in the new era. It builds a linkage between innovation research and platform research. Also, it deepens the understanding of total innovation view and expands its theoretical application scope. These findings based on internal perspectives complement the previous findings based on external perspectives. Together, these two parts provide a more comprehensive theoretical framework for explaining the platform transformation phenomenon. Finally, this research also provides a useful experience for traditional manufacturing, especially those who want to construct their sustainable competitive advantage through total innovation.