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Who Is Really Winning the Industrial Ecosystem Race?

February 17, 2026 by @paul4innovating

Winning through the IIBE Lens Evaluation

I am outlining in a short series a Comparison of a selected group of Industrial giants and how they are managing their Ecosystem building. This is coming out of the IIBE Lens methology developed. This post offers a brief summary of their positioning around Ecosystem management

Optionality and Volatility intentionally excluded– this will be covered seperately.

Industrial competition has shifted. Advantage is no longer defined by product portfolios, installed base, or even digital capability alone — it is increasingly determined by ecosystem completeness: the ability to design, attract, orchestrate, and scale a system that others choose to build within.

Using the Intelligent & Integrated Business Ecosystem (IIBE) Lens, this compares four industrial leaders — Siemens AG, Schneider Electric, ABB, and GE Vernova — to expose meaningful differences in how ecosystems are positioned, activated, and matured. This is not a framework explanation. It is an outcome-driven comparison of ecosystem reality.

Comparing Industrial Ecosystem Strategies Through the IIBE Lens

February 16, 2026 by @paul4innovating

Comparisions through the IIBE Lens for Ecosystem Opportunities

Keeping Optionality and Volatility explicitly out of scope for this evaluation- See a later post that discusses this.

This post uses the Intelligent & Integrated Business Ecosystem (IIBE) Lens to compare four global industrial leaders — Siemens AG, GE Vernova, Schneider Electric, and ABB — all of whom have been evaluated previously through IIBE-informed analysis.

The IIBE is a diagnostic systematic approach designed to assess how well an organisation is designed to operate, adapt and evolve through ecosystems, especially under changing market conditions.

The intent here, post two of a short series, is not to re‑explain IIBE principles, but to focus on observable outcomes: how each company positions its ecosystem, how attractive and usable those ecosystems are for customers and partners, the maturity of their platforms, and where gaps or constraints remain.

The comparison highlights significant differences in ecosystem intent, design coherence, and execution maturity, particularly as these firms straddle energy transition, industrial digitalization, and infrastructure modernization — domains where ecosystems are no longer optional, but decisive.

Looking Through the IIBE Lens: A New Perspective on Ecosystem Strategy

February 16, 2026February 15, 2026 by @paul4innovating

Looking through the IIBE Lens at Ecosystem Opportunities

A New Perspective on Ecosystem Strategy

Business ecosystems provide a real, sustainable and significant competitive advantage by shifting a company to a higher level of collaborative, networked value creation. Instead of just selling a single product, you are selling a “connected solution” built and supported by a web of partners, providing greater value and outcomes as a result.

Through the use of the Integrated Interconnected Business Ecosystem (IIBE) blueprint it is designed to support the move towards a collaborative ecosystem environment for incumbents, disruptors and those catching up, on the recognition of the value of ecosystems within their business.

In this short series during this week I will be exploring the IIBE Lens, a way of explaining Ecosystems for organizations that provides an understanding of their maturity, health and appeal, as well as providing comparisions in their competitive field. It builds out different ecosystem approaches to show value, weakness and further opportunities, applying Ecosystem thinking and design applications.

How the IIBE Delivers Measurable ROI Across Three Client Groups

February 12, 2026February 12, 2026 by @paul4innovating

Business leaders acknowledge that ecosystems are now critical to growth, innovation, and resilience, far fewer can answer a harder question:“What is the return on our ecosystem investments — and how do we know?”

The IIBE Delivers Measurable ROI Across Three different Client Groups Making Them Investable in returns and gains to advance your Ecosystem thinking.

The challenge is not a lack of activity. It is a lack of measurable clarity. Ecosystems are often positioned as strategic necessities but managed as experimental side initiatives, with limited visibility into value creation, decision confidence, or time-to-impact.

Why the IIBE Matters for Each Client Group we focus upon for Ecosystem Value

February 12, 2026February 10, 2026 by @paul4innovating

In today’s business environment, it has been suggested that more than 70 % of leaders struggle with ecosystem planning, understanding, or extracting value. Many initiatives stagnate in fragmentation, misaligned purpose or slow value pathways — because ecosystems are still treated as buzzwords rather than operating systems for adaptive competitive advantage.

The Integrated Interconnected Business Ecosystem (IIBE) is uniquely positioned to solve this exact problem: to help organisations diagnose their ecosystem health, implement structured pathways, and extract new value from their collaborative networks in practical, measurable ways.

Below is how each of our three principal client groups — Mature Ecosystem Leaders, Disruptors & Emerging Challengers, and Nascent/Laggards/Emerging Catalysts — we are suggesting how they should recognise the problem, what they need to value the most, and how a dedicated IIBE offering gives them confidence, coherence, and competitive edge.

the iibe defines the “category of need” in the ecosystem collaborative world required today

February 12, 2026February 4, 2026 by @paul4innovating

The IIBE approaches complexity in a comprehensive Ecosystem approach

The Interconnected Integrated Business Ecosystem (IIBE) is pioneering the next logic of Businesses recognising collaboration and co-creation in a world where increasing complexity cannot be solved by today’s evaluation and operating models. The need is in delivering tomorrows advantage.

Yes, the IIBE framework explicitly defines and pioneers the category of ecosystem collaborative design. Unlike many existing frameworks that focus on individual company strategies, specific capabilities, or isolated innovation efforts, IIBE provides a structured, systemic, and strategic blueprint for designing and orchestrating ecosystems as living, adaptive, co-creative systems.

“In the new economy, value is not found in what you own, but in what you can orchestrate. The IIBE frame is the engine that makes that orchestration both disciplined and achievable.”

Reflecting on the Essence of Ecosystems

January 26, 2026 by @paul4innovating

Recognizing how connected Business Ecosystems need to be

I was just reflecting on the reasons and importance of Ecosystems. I put this together a while ago in an extended chat but felt it was worth publishing as it validates a lot of the direction for my work and the Integratd Interconnected Business Ecosystem (IIBE).

Business Ecosystems are undervalued and often poorly used. The ability to bring together a collaborative network of partners working on a shared goal that has impact and value beyond the existing solution one organisation alone can deliver, has significant advantages to grow out and extend a business.

This introduces the essence of ecosystems:

The Release of the Intelligent Business Ecosystem 2026 Report

January 22, 2026 by @paul4innovating

Intelligent Business Ecosystems Report 2026 connects the needed integration

In an era defined by volatility, complexity, confrontations and rapid technological acceleration, the traditional model of the isolated firm is becoming obsolete. Rigid linear value chains are failing to keep pace with the demand for speed, adaptability, innovation and sustainability.

To survive and thrive, organizations must transcend traditional buisiness silos and evolve into adaptive, resilient interconnected ecosystems

We are sensing the world is entering a decisive shift: in this case from platform-centric models towards fully dynamic, intelligent, coninuously orchestrated business ecosystems.

Are Industrial and Energy Titans at a Crossroads as Ecosystem Strength Becomes Strategic Constraint?

January 7, 2026January 7, 2026 by @paul4innovating

When Ecosystem Strength Quietly Becomes Strategic Constraint

In energy and industrial sectors, many of the most capable organisations are experiencing a paradox they rarely are able to name. There is a constant uncomfortable feeling of “we are not achieving the leverage and our role is becoming less clear and surely growth is not just investing more, have we more structural problems?”

The results seemingly point to they are performing well. They have strong installed bases and this keeps evolving.. The investments made, although intially heavily in digital, automation, partnerships, and platforms have enabled new offerings and solutions, yet this could be better.

Are Energy and Industrial Leaders Quietly Learning About Ecosystems?

January 7, 2026January 4, 2026 by @paul4innovating

A time for re-learning the Power of Ecosystems and Repositioned Platforms

There Are Times When Engineering Excellence Becomes a Constraint and that is what Energy and Industrial Leaders Are Quietly Learning About Ecosystems. They are becoming more constrained by what they have or how they operate.

Across energy and industrial markets, a paradox is emerging.

The companies best equipped to lead the next phase of the energy transition and industrial transformation — Siemens AG, Siemens Energy, Schneider Electric, ABB, GE Vernova, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — are also the ones most constrained by their own success.

They are faced with difficult decisions to be made to move their Ecosystems forward. They are all facing different levels of entrapment and need to carefully figure what it is they need to do.