Monthly Archives: September 2018

Defining Ecosystems in Industry

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Defining Ecosystems in Industry

In a recent exchange, actually, on twitter, we were discussing definitions of platforms for IoT or IIoT, defining ecosystems in industry. This was to shape a story to be told.

We got into the “how” to position them and in these exchanges, we eventually arrived at the question of Ecosystems, of “What defines ecosystems within an industry?”.

There is growing value in engaging in business ecosystems and let me offer the “why” and move you through the “what” towards the “how.” I felt it needed my “take” on defining Ecosystem design for Industry.

The present growing use of the word “ecosystem” has been born or borrowed (for industrial use) from ecology but it is not appreciating the understanding as well as it should do.

We in an industry do need to understand this, embrace it and interpret it in this ecological way, or design the Eco-friendly intent in a clear, game-changing way, that allows us to move forward at higher increased rates of change.

So the issue is what does make up an Ecosystem and make it stand apart and be valued for what it brings. Continue reading →

Great Apps will deliver the future business value in IIoT

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Technology is radically altering our need for innovation. We see increasingly innovation is feeding off the “digital response rate” and how we build and design the application software will transform IIoT as it has for our personal world (B2C), where we download apps on a daily basis to solve a problem or to improve our understanding.

So what is an app? An app is a modern term for a software application, and it is most often used in reference to a mobile app or a small piece of software that runs on a website. It has made significant inroads into B2C offerings, less so on B2B.  It’s typically used to describe anything that isn’t a full-fledged software program, but even that line has become blurred by those developing this apps become more creative and ta into value points for specific application. Typically apps sit on a platform and we download them or simply access them.

The capabilities of these apps vary greatly today, but some companies have started to push the boundaries of what these apps can do, turning the devices into fully functional work tools. Mobile-device management software will explode within the IIoT space. As we grow more enterprise networks the market for smart devices and/or embedded intelligence production processes will see an increase in growth. Apps will allow for a greater building out of our diagnostic needs as well as enable smart nodes. They will assist to combine experience-based knowledge with contextual automation device data and solve problems quicker as a team or send this specific data for analysis and response.

Connecting technology and innovation is altering how we should re-access organizations ability to build out. We are in the middle of a technological-led industrial revolution It is becoming highly dynamic. Apps are a critical part of the building block.

Using an app with new innovations and approaches can provide new functions by tapping into the local power of devices where tablets and smartphone operate as mini-supercomputers on site that is full of sensors, and designing specific apps to explore capabilities and rapidly “feedback” data that has potential value, often called “event management” or experience understanding. Continue reading →

A Statement of Ecosystem Intent Inside Our Business Enterprise- the CEO letter currently missing

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Ecosystems have become a really hot topic. As we gain the understanding of what a dual strategy approach to what our business could look like, you need to recognize what you still need control of, those you call your core assets. Yet at the same time, to explore and expand out more today we need to build better external collaborative approaches.

To achieve this reaching out and collaborating will require participating in platforms and building up your Ecosystem Management understanding.

The word “Ecosystem” is getting as much “air time” as the general use of the word “innovation” in business recently. It generates buzz, it projects the impression you are looking to the future, managing your business in that progressive, outward way, that shareholders and your employees love to here.

Well as we well only well know with innovation, if it does not align to strategy, integrate within the business activities, it stays a little out on one side. Also, innovation stays so often a necessity to “call upon” but not as your core focus of activity. That focus still is, sadly today focused on managing the assets for short-term performance, where the consistent focus is always on efficiency and effectiveness to “work or sweat those assets”. Maybe we might be seeing a change in ecosystem management design. More of the “assets” outsourced or in collaborative partnerships.

Well, Ecosystems are entering the lexicon of top management. It does sound good to talk about “building our ecosystem” in every possible way. You need to ask though, has management actually sat down and defined the type of ecosystem it wants to design, to participate in, or become part of. Or do this simply happen, a sort of drifting into, a grand experiment, as if that made real progressive sense? Let’s take a different approach

What if the CEO and the board decided to open up the discussion around the future pathway, one of managing within a federation of ecosystems. Continue reading →