A Statement of Ecosystem Intent – the CEO letter that is often missing but highly essential to have as part of any ecosystem design thinking.

Ecosystems have become a really hot topic. 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 hear.

The shift taking place- 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, participate in, or become part of? Or does this simply happen, a sort of drifting into, a grand experiment, not connecting all that is truly necessary for such a seismic move, stifling the 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 ecosystem partners and collaborators.

Building the internal rationale- the open letter to all our employees and stakeholders.

What if you provided a document to all your employees that states a clear belief and direction you feel “our” business is heading towards, would that not make sense?

I really think we have not yet (in many cases) built a connected, compelling rationale for managing Ecosystems.

From the CEO and the Board to all within our company and all our stakeholders

We are evaluating and changing our existing focus from closed (internal orientation) into ones that are having a far more open stance. We are searching for more collaborative innovation (external orientation) combining external partners into more ‘collective thinking’. We are exploring the concept of Ecosystems and where it contributes new value.

This shift to an Ecosystem Design we believe is offering us extra acceleration that is needed to improve our innovation performances from concept to market delivery. It can help us to grow our business in new, radically different ways. We see potential in moving from our existing core through growing our alliances and networks to produce greater product solutions, ones that connect far more with the customer’s needs through the greater use of technology and the power of connection.

Collaborative innovation is also leading us to higher chances of achieving greater impact and success, as nearly all novel ideas lay outside the organization’s domain of understanding. As we increasingly include the customer and their needs within our understanding, these multiple collaborations and dialogues are building this better internal understanding.

By recognizing we are not sole owners of knowledge but are in a world of distributed knowledge, we seek to encourage new dialogues, new avenues and new sources of collaboration. This is not just to leverage the internal expertise we have, but to compliment it and challenge it, in new innovative ways, to lead to a new range of market and product opportunities that are radically different and exciting to deliver.

We know we are constantly moving away from managing in linear innovation processes and making these more adaptive, constantly looping back when new information or data as it is being discovered, increasing this knowledge and insight in highly dynamic, constantly evolving and informing ways. We need to accelerate this in imaginative and novel ways.

We wish to form more valuable external relationships in multiple and different ways as this will simply increase our access to diversity. This greater diversity does matter to each organization for building different competitive positions in our future approaches to go about business in wider areas of scope.

We are creating the potential to deliver innovative products and services through new business models that would not have been enabled by only having one organization attempting it. Collaborations are significantly adding value into the innovation equation, offering greater options to explore in the future.

Also, we are seeing complexity rising significantly. The search for finding greater value is shifting even further, increasingly forming around innovation ecosystems, loose federations of vested interest, forming and dispersing when the job is complete. Sharing in risk and returns at a faster pace.

Our innovation exploration will become far more evolutionary and requires a completely different way to think and manage these ‘relationship contracts that are forming around a given concept of platform engagements.

We will need to learn how to be far more cooperative, open and agile, new adaptive thinking.  As we tap into all the expertise up and down and along the value chain, we will become far more aware and will need to explore all the depth in thinking, contributing and making available through extending our connections in deeper and broader ways.

Knowing how to adjust, accommodate and shift our thinking requires us to become more agile, a more “fluid organization, finding new ways of connecting and working.

The opening up to new, exciting possibilities. Our further thinking with this move

Today there is a growing realization that thinking ecosystems can allow us to have a new framing of possibilities, to offer us an exposure to alter our mindsets. One that taps into different and diverse relationships, partnerships, alliances, and collaborations. This was unthinkable until recently, without the enablers to make these connections through technology and more open platforms where you can come together and collaborate. We need to exploit this connecting world fully to extract the best solutions.

The increasing value of participating in ecosystems allows for large and small organizations to create, scale and serve markets, in ways unthought-of, previously. The ability to interact and co-create in increasingly sophisticated and novel ways opens up new opportunities. These ecosystems form a bond of shared interest, of recognition and purpose, which quickly becomes established as the new ‘commons’ in sharing and contributing internally.

We need to understand all of this, we are on a learning journey, one that does excite us but also challenges us. As we begin to open up our thinking around the concept of ecosystems, we believe it will increasingly have a powerful effect on our future growth perspectives. One where a network of different partners will all contribute to this often ‘emergent’ thinking to increase the total sum of the value. We look towards achieving a greater “value creation” from this.

For us to get to this new thinking around Ecosystems we need to re-think our future design for new partnerships across and external to the business

Let us ask some really open questions here, we are beginning to work upon different concepts and solutions, so you are aware and can help.  We would appreciate your involvement and engagement, it will potentially and fundamentally change how we will operate as a company.

We need to evolve and find the answers to this new ecosystem thinking and perhaps countless other design questions that emerge as we embark on a change of this nature as it becomes highly collaborative.

This will demand us to become “ecosystem ready.” So what does that mean?

We need to rethink our corporate and deal relating strategy. We need new ways to evaluate, model and place valuation on what we want to engage upon. This will require different due diligence.

We also need to think about what we can offer and what we believe is our future market offering and potential. This will change our present thinking around intellectual property, about data exchanges, security, and privacy

It will call upon all of us to think about how to change, to adjust, to highlight gaps we might have and the different types of talent we need to bring into the business.

We have worked hard to build up our understanding, to bring much of this together but we see this as an evolving journey, supported by a growing ecosystem of partners and collaborators and your open involvement.

What will change in our operations, in our planning, in our response rates?

How do we maintain our reputation but also go out and build this in new, more exciting ways that attract our shareholders and stakeholders to relate and invest in our business?

Risk management, controls, and governance all need a different more responsive and robust framework for us to form relationships, with less fear, greater guidelines. We need to encourage a greater culture to experiment, to explore, learn and engage

The whole approach to cybersecurity changes, as we collaborate, we will exchange at even faster rates, we must ensure our business security is not compromised or those of our partners. We need trust and belief that what we undertake is secure.

We need to seek out knowledge and bring this back inside the company so we can all internally grow with a collaborative network.

When you spend your energies on ‘control’ you want to manage this within your own environment. When we “step out” and work alongside others in a network of ecosystems we have to find ways to simply “let go” but still account and report in ways that do not place what we have at risk. Managing this is not going to be easy but ways that can be found, are our belief and commitment.

All of these require a shift in resources, capital allocation, planning, in cultural adaptive ways. We need to become more fluid, less rigid, we need to become more responsive, curious, and dynamic.

It does call for a very different way we will be going to manage the business in the future. We have some answers that encourage us to recommend and pursue this journey. This journey of being far more aware and participative in a different thriving ecosystem made up of multiple collaborators, One where connecting networks and thriving relationships can evolve. We should choose to walk this path together.

We have a distinct culture, we cannot impose ours on others, we can articulate our values, but we need to learn from others that want to engage within the ecosystem sharing. This can offer a distinct challenge, but it can allow us to extend out and appreciate far more. Mutual understanding strengthens bonds and builds a greater ecosystem, built on a greater relationship and network than standing alone. We validate and confirm, we adjust and can sharpen our beliefs. Sharing and exchanging knowledge is a powerful catalyst to informed change.

So as the CEO, with my fellow board members, we ask for your help.

As your CEO, along with my fellow board members, we will want to spend some time discussing this with you all. It is a transforming step, but it offers a new way of managing. It holds excitement, promise and we believe a more sustainable future to build out our business, in highly collaborative and valued ways

We will need to equally learn from you, wanting your contribution and questions. We are all learning as it opens up a completely different way to work and manage our business, in highly collaborative ways. In some cases, there are no easy answers, and we will not have immediate answers, but “we” will find them together.

Will you join me on this journey where managing and collaborating within ecosystems will be offering us something that can be summed up as radical and exciting?

One where we believe will provide us greater belief in building a sustainable future, where we adjust, respond, and change in a demanding, very challenging and rapidly changing world, that we are all part of. One where we see change as exciting, different and highly connected, to strengthen and build out a common purpose, of creating new value, growth and fresh opportunities for the future.