Business Ecosystems

IoT and Sustainability: How economic growth and sustainability fit together.

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So, what is the future for humanity, and where does technology with a purpose fit? Can we envision a new era of sustainability powered by IoT?

An exchange recently between Dr Peter Körte, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Siemens AG, with Martin Powell, Head of Sustainability & Environment Initiatives at Siemens Financial Services, tackled these questions in a discussion facilitated by Oisin Lunny as the host.

During the Hannover Messe week (12- 16th April 2021), this exchange took place as part of Siemens events in a specially constructed virtual environment. I would recommend finding time to visit this three-day event as it will be available for some weeks. It really is worth it; sign up here, sie.ag/3tnhVD4, to gain access.

So, can IoT and Sustainability fit together to give us real economic growth?

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Making the case for Ecosystem thinking

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Business is certainly changing

Credit Tatiana Plakhova @ complexitygraphics.com

Regretfully many businesses are still caught in the change over from the past industrial era, we have not fully absorbed or translated the impact of the digital effect. The rising expectations from technology are ‘running way ahead’ of our ability to transform the organizations to be digitally ready.

We are in need of finding and developing environments that are far more connected and open, simple yet intelligent to reduce complexity, yet fast and scalable as the frequency and collaboration needs are changing, all placing increased demands on the organization.

With the consistent onslaught of social media, the potential of cloud computing and the increasing reliance on the mobile or smartphone, the pressure is on organizations to adapt and respond accordingly. The consumer expectations are dramatically shifting to expecting these connected experiences we have written about, they are seeking higher levels of personal gratification.

Everything is about “getting connected”.

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Creating A Unique Nested Hydrogen Ecosystem for the Energy Transformation

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Ecosystems hold a certain fascination for me. The ecosystem approach can tackle and help resolve some of the more complex issues we face.

We increasingly use the word “ecosystem” to describe our environment that we operate with, but we are often diluting its true positioning.

Truly unique ecosystems are hard to find and certainly to manage. One I really feel reflects a collaborative model worth explaining is the ones that are forming around Hydrogen as the alternative energy vector based on renewables. To replace or become a significant part of any entrenched energy system requires a system design approach. This part of the energy transition fits within the ‘greater’ energy system design.

Let’s look at this with some context and then clarify that approaching Hydrogen needs a unique Ecosystem design. We are presently building a unique ‘nested’ Hydrogen Ecosystem within the Energy Transition. It is interesting to explore, firstly here and then in a follow-up post on one of its specific parts.

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The Power of Innovation Ecosystems

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Powerful networked ecosystem

We are entering the world of innovation ecosystems where broader, more complex innovation challenges, through greater collaborations can be achieved.

So to help, there is a dedicated site to building the arguments and exploring options for your future here in collaborative designs and you have found it!

Collaborative Ecosystems are forging a new direction and momentum for innovation to travel and tackle more demanding innovation that requires the capabilities of more than one to deliver what is becoming increasingly possible through technology and the network effect we see through our growing connections.

For many today, innovation is simply not working, it remains a disappointment for a variety of reasons, especially for those leading organizations required to be seeking out new growth, operating in increasingly volatile and tough markets where disruption and copying are increasing the pressures. Something has to change and it is this recognition that it can come from managing innovation in ecosystems that can provide part of the answer.

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Thinking About Relationship and Network Management

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By looking outside we open up. More and more demands are being placed on us via our customers, suppliers, our regulators and a host of other stakeholders all wanting to contribute into our existing knowledge. The ability to collaborate, to cooperate is coming by purposefully designing ecosystems and platforms

We struggle to adapt to these new external pressures as the more we engage outside we realize there are (often) stark differences in approaching problems. This adaptation demands a very different approach to anyone organizations structures, processes and systems. They need to adapt to and support these changes in working within an ecosystem designed one.

We all need to be more flexible, adaptable and agile so our resources grow their capacity to absorb and strengthen the competency and capability in new more dynamic ways. To design in ecosystem thinking needs a very different approach.

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Connecting future value will come from Ecosystem thinking

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Ecosystems can offer so much connecting value out there to ‘form’ around.

The value of breaking down long-standing boundaries is occurring with or without you.

Barriers are dissolving as more recognize the need and value of coalescing around a networked ecosystem.

The chances for greater, more radical innovation to grow the business comes from exploring mutual opportunities to capture new economic value.

We are witnessing a very radical change, driven by technology, increasingly disrupting and breaking down past traditional boundaries, partly built to defend positions so as to achieve economic scale. Ecosystem thinking for designing the future of business collaboration is central to the changes we are navigating through today.

There is a new economic logic to build even greater scale, it involves greater complexity, yet its value proposition is to strive towards offer greater customer experience and satisfaction, where the solutions are valued highly in social and economic value.

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Look around you the cross-industry or community ecosystem is exploding.

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Many of the changes that will emerge in the next twelve to twenty-four months will become more cross-industry and service ecosystems. The search is far more today looking for synergies.

Connecting into a Ecosystem is necessary to extract those collaborative synergies. It requires a host (platform provider), different apps, weblinks and consistent ways to integrate these so those using the airport or train station can navigate their way around their personal needs. It needs an ecosystem and platform management to bring this together.

We are increasingly expecting as consumers, uninterrupted connectivity, and virtual integration and that need for continued connectivity will spur new value propositions for technology and AI to take over and manage more of your daily, repetitive tasks.

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The building of a Hydrogen Ecosystem in Europe

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The global challenge of climate change is coming rapidly to the points where it is forcing governments, businesses and knowledge organisations all over the world to mobilise behind carbon-reducing innovations, e.g. large-scale renewable energy implementation and electrification.

When it comes to innovation and leading the energy transition, Europe is showing clear leadership and in one specific and important technology, a global leader in electrolysis technology required to produce green hydrogen. The challenge today is to convert that leading position into a sustaining best of class one, that leads the world in electrolyzer expertise, production and research.

Today, Europe has a promising start, but it has significant challenges to break down the silo’s of knowledge and expertise and seize this opportunity to learn how to collaborate and build a thriving, robust and collaborative ecosystem around the building of a world-leading position in the electrolyzer market space.

At this time though, despite a promising outlook for the use of the eölectrolyzer for hydrogen, water electrolysis technology is not sufficiently mature to fit that purpose. It still is at a limited scale and is not yet at the point of the expectations building up around it. An enormous challenge lies ahead in upscaling currently available technologies to GW-scale factories required to drive forward the energy transition.

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The power of ecosystem thinking

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“Opening up our thinking towards ecosystems will have a powerful effect,
it alters the way we will approach problems today and in the future”

Our whole understanding of innovation is changing; we are evaluating and changing our existing focus from closed (internal orientation) into open and far more collaborative innovation (external orientation) with our collective thinking offering the acceleration into improving our innovation performances, leading to higher chances of achieving greater impact and success.

The search is seemingly on to find greater value, which will increasingly coalesce around different innovation ecosystems.  We need to form in many different ways significantly more relationships that increasingly matter to each organization, that add value, insight, and bring external expertise inside to work on ‘greater’ innovation solutions.

We are creating the potential to deliver innovative products and services that would not be delivered by only having the one organization attempting it. Complexity is on the rise, offering discrete products is on the wane.

Firstly why are business ecosystems emerging as a real competitive force?

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The ecosystem relationship of a rain forest is also how innovation can work effectively  

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Firstly I would argue that innovation, to be managed well, needs to operate like an ecosystem, the same as a tropical rainforest.

Ecosystems to flourish need to experience critical feeds, in the rain forest this is high average temperatures and significant rainfall.

Well for innovation to thrive needs critical aspects; it needs a real focus, well above average and significant attention  to be well maintained and flourish.

We argue for diversity within our innovation teams, in our thinking, in our environment and that is no different from the high levels of biodiversity in tropical rain forests.

We need this ‘richness’ of thinking, of approaches, of discovery.  We search constantly for ideas, we experiment, and we are subjected to change. We are always looking for that certain something still undiscovered.

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