An Emerging Blueprint for thinking through Business Ecosystems

Integrated Blueprint Framework for Business Ecosystem Design and Thinking

So why do we need a Blueprint for thinking through the Business Ecosystem needs of future business? ​

  • A blueprint is needed to thrive and find solutions in the face of complexity and uncertainty. ​
  • Ecosystem thinking and design should be central to this blueprint, as it offers the potential for transformative power and new impact, value, and growth. ​
  • The integration of business ecosystems needs the interconnected parts, with each layer contributing to the whole. ​
  • The three main layers are Strategic, Operational and Crosscutting in design and building blocks
  • The need is to move towards a more comprehensive understanding of the values of synergies, interdependencies, and exponential value created when these layers are interconnected.

We need to appreciate the real business ecosystems we need, they are radically different than most of how we presently undertake Business.

What we first need to do is appreciate this significant difference of what are Business Ecosystems BEFORE we jump into chasing different growth, impact or business opportunity. It needs to recognize the most likely outcome is likely to be a new collaborative Business Model and ask “are we ready for that?”

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A fear of missing out will drive you towards Business Ecosystems models

The Yin and Yang of Business- opportunity and risk. Image Adobe

Are we seeing increasing complexity within the business world? The search for growth is having real impact from changing political realities, regulatory and market conditions. We are in a fractured and polarized world at present and we all have to adapt and change how we go about our business. There is more uncertainty and you judge this as either risk or opportunity. There is a strategic imperative to “open up” to alternatives to how you undertake business or accelerate it.

For me risk or opportunity are the same side of the coin, you can’t gain one without a level of the other playing its part. A business “yin and yang”, the opposite but interconnected and often complementary forces to drive our business forward by applying business ecosystem thinking and design opens up new competitive forces to build into your strategic thinking.

Is the level of “fear” seemingly rising and are our business organizations equipped or not, to draw upon the many alternatives that technology, Gen AI, platforms, networks, collaboration and co-creation opportunities that are offered to manage and rethink new opportunity and risk?

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Providing the Building Blocks of the Ecosystem Business Model framework

Providing the full building blocks of the Ecosystem Business Model

I share this outlined design frame here, clearly to advance Business Ecosystems and provide a framework that enables individuals, groups and (multiple) organizations to begin to organize their conversations into the building blocks to explain and build Ecosystem conversations.

Business ecosystems are complex and often chase down challenges that potentially offer levels of uniqueness and significant improvement on what is existing or known as the existing solutions within the market place but are highly complex in their nature.

In my recent post I provided an initial Ecosystem Business Model frame to introduce and build out a common language and then took that into nine building blocks to get to the point of validating the thinking behind this emerging concept to decide in a further evaluation in a structured way

Providing the full Ecosystem Business Model is the next step

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Breaking down complexity, introducing the Ecosystem Business Model frame

Building the Ecosystem Business model is a paradigm shift

Building Business Ecosystems can be complex to build, let alone explain. I have been working on an evolving Ecosystem Business Model for some time.

So many people are unable to explain Business Ecosystems, especially to others and it holds its evolution back. Let me explain some of my thinking here

I visualized a starting point nearly all should be familiar with, of the Business Model Canvas, by Alexander Osterwalder, drawn from his PhD thesis, supervised by Yves Pigneur (2004), called a business model ontology.

This BMC become a phenomena to enable us to easily describe what building blocks need to be considered for building a business model. As a visual chart it enabled us all to build a picture. It allowed us to describe, design, challenge, invent, explain and eventually recognize where to pivot your business model.

That business model canvas tends to stay rooted (or designed) in the single entity in its intention and as Business Ecosystems involve multiple and diverse stakeholders it helps but, in my opinion, does not reflect the design needed for these Ecosystem models.

In my view “In today’s interconnected world, businesses are increasingly operating within complex ecosystems. Traditional business models often fail to capture the dynamics and interdependence of these ecosystems, leading to missed opportunities of significant competitive advantage and exposure to increased risks that others are recognizing changes and equally on the hunt for new Business Models”

We need to build an Ecosystem Business Model story

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