Category Archives: Innovation Ecosystems

Grappling with complex ecosystems, energy transitions, and planet earth.

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Source: https://theconversation.com/humanitys-sustainability-is-no-excuse-for-abandoning-planet-earth-80699. Time to go? Shutterstock

It has been fashionable to “hang” any network of relationships with the ecosystem tag; it has become the de jour or trendy label to suggest this announced initiative indicates it is complicated and highly valuable.

Well, in all honesty, most ecosystem “tags” are only an extension of building out a more significant community than the one previously, looking to deal with increasing complexity and expecting commercial gain, well that alone is not an ecosystem approach.

Ecosystems fascinate me; they do have a significant opportunity to change what is existing for something new. The need is to balance the healthy interactions and the conditions for that environment to flourish. Of course, many people might argue, “so what is wrong with what we have got?” Often I can’t disagree with this view, we do replace what works seemingly well because of our need to leave our own “footprint” in the world.

In Business we have “stolen” this ecosystem concept from its original meaning: “An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life.”

In business terms, we have taken this into these larger communities that interact through their network connections; they are dynamic or aim to be better than the previous structure. Continue reading →

Compressing innovations time needs platforms and ecosystems

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We all facing this growing pressure of time. In our daily work, in managing product and service life-cycles, as well as constantly considering business model overhauls as they become ever more connected.

We are not in stable markets anymore but increasingly volatile ones. Innovation needs to be at the forefront of the changes occurring and it above all else needs to find solutions to compress its time from ideation to commercialization.

It is through acknowledging that platforms and ecosystems are today’s new order to deliver innovation. Platforms that connect into the customer needs within its broader ecosystem of design, so the innovation needed to be delivered is capable to match those needs. Innovation requires greater collaboration, a process that is connecting everyone involved in the process from discovery, to design, through to the final viable product, to be on the same platform and contributing their part to the final offering.

Let’s explore some of the parts of the new innovation order: Continue reading →

So are you considering a new platform business model? Good luck!

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You cannot escape the discussions around platform business models. Recently I saw that 50% of all organizations are either investing or considering a new platform business model. In a report provided by the IBM Institute for Business Value, released last year called “The Incumbents Strike Back” they really encapsulated the survey work they undertook in four topics that tell a story of today, or it certainly should do.

What’s required, now more than ever, according to IBM, is the fortitude for perpetual reinvention and these four topics tell the story of why these are important:

Firstly we are all “dancing with disruption” and it is the reinventors that are finding the way to balance the existing with the designs of the future. This was described as a “balance between stability and dynamism” and exploring the forces at play.

Secondly, reinventors are placing their “trust in the journey” as they are investing in design thinking, testing the assumptions and re-orientating their organizations to engage with their customers to create deep bonds based on trust, the path to personalization.

Thirdly, the whole value is changing based on “orchestrating the future” where organizations scale differently their partner networks, reconsider their value propositions and allocate resources more on business platform designs.

Fourthly, there is a liberating for “innovation in motion” where constant experimentation, getting close to customers and delving deeper into ever-evolving ecosystems of dynamic teams and partnerships are transforming their landscape.

Two really important points for me in this short report was the pull of the platform business model shown in the visuals provided Continue reading →

China and Asia for Ecosystem Dynamism

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I was trying to capture the Asian dynamism in how they go about Ecosystem designs for their businesses.

The critical captures for me are based on three critical aspects to create this dynamism.

Firstly, in the social conditions within Asia and China for especially smart technology-led connected solutions.

Secondly, the ability of the solution provider in having the capabilities to push the boundaries, in regulatory change and technology innovations, and ‘impose’ radically different structures along the complete supply chain and have as their central focus the customer engagement processes, that delivers the solution needed in the quickest possible time, at the most economical and convenient cost, at increasing scale to drive down costs.

Thirdly having that significant engagement at the top of the organizations, in designing, directing and determining the outcomes and injecting the enthusiasm, drive, and passion for change and commitment.

I believe these three aspects are creating more dynamic ecosystem environments in Asia and especially China.

In Asia, it is a far more top-down but highly entrepreneurial mindset for those that have broken through and built real scale and really very big businesses on their platforms with the excellent technology and a sharp-minded approach to connecting up the ecosystem within the design and solutions. Continue reading →

Facing the future- the galactic war of IIoT platforms moves into its next phase

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So Hannover Messe 19 (#HM19) is behind us. The pavilions are being pulled down, some stored away for use next year.

The buzz, excitement and the sheer energy and effort, that thousands put into their role as part of this event, is amazing. The exhibitor, like the committed visitor, ends up exhausted, even ‘spent’ but was it worth it?

The “housing” under HM19 of so many competing forces within Industry all vying for attention is overwhelming. It reminds you of how competitive and confusing all of this transformation stuff is. So conflicting actually.

The memories can be fleeting or they can be lasting. In the end, they nudge us all nearer to decisions, these sort of events help us to become more informed. what we lack is a better way of containing all we have learned so we can filter it, sort it and relate the multiple messages to our own needs. Not easy but “do-able” in better ways than we have today. The “return on investment” gets better if we can make connections into “connected stories” I have some thoughts on these but that is for another time. Let’s get into this piece. Continue reading →

Digital transformation is our place of purgatory today.

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We are caught in a moment of time. All the hype, push, the argument for making the “digital transformation” is so badly stalled in many of our Corporations. We are running a marathon, mostly it seems fueled by “spent” energy and a growing sense of lowering our belief and confidence that we can finish this.

These digital transformations are like the deer, suddenly caught in the headlamp of a car that simply freezes, they seem immobilized, even for brief seconds, sometimes its reaction to flee is too late, it gets caught out by the oncoming car.

I feel many of our entities are caught in this moment of fear, bewilderment, rather paralyzed in how to tackle digital transformation. It is overwhelming. The advice available often does not help, it compounds that fear, they seem to be just staring at the size of the problem. Continue reading →

The Ability to Scale and Collaborate in Platform Thinking.

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Credit Tatiana Plakhova @ complexitygraphics.co

For no specific reason, I went a little quiet on my posts on this site recently. There was not one reason, it felt that February just slipped by.

Actually, I can partly explain it as it was partly caught up in a project that took more time than I expected.

Also partly caught up in a lot of mixed feelings that held me back, so I got a little blocked in my thinking. You do have moments like that but you eventually work through them and “something” unblocks and things start to flow again.

Suddenly in the first few days of March, like Spring arriving, it was a very different burst of energy, well actually more insights, that have kicked off my month well. Continue reading →

Are PTC and Rockwell Automation Delivering the Connected Enterprise?

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In June 2018 we saw that Rockwell Automation (ROK) made a $1 Billion investment into PTC that will give Rockwell just under a 9% ownership interest in PTC. I decided to wait to look at this. Now here is the time for a review eight months later.

I have made initial snapshots (all separate links) on Schneider Electric, Bosch, GE, Siemens, ABB,  Alibaba and Baidu to look a little deeper at their platform offerings. I still have to dig into Azure and AWS sometime but this partnership of a leading software provider in the IoT space and Rockwell, dedicated to industrial automation takes precedence, as my primary focus is on platforms and ecosystems in business IIoT.

Rockwell had not responded up to this point in a strategic way to the very strong pushes, led by their largest competitor, Siemens on IIoT platforms. Siemens has been building their Mindsphere offering in their own unique purposeful ways.

This move and partnership between Rockwell and PTC might change the game significantly. PTC will be supplying a real IIoT backbone of platform components and are rapidly delivering an integrated industrial digitalization solution.

Slapping $1 billion on the table really does potentially transform both businesses. Continue reading →

The IIoT digital solution platform market- late 2018 round-up of my observations.

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Do you know your platform solution?

Knowing your digital solutions is key to choose industrial platforms, as they might not meet your exact needs

What is under the hood of an Industrial Platform solution? What do you look for?

IIoT Platforms are still under significant construction

How do you judge the platforms that are out there?

Companies have this essential need to build an IoT platform today, or be at least very active partner in one, or even many, to fit their business goals. A platform connects, it connects your world with the rest of the world. Often when we talk about IIoT, it can get easily confused with IoT. Actually, IIoT, grew out of the other, IOT.

IoT is mostly about making the human interaction with the object(ives). IIoT is about connecting devices, sensors, building and improving manufacturing execution systems then applying intelligence and analytics to understand or improve the performance of the existing devices. The aim is to monitor, build parameters, sophisticated controls and search for solutions that will lessen the downtime and improve the productivity of the asset.

McKinsey estimates that the Industrial Internet of Things will create $7.5T in added-value by 2025. IIoT has been valued at around $255b as a market in 2025 (a past GE estimate). These two seem to offer very different estimates. In many ways, we are all confused and still guessing or predicting, because of so much uncertainty and not honestly knowing what comes next in technology invention that changes the position. We have learned, in our engagement and growing reliance just on the smartphone.

We have all learned to adapt and adopt so differently, as we connect more and more. In the IIoT world, there is predicted value across all of the connections (McKinsey view)  and as we see more solutions emerging, as ways to serve that “connected” need market growth will more than likely simply accelerate away. Speed, scale, scope are all accelerating away, and as companies, we need to find our positioning in this evolution and industrial internet. The 4th Industrial revolution is well-under way.

Let me provide a snapshot, my view, of where IIoT platforms-as-a-service sit today. Continue reading →

Moving Towards a New Innovation Movement around Ecosystems.

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Ecosystems in our business thinking have suddenly become of age, they can enable cross-cutting innovation to be delivered in highly collaborative and dynamic ways. Understanding the value of working within an ecosystem is becoming critical to understand.

Ecosystems can offer, through collaborating on a shared platform, closer relationship with cross-industry partners and more importantly, the final customer.

Sharing, exchanging and deepening the understanding of different needs and experience through increased collaboration, and engagement opens up innovation to a whole new dimension of more radical innovation. We are seeing a shift in innovation cooperation with this ecosystem design approach and we are all working through the implications of this from a process, structure, architecture and design point of view. It changes our internal perspectives and opens these up to a diverse external influx of knowledge and different understanding.

The more we are connecting and collaborating, seeking out joint opportunities for business, there is this realization that there lies a really powerful network effect for value-adding in participating in these ecosystems, for finding and sharing in new economic opportunity. This calls for some radical rethinking of the existing business and deciding the design of the future business. Continue reading →