Innovation Ecosystems

Returning to the Interconnected Parts of the Ecosystem

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Credit Katri Valkokari

I wrote a post “the Interconnected Parts of the Ecosystem” earlier this year, after a paper written by Katri Valkokari, a Research Manager at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland caught my eye. I wanted to come back to this really powerful visual, recognizing the three interrelated ecosystems we require to form around. I mentioned in my post, these three parts actually do fuse into one, making up an integrated ecosystem of their distinct parts.

It gave me a level of recognition that we do have this need for this three-stage evolution, especially in a business context. Each establishes a boundary of scope and feeds into each other constantly. It is the fact they combine ideas, skills, learning, fresh insights, leading to promising outcomes and creations. It is how they interact and add new value that gives this ‘combination effect’ such potential for us to consider.

The combining of tangible and intangible assets gives us ‘fresh capital’. I have written about Capital and consciously focused upon this, up to know, more under Innovation Capital, as this draws in knowledge through insights and then pushes these out from Knowledge into Organizations as concepts to be explored and exploited, to grow and improve.

Our innovation capital has mostly been internally built to date, yet there is a time and need to take this out with new forms of collaboration, leveraging all the combined assets into a new “collective capital”. This needs reflecting upon, of how you would ‘break this down’, perhaps within this awareness of all these three ecosystems that we do need to consider.

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Apollo and Baidu: the Autonomous Platform Builders

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In the latest update to its platform, Baidu says partners can access new obstacle perception technology and high-definition maps, among other features. We are told that the company with the most data will win. To get the real edge it is to have and train algorithms that interpret the intelligence and here you need to understand the value of AI (Artificial Intelligence).

Now there is a significant “buzz” on AI at present but where it is really taking off is in China and one company needs to be followed is Baidu.

How Baidu is going about this is to build ecosystems that commercialize AI technology and then attract this ecosystem of partners and developers to accelerate AI into actionable knowledge.

Then we see the Autonomous Platform emerging……

Just released a further update

Chinese search engine giant Baidu is to spend 10bn yuan (£1.1bn; $1.5bn) on new driverless car projects over the next three years. The “Apollo Fund” will invest in 100 autonomous driving projects over the next three years, Baidu said in a statement.. The move is an attempt to catch up with US rivals by enlisting outside help.It now has 70 partners across several fields in the auto industry, up from 50 in July, it says

The launch of Baidu’s “Apollo Fund” coincides with the release of Apollo 1.5, the latest version of its open-source autonomous vehicle software. In the latest update to its platform, Baidu says partners can access new obstacle perception technology and high-definition maps, among other features”.

Reuters News 21st Sept, 2017

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From footpath to Facebook: Building a platform

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I’ve been interested in what constitutes a “platform” and how platforms spawn and nurture ecosystems for quite some time.  We’ve been exploring these ideas in this blog over the last few months.

In this post I’d like to start identifying some of the key factors that anyone thinking about innovating or building a platform must consider.  To do that, I’d like to start, as the title suggests, by reviewing the first platforms.

The first platforms were paths, rivers and other means of improving human interaction and communication.  As interactions were improved and information flowed more easily, civilization, which is just a form of an ecosystem on a platform, developed.  Roads, canals and other forms of improved transportation simply became a better platform, and allowed the Romans to create financial and trade mechanisms not equaled until the 19th century.

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Moving beyond the “ten types” of innovation

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Many innovators are familiar with the concept of the “ten types” of innovation developed by Doblin.  If you aren’t familiar with the model, it describes different potential outcomes for innovation, beyond “product” innovation.

Doblin’s ten types includes innovation outcomes based on channels, business models, services, customer experiences and other factors.

As a fan of the model, I return to it and reference it constantly, because far too many innovators narrow their focus and only create new product innovations, when markets and customers are clearly interested in much broader and more diverse innovations.

But as a fan of the ten types model I can also see some of its shortcomings, and one of those is its lack of “depth”.  The ten types model expands the perspective of innovation in terms of breadth – from a single outcome called “product” to a range or spectrum of offering types.  But the model lacks definition around “depth” – building a description of a platform or ecosystem of innovation. 

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Ecosystem approaches are simply radically different, be ready.

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There are significant differences between the ecosystems we might consider. Let’s reflect a little here, some recap and explore some further thoughts.

They all have complexity, they all need highly collaborative platforms to exchange and build through, they all need constant focus on aligning individual ecosystem players needs with the vision and prospective rewards this can bring to all participating parties.

The more engagement with the final ‘consumer’ throughout the process of insight,  discovery to solution building, to eventual proposition outcomes needs the highest ‘active’ attention and communicating for all involved.

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Adjusting to the Changing Landscape of Ecosystems

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the changing landscape for ecosystem and platform thinking

We all are being told repeatedly that opportunities will increasingly emerge outside of the traditional established lines of business, as new digital technology solutions take increasing hold in our adjusting to the changing landscape of our thinking in ecosystem designs.

The issue is how we go about adapting to these and taking advantage of the changes all businesses are undergoing. These will be through different approaches to designing and extracting the potential value gained and will form around ecosystems and their management, through technology solutions provided by platform providers.

I am not sure how you feel, but It seems disruption is in everything, in what we need to undertake, in what is coming towards us in change. It has a common purpose, often far less sinister than promoted.

Disruption is requiring us to re-equip and open up, as we learn to deal in this changing world where connections can emerge from anywhere at any time, offering a new ‘line of sight’ onto an existing business concept.

We need to respond quickly and in those different, collaborative ways. Digital challenges are everywhere, to explore and exploit.

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Amazon and Whole Foods expose an ecosystem gap – the last mile

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In case you were hibernating or out of range of cell cover or WiFi during the last few days, you know that Amazon has made an offer to acquire Whole Foods.

This places the largest online merchant in direct competition with some of the largest retailers in the US – grocery stores – and continues Amazon’s move into “bricks and mortar” businesses.

On this blog Paul and I have been writing about the importance of innovation in platforms and ecosystems.

With this acquisition, Amazon is attempting to extend its platforms into the “real” world and link up its power in the online world with physical stores.  Amazon understand a lot about attracting customers to its site, and does a reasonably good job at distribution.  Amazon gains a trusted “bricks and mortar” company that is respected (or sneered at) by consumers.  Whole Foods isn’t nicknamed “Whole Paycheck” for nothing, and there are some interesting dynamics between a company that isn’t concerned with profits and a company well-known for top of the line products and good customer service.  But we aren’t here to evaluate the integration of these companies, as much as to identify an ecosystem gap.

Amazon and the last mile problem

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The Future Is Within Health Ecosystems

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Source: IBM Institute for Business Value

I have struggled to get my head around the effect of ecosystems within the healthcare system; it is so complex.

In recent weeks, I have recognized the barriers and opportunities around the challenges of building ecosystems for health services to deliver real change within our healthcare and its management.

To help me, I have found some excellent observations to gain this deeper appreciation of the complexities involved. The links are shown at the bottom of this post.

This is my opening summary to relate my understanding of how ecosystem designs might help change this vital sector of our economies.

The first starting point is that the patient themselves have to become the centre of any future healthcare system, based on ecosystem solutions. Why? Firstly, the patient or customer will increasingly be demanding and expecting personalized treatment and want to be able to shop around to achieve this. Secondly, they are expecting and wanting to be part of a controlled method and choose advice and care delivery more than ever. Thirdly, they will shop for quality and cost as the cost models will increasingly look for this personalization to determine the premiums. The final customer will be central to drive the change, and the providers of ‘services’ keen to reposition themselves as responsive to this ‘need.’

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Blockchain and distributed ledgers as innovative platforms

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It had to come to this eventually.  The emergence of Blockchain and distributed ledger systems illustrates how innovation is moving from focus on products and services, which are interesting but don’t provide a long-lasting competitive advantage, to a focus on platforms and ecosystems.

Over the last few weeks this need for a lasting competitive shift in focus was emphasized as Ford pushed out its CEO because he wasn’t changing the company fast enough. As discussed in this blog previously, the automotive sector must rethink its competitive position.  Increasingly, people want flexible transportation – from cabs, Uber, public transportation and/or their cars.

The automotive manufacturers (Ford, GM, Fiat, Mercedes, etc) must shift their focus from building physical cars to providing transportation – a shift in thinking and strategy.

In a very similar manner we can see that banking and financial services are moving from offering discrete services (mortgages, loans, checking/savings accounts, etc) and are considering how to either own or integrate with larger platforms and ecosystems, because the older conventions are less attractive to emerging customers and technology is advancing so quickly that soon many different companies and industries can offer banking-like services.

Distributed ledgers and Blockchain may point out a new competitive platform that some firm is going to capitalize on.  For example, we can imagine a time in the not too distant future where a large company that supports and relies on an extended supply chain – the automotive industry for example – could dictate that all of its supply chain participants must interact using Blockchain.  Then we’d have a company spanning, industry wide ERP like platform.  If this sounds crazy, don’t laugh.  The government of Dubai just announced that within five years every entity that interacts with the government must do so using Blockchain.

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So Let’s Take the Autonomous Car in the Wider Ecosystem Perspective

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Image Credit: Rinspeed

My collaborative colleague here on this website, Jeffrey Phillips, recently wrote a piece on his own blogging site “What autonomous cars tell us about the future of innovation.”  I could not resist picking up on this by taking a broader ecosystem perspective to autonomous vehicles and all the mounting “unintended consequences,” many yet to be fully worked through.

We tend to focus always on the innovation promises of new growth and achieving a clearer competitive advantage, yet we often ‘gloss over’ or push issues and problems onto others to resolve, it is often that innovation has many “unintended consequences”.

Many “unintended consequences” are often very unfortunate and we so often fail to see the consequences, many times our capabilities run ahead of our foresight.Casual maps or cognitive mapping can help reduce these.

We often fail to recognize the “connected system” as we focus on our narrower objectives and fail to fully appreciate the primary objectives of others or the impact this might have. We need to take more of the ‘wider system’ approach into consideration as it might highlight missed opportunities but equally, consequences can have a higher impact cost than expected that allows one part of this wider ecosystem to gain increased value and return but for many others will have a higher knock-on economic cost.

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