My building blocks towards Ecosystem thinking

Building blocks towards Ecosystem thinking and designing

Part-way through 2022, I drew up a list of my focal points in researching, stimulating my thinking and finding different validation points on my Ecosystem thinking and design approaches. In early January this year, I took a stop, more a reflective period in these past months, to deepen down even further my knowledge of Ecosystem thinking and design. I aim to achieve, even advancing, Ecosystem understanding for those interested to learn and seeking advice through direct engagements.

My main focus on Ecosystems comes from the innovation perspective. How can we finally combine all the different parts of the Innovation system into one, fully connected up and achieve a far more open design where contributors, both inside and outside organizations, can contribute as it is the diversity of experience needed today to give fresh value and impact on complex and challenging issues, We need that discovery to commercialization fully connected up to be leveraged fully in all the diversity of contributions.

Innovation in its challenges and problems has become more complex and challenging, both in solutions offered and in working out all the connected parts to provide products or services that are superior to the existing ones. The need to provide that essential “dynamic” of having customer engagement in their data, a growing network of connected partners providing their input, their exploring and experimenting so the inventor can learn and seek to improve the product or service accordingly.

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Stages of a Virtual Industrial Metaverse Learning Journey

Viewing the stages of the Virtual Industrial metaverse journey

The Industrial Metaverse has really “announced” itself this year. For me, it accelerated in my attention once Siemens and Nvidia announced their partnership to explore the Industrial Metaverse in early July.

The announcement came at the launch of Siemens Xcelerator, a digital platform and having both announcements made at the same event had a more extensive “bang” with the more attention-grabbing one, announcing the Industrial Metaverse partnership, in my view, overshadowed the other, the Siemens Xcelerator, which forms the Siemens building block towards this industrial future and the essentials required of a digital platform to accelerate any businesses digital transformation.

“Siemens Xcelerator is an open digital business platform that will accelerate digital transformation. Now companies of all sizes can access the digital technologies to transform how they compete, collaborate and connect“- Siemens website.

Through this open digital business platform, Siemens Xcelerator is featuring and building a curated portfolio of IoT-enabled hardware and software, a powerful ecosystem of partners, and a marketplace.

The journey is moving towards the Industrial Metaverse and I see it evolving in this way

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Building the Innovation Ecosystem narrative

Building out the Innovation Ecosystem narrative

There needs to be a fundamental shift in how we manage innovation, which needs ecosystem thinking and design. Not only in thinking and design but in how we structure its architecture, one based on platforms, open apps, and a marketplace for selection appropriate for the innovation delivery intention. This needs to be in open, highly collaborative ecosystems.

We need a better conceptual framework to build, one based on knowledge-based intelligence and well-grounded, driven by dynamic and constant interactions, events and processes, so all involved can be engaged in building solutions that have fresh impact and value within the market space identified.

My mind map of the over-arching aims of a new innovation narrative is shown below.

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Disruption is the new constant; forget the Status Quo

credit Storyblocks.com

Our existing business organizations need to envisage a changing world full of disruption that calls for radical constant change. They need to be ready to meet different challenges that will be consistent, complex and highly challenging, require the ability to be highly adaptive, and need high levels of open collaboration.

Connected technology needs to be central to responding rapidly and enabling this more volatile world we are facing. To achieve this responsiveness, organizations need to organize around ecosystems and platform technology approaches. This approach provides the potential ability to deliver an understanding of constant change. One that recognizes it has to be part of a growing collaborating network to thrive in this highly connected, rapidly changing and challenging world.

We need to transform or be (totally) disrupted; this is where knowing your ecosystem and network comes in as the new thinking and design of how this needs to be constructed and understood.

How and where innovation fits will depend on this transforming effect.

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Dealing with growing complexity needs innovation ecosystem thinking and design

earth globe with googly eyes on gray background
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Much of business today is caught up in managing short-term change that is growing in complexity and challenges across the business world globally. There is growing leadership and employee fatigue in managing rolling crises and not being able to adequately focus on the longer term, have that space to renew and in enough time as ideally liked. Disruption has been a constant at all organisational levels to adapt and adjust to worldwide events totally out of that organization’s control.

Following the pandemic, it has been hard to regain consistency due to staffing discontinuities and displacements, sourcing of raw materials, especially from China, their intermittency in availability and the general disruption of world trade. The war in Ukraine has only added more short-term crises in switching fuels, sourcing difficulties, changing supply chain dynamics, and generally readjusting the business operations in Ukraine and Russia to highly constrained operations or the loss/withdrawal need required by sanctions.

So the challenges in the past year have been highly focused on supply chain disruptions, plugging gaps in technology solutions that can provide solutions that can offer higher flexible, agile and advanced planning and production environments. The continued needs to keep moving towards securing a more sustainable future that reflects the need to become carbon neutral; net zero has needed a far more agile and adaptive approach.

As well as encourages thinking that is building a more robust circular economy to offset the immediate shortages but builds out a waste reduction mentality and recycling approach.

Yet disruption is increasing; we are in a volatile world of constant change.

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Why Innovation Ecosystems?

Reaching out for a new design built on collaborative building blocks of design

Following on from a series of posts on innovation ecosystems, especially a recent one, “Seeing innovation differently through ecosystem thinking and design” I outlined a need for a profound shift in the business landscape; well in my view, that time is rapidly approaching.

Why do we need to make a really necessary change?

Our present economic models, certainly in the West are so heavily debt-laden, from the effects of over-spending, supporting the Ukrainian war, and the Corvid crisis, and rightly supporting those in economic need and business difficulties.

One of the problems in economic distribution is that applying this in a top-down way is it can often not determine those in need from those who simply gain or are unable to deliver to those the adequate or appropriate support they require.

Our models of economic distribution are simply outdated or built on self-interest or self-promotion or simply enabling preservation for individual benefit and not for the ‘greater’ community.

The next few years are going to be very painful in further adjustments and polarization.

Our politicians continue the hackneyed phrase or idea, said or used so often that it has become boring and has no meaning, of the need for growth and prosperity.

I cannot see this way forward if we remain “locked” in the existing systems of self-interest, benefits being given to selected groups as rewards for support or simply to maintain the status quo.

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Exploring points of value in adopting Business Platforms.

Business Platforms provide the backbone of the Network.

Today we are still caught up in the validation and relevance of managing a business through platform thinking by making the business case of its value and impact. We should not be; it is time for you to hop onto the train.

The ability to present a compelling business case for the use and application of platforms is overwhelming. I think I have well over 100 plus arguments for their use, value, impact and application.

For me, platforms are needed as we face a very different economic landscape.

We need to choose where to focus in the future, where to concentrate our resources and attempt to bridge the fragmentation that is occurring. The world of collaboration, where we can find partners to share and reinforce what we do, is leading to new dynamics of combining.

Platforms are more viable and relevant.

Platforms allow you the opportunity to innovate in very different ways. They can add value through collaborations that can add more to the internal efficiency options through learning and sharing. Platforms help manage the difficulties of transitions we are all undergoing and change how we see the world through a broader collaborative set of lenses. Continue reading

Siemens Xcelerator- part three- how it does it and why.

Siemens Xcelerator Launch with Roland Busch, President and CEO of Siemens AG

A three-part series of posts exploring the what, why and how of Siemens Xcelerator- this is part three– how it does it and why.

This post is about “how Siemens Xcelerator does it and why,” from my perspective.

My aim in three separate posts all linked here is to explore the Siemens Xcelerator, firstly what it is, secondly, what it does and thirdly, how it does it.

These three posts are “looking into” Siemens. I am looking from the outside to see the value of this launch announcement of the Siemens Xcelerator Digital Business Platform. The launch proposal offers much.

How Siemens Xcelerator does it and why means what?

The stated objective: “Siemens AG has launched an open digital business platform, Siemens Xcelerator, to accelerate digital transformation and value creation for customers of all sizes in industry, buildings, grids and mobility. The business platform makes the digital transformation easier, faster and scalable.”

The real key here is the open connections between solutions and all engaged parties in the interactions and transactions.

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Siemens Xcelerator Part Two- what it does

Siemens Xcelerator Digital Business Platform

A Series of Posts exploring the what, why and how of Xcelerator- part two

In this series, I felt there is a need for a deepening or exploring of what Siemens Xcelerator is all about. What are the implications and value opportunities for customers, distributors, partners, or analysts?

My aim in three separate posts all linked here is to explore the Siemens Xcelerator, a new Digital Business Platform, firstly what it is, secondly, what it does and thirdly, how it does it.

These three posts are “looking into” Siemens. I am looking from the outside to see the value of this launch announcement of the Siemens Digital Business Platform. The launch proposal offers much. The first post I recommend reading provides context to “what Siemens Xcelerator is.”

This post is about “what it does,” from my perspective.

The real key here is the open connections between solutions and all engaged parties in the interactions

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Siemens is building a powerful industrial partner ecosystem

Siemen’s industrial partner vision builds on three waves of engagement

The power of the Siemens industrial partner ecosystem is in having partners combining their domain expertise, with the Digital Enterprise portfolio of Siemens to solve real-world challenges and create value for customers.

Building a powerful industrial partner ecosystem

How do you set about building an open, inclusive ecosystem that enables global knowledge sharing and open collaboration?

A fascinating session held at Hannover Messe 2022 by Siemens was entitled “Master digital transformation and accelerate business value through a powerful industrial Partner Ecosystem”, bringing together representatives of a solution group, moving towards 2,000 solution partners, that work within the platform provided by Siemens.

The concept provides an ecosystem approach that combines different partner expertise to tackle and support the digital transformation needed to break down silos and think well beyond the walls of the present customers’ current configuration within their factories to turn them into a Digital Enterprise.

The forum’s design is an open, highly collaborative way to solve problems, resolve challenges and build out a customer’s environment to benefit from the connected solutions that technology enablement brings.

The concept is to build on what each partner has already gained from their experience and expertise, delivered to their customers, to share and provide services and technology solutions to different Siemens customers that bring them higher business value and impact.

To read more on this review visit

ingenuity.siemens.com • 1 min read

Conclusion

Partnerships, collaborations and networks are becoming essential.

There is a real need to seek out innovative partnerships that form this new sustainability ecosystem, so a shared environment can develop jointly, deploy resources, and scale solutions in more agile and rapid ways, to meet customer needs and challenges, where their expertise and resources are constrained or need that greater knowledge expertise on OT & IT issues to be resolved.

Today the Digital Enterprise requires building within an open, inclusive industrial ecosystem environment that enables sharing and open collaborations to react to changing business opportunities, to collaborate, seize and respond to new revenue and business offerings.

Dedicated Reference Sites

More information about the growing international partner network and the global partner finder can be found on the website. https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/topic-areas/partners/industry.html).

 

Disclaimer: This article is published in partnership with Siemens. Siemens is paying for my engagement, not for promotional purposes. Opinions are my own