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.

Ones that get closer to their connected expectations and daily needs for solutions to solve, in far better ways, than that are presently offered. The innovative design has become paramount to these new offerings.

What we need to do is change our present constraints.

We have built-in constraints. They are holding us back. Boards and Senior Management have a lack of time, as they are often too busy, focusing on the day-to-day. They remain extremely nervous when they do not have clear lines of insight to make what they see as riskier decisions. Finally, they are struggling with their present organizational design to adjust and adapt to the changing external world, full of uncertainties. To dither, to put decisions off, to seek out more certainty is not a position of any strength, it is the catalyst to eventual destruction. We need to face these inbuilt constraints.

There is growing value in engaging in business ecosystems

The potential impact of engagement has a range of benefits that need exploring and answering:

1. Ecosystem configurations enable the (one) business to offer more value to customers
2. They attract, more often than not, new customer bases to go on top of the traditional base
3. Ecosystem designs enable the business to create entirely new and different business opportunities
4. The growth potential can improve being part of a “network effect” due to new propositions
5. Structuring organizational design to leverage the value of collaborations gives greater flexibility
6. Contributing your part to a bigger ecosystem design allows a depth of focus on the activities you do well
7. You gain the ability to share market risks within a partnership of collaborators, committed to a shared vision and pursue new business opportunities that you could not afford on your own.
8. You grow your capabilities as you co-evolve, align future investments and find mutually reinforcing and supportive roles to exploit opportunities.
9. Ecosystems force you to become more proactive to thrive and perform, to master greater sophistication and complexity.
10. The potential impact with customers valuing these connected experiences and being able to participate, engage and contribute opens up value-adding potential

Summary

As you open yourself up to collaborating you open yourself up for greater learning and from this you can reshape your business design to adjust to this changing reality we are finding within a business; the need for designing our business into business ecosystems, to offer greater growth.