Business Ecosystem Blueprint

The Mindset Shift in Business Ecosystem Thinking

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Opening up the Mind to Connected Ecosystem thinking

During this month of September 2025 I (finally) launched my comprehensive approach to Integrated Interconnected Business Ecosystems. It has all somewhat come out in one big rush. Fifteen posts in one month (!) but I took the view this needs explaining, exploring and expanding the thinking that went into it over a long learning and research period.

Moving from a business largely based on linear thinking is really hard to master initally. It takes a real mindshift and commitment to understand the why, how along with the what and when, and then where to apply this within your business, to explore and then learn for expanding it across the organization.

Nothing happens overnight, it does take a structured learning and implementation plan. It takes a dedicated approach of learning and experimenting.

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Resolving Today’s Current Innovator’s Ecosystem Dilemma Progressively

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Recognizing the Innovator’s Dilemma with Ecosystems

What would force us to change or radically adjust our existing business trajectory? Can we afford to take another period of uncertainty, what are the risks? Does it make sense to alter our existing Business Models?

At some time it is absolutely right for the C-level to ask! It cuts to the core of the Innovator’s Dilemma applied to organizational transformation.

A terrific book, an Innovation foundational one, was “The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail,” first published in 1997. It is most probably the best-known work of the Harvard professor and businessman Clayton Christensen. It describes how large incumbent companies lose market share by listening to their customers and providing what appears to be the highest-value products, but new companies that serve low-value customers with poorly developed technology can improve that technology incrementally until it is good enough to quickly take market share from established business (source Wikipedia). Today’ it is so different, anyone can take market share through applying technology thoughtfully.

This concept today faces far more “dilemmas” that can be more widely applied as the “disruptor” has even more “disrupting tools” at their disposal as they search and connect all the “dots” of opportunity that those incumbents will struggle to adopt though legacy or speed of market reaction. “Higher value” needs to be replaced with “Greatest Connecting Value”.

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Business Ecosystems can unlock game-changing potential- lift up your eyes.

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Business Ecosystems can unlock game-changing potential

We sometimes get sidetracked, caught up in the “weeds” of making step-by-step progress, seemingly against odds that are often resistant and unyielding to the notion of change or alternatives to what we are doing.

Today many businesses are floundering in low or no-growth environments and applying approaches that just are not equipped to deal with today’s complex challenges. We are facing market conditions caught up in volatility and ongoing disruptions.

We are equally in the age of harnessing collective intelligence to be in a better position to address these complex challenges. The combined power of Gen AI, humans and diversity of understanding need to be harnessed to open up entirely new realms of possibility. Enter the power of Business Ecosystems.

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An Emerging Blueprint for thinking through Business Ecosystems

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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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