Thinking & designing Business Ecosystems to build innovation differently
Why should we think about the potential within Business Ecosystems? What does thinking and designing for Business Ecosystems mean?
Thinking and designing for business ecosystems represents a fundamental shift in how we approach business strategy, innovation, and value creation. Let me break this down for you in a way that bridges conceptual understanding with practical application. Two statements:
Thinking and designing for business ecosystems means adopting a holistic, interconnected view of business operations and strategy.
Thinking and designing for Business Ecosystems is about recognizing that in today’s complex business environment, no company is an island. Success increasingly depends on a company’s ability to collaborate, co-create, and thrive within a network of diverse stakeholders.
Integrated Frameworks of Innovation and Ecosystem Design and Thinking
To reflect this need for today’s complex business dynamics, I have been revising and updating my integrated approaches to ecosystems through the updated positioning of the Composable Innovation Framework and then here in the Interconnected Business Ecosystem Framework. The emphasis on interconnected combines deeper integrated thinking.
The importance of being interconnected is essential in today’s world.
We need to recognize many changes are being undertaken. To reflect this these two frameworks offer a more modern, network-centric view of business operations and strategy.
In today’s complex business landscape, leveraging partner ecosystems offers a competitive edge.
Building an effective partner ecosystem in systematic stages in thinking and design becomes increasingly critical, to build the mindset, skills and understanding of what this means in undertaking to yield the level of return in different routes to growth and value.
Many organizations struggle with this transitioning from individual initiatives of partnering, mostly in partner agreements covering the supply chain, logistics and often in selected sales partners and distributors. These offer a foundation of sorts no doubt and are essential for maintaining the existing business but there is a whole different world of partner ecosystems out there to tap into!
Charting a pathway of collaboration to a successful Ecosystem
It’s not just about where you fit in the ecosystem – it’s about how you can reshape it, and the unique journey you’ll undertake to get there, transforming your ecosystem presence from a set of business relationships into a vibrant, strategic asset that defines your place in the interconnected economy, making it resilient and highly adaptive. The ability to be highly collaborative and adaptive.
Charting Your Unique Path to Collaborative Success
Building out the arguments to make a compelling business change case for Business Ecosystems needs to cover significant areas to address and recognise. Any view needs to offer some compelling reasons to recognize that there is a powerful need to shift to a more modern, network-centric view for business operations and strategy. Compiling this set of opinions takes time to shape into a concise document.
Here, I want to limit the positioning to two parts: today’s need to change our thinking, recognition, and design aspects toward business ecosystems and then provide a future awareness document.
You need to recognise its multiple parts to make any significant change towards ecosystems as a business approach. So, my aim here is to provide a more comprehensive and forward-looking perspective, making the argument more compelling and actionable for C-level executives.
In recent years, the business world has undergone a profound transformation. The traditional view of organizations as rigid hierarchies with clear boundaries and linear processes is rapidly becoming obsolete.
Instead, we’re witnessing the emergence of fluid, interconnected ecosystems where value creation is distributed, collaborative, and dynamic, moving across multiple Ecosystems of collaborators to solve more complex challenges and enhance business value. This shift is not just semantic; it represents a fundamental change in how we understand and operate within the modern business landscape.
My move with the repositioning from “Hierarchy of Business Ecosystems” to “Interconnected Business Ecosystem Framework” reflects this paradigm shift.
The selling of Business Ecosystems needs facilitation and realization
So often, you get the question, “What are the arguments for selling B2B business ecosystems?”
Then why would enterprises invest in such a significant change to their systems and structures? Where is the value and payback?
It should be recognized that selling B2B business ecosystems to enterprises can be a compelling proposition as it offers several potential benefits and value propositions. Here are some key top level arguments for why enterprises might invest in adopting a B2B business ecosystem approach:
Interdependence and Feedback Loops are pivotal to Interconnected Business Ecosystems
In any interconnected business ecosystem design, two pivotal components work in tandem to ensure the system’s overall health, adaptability, and success. The interdependence and feedback loops are intrinsically linked and mutually reinforcing. This recognition and emphasis on their importance are critical to building a robust business ecosystem.
The combination of interdependence and feedback loops creates a dynamic and self-regulating system. Interdependence highlights the need for coordinated action and shared awareness among ecosystem participants, while feedback loops provide the necessary information and insights to inform that coordinated action.
This post aims to break down the two and combine them in explanations and initial understanding. Examples of measuring them at operational and strategic levels and providing a more comprehensive and systematic approach are not discussed here. That is better at any designing and implementing stage.
Applying Super Governance to Interconnected Business Ecosystems
I have been working on further developing and creating a comprehensive framework for the Interconnected Business Ecosystem that addresses various aspects of ecosystem design, management, and governance.
I debated if I needed to add a super governance layer that ensures alignment, stability, and ethical practices across the entire ecosystem.
I have resisted this and have not added a further layer, as much of what is required from governance lies within any layer. I believe that within each of the four layers—Innovation, Business, Dynamic, and Enterprise—you add these suggestions to give them each a “super governance” managing aspect that can be “rolled up” in the final Enterprise layer if needed for any Enterprise Collaboration Board level resolution.
I am working to validate and expand on the value proposition of the Interconnected Business Ecosystem Framework and have tried to create, hopefully, a compelling pitch that will bring others on board to advance this initiative. I have published this pitch on both of my primary sites, discussing innovation, business, and ecosystems, as they both provide a combination effect for understanding this framework.
I initially called this “the hierarchy of business ecosystem needs,” which built out an interconnected framework of business ecosystems that give organizations a real alternative to how they operate today and in the future.
I provided a comprehensive series of outline papers as the introduction phase earlier this year, which provided the concepts forming a cohesive outline structure of how organizations should think through the future. Also, I provided an earlier view on my paul4innovating.com posting site of “pitching business ecosystems opens up the possibility of real change.”
We need to really open our thinking towards collaborative ecosystems. This is one of openly collaborating and co-creating in different Ecosystem structures and designs to provide a greater diversity of opinions, knowledge, and resources.
This “pooling or network effect” forms around more complex challenges to tackle, thus giving a more sustaining and hopefully greater value in solutions to the needs of their customers, markets, or areas of need.
I have recognized this needed rebranding- hierarchy has some negative connotations.
I have now entitled this The Interconnected Business Ecosystem Framework as it reflects the essence of what I believe this framework provides
