The relationship between emerging technologies and business ecosystems is not a simple one-way street. It’s a highly interactive and co-evolutionary relationship where each influences and reshapes the other.
I wanted to take this one stage further to break out these emerging technologies to related them more specifically to their influence on Ecosystems. Arguably it is increasingly a critical intersection.
The Connected Need for Business Ecosystems in Mid Sized Firms
We are in times of (big) change in our businesses and their future approaches
By embracing the call to “be bold enough to build differently,” mid-sized businesses can transform economic challenges into strategic opportunities through thoughtful ecosystem development.
Mid-sized businesses face unprecedented challenges in today’s economic landscape. Tariffs threaten global trade relationships, market disruptions are becoming more frequent, and traditional linear business models are proving insufficient for sustained growth. This guide presents business ecosystem development as a strategic approach for mid-sized firms to enhance resilience, drive innovation, and create new growth opportunities—particularly during difficult economic conditions.
Context and Challenge: Mid-sized businesses face difficult decisions in a world of disruption where traditional business models are becoming obsolete. This argues that business ecosystem thinking could enable a different wave of growth for these companies.
Interconnected Business Ecosystems- the imperative in a modern world
Background and Introduction
I enjoy the value of building different thoughts through Mind Mapping. They trigger as well as pull together different strands. In a world that seems to be facing a new world order in trade, collaboration and cooperation, we need building mechanisms that can adapt and give a better resilience in “selective” networks. For me, building and designing Business Ecosystems offers a different way of enabling growth, different value and worth.
So let me tell you the story of Business Ecosystems in a modern world
In today’s rapidly evolving world, the concept of ecosystems has emerged as a critical model for achieving sustainable growth and addressing complex challenges. Ecosystems, in this context, refer to networks of interconnected entities—whether they be businesses, communities, or technologies—working collaboratively to create value and drive innovation.
The imperative of ecosystems is becoming increasingly evident as we navigate a more interconnected world, where working together isn’t just beneficial, but essential.
Building a new Interconnected Business Ecosystem Design
I have recently been reworking my views on Business Ecosystems in their thinking and design. They are recognizing a fundamental shift in how we approach problem-solving and value creation. We need to continue to urge businesses to move away from often isolated, linear models towards this thinking and design, forming around being interconnected, based on dynamic systems.
It is moving towards a collaborative, interconnected design that makes for a radically different mindset where complex relationships, where value co-creation and balancing both short-term and long-term become central for sustainability and protecting a viable future.
We do need to recognize Business is on a Burning Platform: Why Traditional Approaches Are Failing
Building Ecosystem Business Models for Mid-Sized Firms are so often under-looked in much of the literature we are referred too. We get caught in the bigger players, often provided by the large consultant companies, for our references- such as Alibaba, Salesforce, Amazon, Apple, Siemens, etc,.
How can Mid-sized Business Organizations set about to build out an Ecosystem Business Model using third party providers for platforms, communication technology, data analysis and use of Gen AI?
Are these as expensive as initially feared, can they work as effectively as those provided for the bigger players offering Ecosystem solutions? You need to build out a projection of possible budgets for costs in the first year and then annual ongoing ones. Ecosystem building often runs into sometimes hundred of millions of dollars but taking a really small step I (really) hesitate here, but $2.0m to $3.0m for the first year to eighteen months provides you your dedicated Ecosystem, and yearly $1m, including team costs BUT it so depends. It is where you take this, in recognizing its value, diversity to your business and worth, determines where you take this out.
So please take these numbers as only a starters point to get your levels of interest up or otherwise I recommend you don’t bother to read the rest of the post! Scaling, then the numbers rise fast but so can the accelerated returns!
This is only a brief guidance to get you to relate and see if the “ecosystem juices” are flowing. It is not comprehensive but it does go into a starting point of a Mid-sized firms starting point to Business Ecosystems. Even if I hear some readers mutter these numbers are crazily low you have a initial framework to build up into a project
I want to here address a number of questions any organization contemplating this building a ecosystem would need to go through. There are a good few more but lets limit this to a level where they can be absorbed and then I suggest to go further then come and ask me.
I do, it seems, work a lot on integrating systems. So much of this work is specifically focused on advancing innovation in processes, design, and flows through applying Ecosystem thinking and design. So much of what we discover seems to always fall between gaps in how we organize this into a cohesive whole getting to a commercial conclusion.
There are many reasons, for example, it could be in the handover from one person to another or team to team, it could be the ignoring of aspects that seemed unimportant earlier on, ignored as a concept progresses and completely forgotten at the final stages, yet this insight or nugget of information held the key to unlocking a discovery moment. We seem bad at integrating our thinking or processes, hence my constant “quest” to find ways to bring things together for integrated thinking and designs.
This is why I focus on Ecosystems in thinking and design. The other day I picked up on something in my research I felt was important within Business Ecosystems thinking. It took a while to put this into the understanding that “really” seems to talk to me and I hope you
The need is to recognize that Business Ecosystems do need to be distinctive to succeed. They are complex and challenge much of what and how we undergo Business today.
Business Ecosystems do matter. Briefly they can transform the linear value chains we have in place today and make them more dynamic value networks. By expanding beyond existing and our traditional borders and markets we can create those potentially exponential growth opportunities. We can provide enhanced and highly interconnected customer value and through the selection of partners within the Ecosystem network we can can build real, sustaining competitive advantage.
Crafting a compelling story that encompasses building ecosystem capabilities, establishing the Interconnected Business Ecosystem Needs, and implementing a blueprint to navigate the ever-changing landscape involves far more than I initially contemplated.
Business Ecosystems are complex. To argue the need to interconnect makes this even tougher and let me put some initial structure to this.
There is so much in weaving any narrative to find the right ways to resonate with your audience.
Here’s a structured approach to build out this story. I believe these become individual parts of a complete storytelling, and I am slowly working through them.
Is it working? I think so but I do have moments of concern and worry it is not getting the imperative of needed focus behind this change to Business Ecosystem thinking and design for businesses to recognize they are in a very different world of reliance.
We need to recognize a growing reliance on building dynamic networks of growing dependencies that leverages on the “collective power and diversity” to tackle problems that need complex thinking through this Interconnected Business Ecosystem approach.
As I tell this story it is equally revealing itself more and more to me. I am learning constantly to adjust, adapt and keep flexible and agile, just like my arguments for businesses to design and think through.
To further help I asked Google through its NotebookLM to provide me back their story of how this might evolve
We recognize the need for business to embrace change and thrive through adaptation in a rapidly evolving business landscape does require a very dynamic environment.
Dynamic Ecosystems are central to providing the engine to collaborations, adaptation and future leadership. Its central role is to build constant adaptation and resilience, pushing to create increasing value through discovery and extraction throughout the entire ecosystem, and providing the evolving positioning of business as leaders in tomorrows industries and solutions provided.
A continuous learning and acquiring knowledge insights needs this rapid adaptability from the Dynamic Ecosystem. Central to investing and exploring innovation, leveraging network effects, capitalizing on synergies and diversities to deliver into decision making the best options and value.
Dynamic Ecosystems build future ecosystem resilience and including participation as the core to thinking evolution and discovery, to exploit and expand to what is possible, through ecosystem-centric thinking and design. They are critical to delivering through collaborative arrangements and diversity of thinking and knowledge sharing.
Achieving a new positioning in Ecosystem differentiation
I have been spending a lot of my time working through Business Ecosystems, trying to get a decent “handle” on what matters as the most critical dynamics and, secondly, why ecosystems are rising in importance to support reshaping multiple business landscapes and determine what practices will unlock value and impact.
Staggering as it might seem, 86% of clients perceive ecosystems offered by firms to be very similar and want to know why their time and investment in any Ecosystem will enable them to stand out and be differentiated with all its potential disruption in the risks it can pose.
Ecosystems are complex, and I have been trying to encapsulate a (more) concise positioning statement to amplify what needs to be considered and where I think I can really help. Ecosystems are so important in our designs for the future, and a collaborative approach combining expertise, diversity, and knowledge is needed.
