Industrial Ecosystem Design

Grappling with complex ecosystems, energy transitions, and planet earth.

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Source: https://theconversation.com/humanitys-sustainability-is-no-excuse-for-abandoning-planet-earth-80699. Time to go? Shutterstock

It has been fashionable to “hang” any network of relationships with the ecosystem tag; it has become the de jour or trendy label to suggest this announced initiative indicates it is complicated and highly valuable.

Well, in all honesty, most ecosystem “tags” are only an extension of building out a more significant community than the one previously, looking to deal with increasing complexity and expecting commercial gain, well that alone is not an ecosystem approach.

Ecosystems fascinate me; they do have a significant opportunity to change what is existing for something new. The need is to balance the healthy interactions and the conditions for that environment to flourish. Of course, many people might argue, “so what is wrong with what we have got?” Often I can’t disagree with this view, we do replace what works seemingly well because of our need to leave our own “footprint” in the world.

In Business we have “stolen” this ecosystem concept from its original meaning: “An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life.”

In business terms, we have taken this into these larger communities that interact through their network connections; they are dynamic or aim to be better than the previous structure.

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Compressing innovations time needs platforms and ecosystems

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We all facing this growing pressure of time. In our daily work, in managing product and service life-cycles, as well as constantly considering business model overhauls as they become ever more connected.

We are not in stable markets anymore but increasingly volatile ones. Innovation needs to be at the forefront of the changes occurring and it above all else needs to find solutions to compress its time from ideation to commercialization.

It is through acknowledging that platforms and ecosystems are today’s new order to deliver innovation. Platforms that connect into the customer needs within its broader ecosystem of design, so the innovation needed to be delivered is capable to match those needs. Innovation requires greater collaboration, a process that is connecting everyone involved in the process from discovery, to design, through to the final viable product, to be on the same platform and contributing their part to the final offering.

Let’s explore some of the parts of the new innovation order:

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So are you considering a new platform business model? Good luck!

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You cannot escape the discussions around platform business models. Recently I saw that 50% of all organizations are either investing or considering a new platform business model. In a report provided by the IBM Institute for Business Value, released last year called “The Incumbents Strike Back” they really encapsulated the survey work they undertook in four topics that tell a story of today, or it certainly should do.

What’s required, now more than ever, according to IBM, is the fortitude for perpetual reinvention and these four topics tell the story of why these are important:

Firstly we are all “dancing with disruption” and it is the reinventors that are finding the way to balance the existing with the designs of the future. This was described as a “balance between stability and dynamism” and exploring the forces at play.

Secondly, reinventors are placing their “trust in the journey” as they are investing in design thinking, testing the assumptions and re-orientating their organizations to engage with their customers to create deep bonds based on trust, the path to personalization.

Thirdly, the whole value is changing based on “orchestrating the future” where organizations scale differently their partner networks, reconsider their value propositions and allocate resources more on business platform designs.

Fourthly, there is a liberating for “innovation in motion” where constant experimentation, getting close to customers and delving deeper into ever-evolving ecosystems of dynamic teams and partnerships are transforming their landscape.

Two really important points for me in this short report was the pull of the platform business model shown in the visuals provided

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China and Asia for Ecosystem Dynamism

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I was trying to capture the Asian dynamism in how they go about Ecosystem designs for their businesses.

The critical captures for me are based on three critical aspects to create this dynamism.

Firstly, in the social conditions within Asia and China for especially smart technology-led connected solutions.

Secondly, the ability of the solution provider in having the capabilities to push the boundaries, in regulatory change and technology innovations, and ‘impose’ radically different structures along the complete supply chain and have as their central focus the customer engagement processes, that delivers the solution needed in the quickest possible time, at the most economical and convenient cost, at increasing scale to drive down costs.

Thirdly having that significant engagement at the top of the organizations, in designing, directing and determining the outcomes and injecting the enthusiasm, drive, and passion for change and commitment.

I believe these three aspects are creating more dynamic ecosystem environments in Asia and especially China.

In Asia, it is a far more top-down but highly entrepreneurial mindset for those that have broken through and built real scale and really very big businesses on their platforms with the excellent technology and a sharp-minded approach to connecting up the ecosystem within the design and solutions.

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Seamless experience – give me a break!

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How can we achieve seamless experiences when we don’t have seamless organizations?

Before we get to argue for this real customer need of seamless experiences we have to resolve the lack of our seamless organizations.

How can any digital transformation take hold within the organization when there is such a serious lack of customer-centricity?

Business units stay locked in silo’s, being measured by how they perform their tasks, they continue to build their individual business case, often over the detriment of others.

They continue to fall into the trap still, they are internally competing for scarce resource and capital and no one actually resolves this, they relish it!  There is this accepted practice to push constantly on the need to invest in the front-and-back-end solutions when they lack this understanding of the customer journey, and in so doing totally filter out part of the customer expectations, preferences and values, if they do not fit their task at hand for them, as the company providing the product or service.

They fail to recognize that today, the decision is in the hands of the customer, not theirs. Can they continue to ignore knowing everything they should need to know about the customer?

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Moving technologies forward at scale

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It seems all IIoT is paved with good intentions. Yet many still are caught up in the “Pilot Purgatory” that McKinsey & Co and the World Economic Forum suggested is plaguing our present pathway to moving towards the 4th Industrial Revolution. In their white paper released in January 2018 called  “The Next Economic Growth Engine- Scaling Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies in Production,” they tackle this well.

We still face many problems in taking the “idea” of transformation through pilots into full-scale implementations. Many companies are in the investigative phase, where it is estimated that the average number of pilots can be around eight different industry 4.0 solutions. That is a fair amount, so why do we still seem trapped in pilots.

I think it is for many reasons; let’s take a look at several inhibitors here as my view:

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Collective intelligence for a thriving and enabling ecosystem

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I have been thinking more about “Collective Intelligence” recently, so as to build more thriving and enabling ecosystems. I would argue we do need to change the way we work, engage and participate in sharing what we know with others and then find the connecting mechanisms, to build from this collective engagement.

The future of work needs to be managed so differently than today’s designs. Although AI takes today’s headlines it is the collective use of human intelligence that will radically alter the way we eventually work.

Let me give you a little background first on what is triggering this.

For the past year, I have been privileged to be part of an external influencer community, centered on Siemens. Presently we have sixteen external influencers coming together about every three months with a range of Siemens people, internal experts in Cyber Security, Smart cities, digital transformation, communications, Artificial Intelligence and increasingly becoming engaged in conversations with Senior Management and Board members.

We are only scratching the surface of a very big organization but do have very exciting possibilities, if we continue to connect and are seen as valuable and worthwhile in exploring different ways of working and communicating. We do have the real potential to influence if this group becomes more embedded in aspects that can shape thinking.

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Are You Struggling with Technology Evolution and New Designs?

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I have been struggling with a fair amount on a repositioning within my business offering. I think firstly, that innovation has become digital innovation and that is one space I need to keep going towards. Not only in understanding all of the implications of this shift but in my own capability building, to deliver more support to this significant change we are undergoing, through so much technology connecting up all of the innovation “pieces,” from insight triggering, to final delivery of the finished design.

The other focus area is continuing to extend out my approach and understanding of the growing importance of platforms and ecosystems within a business. They form the future approach to build a thriving and sustainable business.

My questions recently have been where is my fit in this thinking or supporting platforms and ecosystems, beyond what I am presently doing?

The visual shown above is attempting to frame this for me. There are four critical aspects of platforms and ecosystems that need to be shaped. Let me explain:

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Facing the future- the galactic war of IIoT platforms moves into its next phase

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So Hannover Messe 19 (#HM19) is behind us. The pavilions are being pulled down, some stored away for use next year.

The buzz, excitement and the sheer energy and effort, that thousands put into their role as part of this event, is amazing. The exhibitor, like the committed visitor, ends up exhausted, even ‘spent’ but was it worth it?

The “housing” under HM19 of so many competing forces within Industry all vying for attention is overwhelming. It reminds you of how competitive and confusing all of this transformation stuff is. So conflicting actually.

The memories can be fleeting or they can be lasting. In the end, they nudge us all nearer to decisions, these sort of events help us to become more informed. what we lack is a better way of containing all we have learned so we can filter it, sort it and relate the multiple messages to our own needs. Not easy but “do-able” in better ways than we have today. The “return on investment” gets better if we can make connections into “connected stories” I have some thoughts on these but that is for another time. Let’s get into this piece.

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Digital transformation is our place of purgatory today.

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We are caught in a moment of time. All the hype, push, the argument for making the “digital transformation” is so badly stalled in many of our Corporations. We are running a marathon, mostly it seems fueled by “spent” energy and a growing sense of lowering our belief and confidence that we can finish this.

These digital transformations are like the deer, suddenly caught in the headlamp of a car that simply freezes, they seem immobilized, even for brief seconds, sometimes its reaction to flee is too late, it gets caught out by the oncoming car.

I feel many of our entities are caught in this moment of fear, bewilderment, rather paralyzed in how to tackle digital transformation. It is overwhelming. The advice available often does not help, it compounds that fear, they seem to be just staring at the size of the problem.

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