Tag Archives: The New Innovation Era

Why experimenting with platform innovation is vital

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innovation-experiementationWhy wait?

Paul Hobcraft and I have been writing extensively about the impact that emerging platforms and ecosystems are having, and will have, on innovation.

As I wrote previously, we are in the same position with platforms that we were with “dot coms” and ecommerce in 1999.  Then there were thousands of alternatives and experiments to try to figure out what would work.  Now, much the same thing is going to happen at the platform level.

There’s a reason Amazon, Facebook, Google, GE and others are trying to test out their platforms, and why other industries like financial services want so desperately for their own platforms to prevail.

Platforms are enticing because they lead to the concept of a required standard.  Anyone who controls a platform in an industry or market can dictate how the rest of the ecosystem adds value or in some cases connects to customers.

Thus, we can expect to see a lot of companies claiming to have the definitive platform in this or that industry.  What’s more, some functions, like the ability to pay for goods and services within a platform, are already platforms in themselves, although they are narrow but important enablers to larger platforms.

Some companies and their platforms will thrive, some companies will build enabling technologies or the “APIs” that ensure tight integration for ecosystem players, but most will take a “wait and see” approach. Continue reading →

Nurturing the Network Effect of Firms within Innovation Ecosystems.

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nurturing-the-ecosystem

The Network Effect for Ecosystem Designs

We are forming in many different ways our greater collection of relationships that matter to each organization, by connecting increasingly in a network of potential partners and collaborators.

The goals are so as to deliver innovative products and services that would not be able to be delivered by only having just the one organization attempting it.

Managing this growing form of innovation complexity is challenging old theories, boundaries, organizations and how they exist going forward.

Ecosystem innovation is more today about managing beyond the immediate known’s found within one organization’s limited focus of the world, they are exploring many of the unknowns that need discovery and then connection. Continue reading →

Are you ready to thrive in a world of Innovation Ecosystems?

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opening up to the world of ecosystem thinking

We are in need of a profound shift in the Business landscape. Our growth remains constrained by not just the economic conditions we find ourselves in but also because we are failing to make innovation central to change. It remains for most the incremental pathway to steady performance and safe returns.

Yet the world continues to be volatile, the consumer increasingly disgruntled and our political world continues to be turned upside down. Business needs to move from being part of the problem, into pioneering and leading the solutions for growth. Surprisingly it does have the potential for a winning design ‘to hand’ – by managing within innovation ecosystems.

What makes up a winning innovation ecosystem of design?

Continue reading →

Moving towards a new connecting innovation model

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network-of-networksWe are facing tough challenges within the business world. To work through these we are all being asked to transform but there has to be a clear end, a return for all this energy and resources it requires, that we are being asked to spend?

How and where does innovation fit will clearly depend on this transforming effect. We are fairly clear that incremental innovation is just not cutting through to give the types of growth expected. There are many outside our existing organizations, standing impatiently at the gates, waiting to come in and take over with market breaking concepts through different business models .

We have three choices: we need to transform, be disrupted or certainly re-imagine and this is where knowing your ecosystem comes in.

Our existing organization needs to envisage a changing world full of disruption that calls for radical change. To meet different challenges, to be highly adaptive it needs to begin to organize around ecosystems to deliver on a vision that recognizes it has to be part of a greater collaborating network to thrive in this highly connected world.

Today larger organizations are having to face the stark truth, they are losing out, in growth and opportunities.

Either they adapt or die. Technology offers them the transforming means but can they, as leaders, take their people with them? It needs bold leadership. The structure of our  business today cannot afford to try and stand alone, it needs to extend beyond its traditional supporting partners, it needs to learn to collaborate with  a whole new range of partners, even some previously competitors, to radically adapt to the different world we live in.

Continue reading →

The Building Blocks for Managing within an Ecosystem Design

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building-blocks-for-ecosystems-2Today business organizations are in need to put in place the building blocks for managing ecosystem designs.

These building blocks are offering the potential of new pathways to a greater ‘connected’ innovation, expected today, one that gives increased value to the consumer.

Yet the understanding of what this means in commitment and structuring has some clear implications behind this.

Managing ecosystem arrangements I feel requires a far greater understanding of the potential design, so you can achieve a more robust, open, dynamic and highly collaborative environment. Continue reading →

Understanding the Customer Journey is the key to innovating in an ecosystem

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evolving-innovation-a-new-formPaul and I have been exploring the interrelationships between innovation, ecosystems and platforms for a few weeks now.

Hopefully we’ve made the point that innovators must expand their horizons, because increasingly customers don’t want or need stand alone, discrete products as much as they want integrated, seamless, holistic solutions.

In fact I think we can easily predict that moderately interesting new innovations that integrate with existing ecosystems and platforms dominate disruptive new products that ignore ecosystems and platforms.

Why?  Customers don’t want to give up all that they have invested in the totality of their use of a solution or the experience when using the solution.  Even if the disruptive product or service delivers outsized benefits, if it causes the rest of the customers’ experience to suffer or degrade, many will choose to remain on a more integrated solution.

There’s a lot here to unpack. Continue reading →

The Dynamism in Chinese Ecosystems and Platforms

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chinese-tigers-3

Today we have to “think China” when it comes to looking for the dynamism within Ecosystems and Platforms, they are leading, exploring and extending the thinking beyond our more limited ambitions in the West.

It is the environmental conditions coming together or being explored and exploited that make China stand out in its dynamism in this area.

It is that combination effect of the Government building, laying in ‘accepted’ guidelines and encouraging the infrastructure, it is the business entrepreneur and the social conditions that are enabling so much.

Dynamism is the quality of being characterized by vigorous activity and progress. It projects an energy, force, power and vigor and a strong desire to make something happen. It is the manifestation of these forces (conditions) that is constantly pushing the boundaries of our understanding of what is possible in the ecosystem and platform approach. The Chinese have found ways to experiment, develop and constantly create a real motion within the system. Continue reading →

The Emerging Industry 4.0 Business Ecosystem

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The PwC Industry 4.0 framework

The PwC Industry 4.0 framework

We are moving rapidly from the industrial economy, reliant on single companies simply producing specific products they believe consumers needed or simply accepted.

This approach is often giving consumers no or limited choice and this supply-side approach is about to change into one that is driven by a digital economy where all sides of the value equation are connecting. One where consumers have a greater ‘voice’ over their choice that manufacturers will need to listen to and respond accordingly.

This connected world is driving transformation inside every industry, pushing for innovation dynamism as knowledge exchanges are accelerating.

There becomes this increasing business “commons” of connecting, communicating, seeking manufacturers to collaborate far more closely, across new technology and infrastructures, that allow for a greater ‘economic diffusion’ than ever before.

Industry 4.0 is driving much of this change within industries and emerging are some powerful industrial digital ecosystems such as GE are driving to achieve, to transform their business.

There is a dramatic shift in recognizing where our future assets lie. In the past, it was heavily invested in physical ownership, the knowledge was kept within organizations and this ‘became the competitive advantage. Today that is rapidly disappearing, the knowledge is recognized to lay mostly outside the organization, it is the ‘connected minds’ across multiple stakeholders, that participate through and across new platforms and ecosystems and how these are leveraged and managed is where are looking to gain any new competitive advantage. Continue reading →

Innovating with the ecosystem in mind

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credit: dupress.deloitte.com

credit: dupress.deloitte.com

In our previous posts, we’ve asserted that the reason so many “innovative” new products and services fail is because the innovators fail to understand the circumstances, ecosystems and environments in which the new product must exist.  Even more important to consumers than new features is ease of use, ease of integration, ease of connection.  We call this a holistic, continuous seamless experience.

If seamless experience, as we’ve defined it in previous posts, is the emerging requirement for innovators, then what are the components that construct a seamless experience?  And further, if seamless experiences are so vital, what are the forces that converge to create so much interest in seamless experiences?

If we consider and answer these questions, innovators can see a growing confluence of ecosystems, platforms and patterns of disruption that are combining to create new opportunities.  We can also take a look back at past innovation efforts to see how little we’ve moved the needle in terms of customer engagement and the value that past innovations have created.

With so much in motion, it’s time for a careful consideration of what fuels innovation, what patterns exist and what factors – such as ecosystems and platforms – will combine to create what customers really want:  a continuous, holistic and complete experience. Continue reading →

Platforms are the new gold rush for business today

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western-colarado-gold-prospectingPlatforms presently are the new gold rush we in business need to exploit today. They are becoming an essential part in our needs to shift to the new creation of connected value.

What is absolutely necessary, is the need to stake out where you believe are your best prospecting chances and for that you need to have a clear vision and plan, as you think through any shift into platform management.

It is a significant transforming decision, full of risk but equally full of real promise.

Different forms of platforms have been around for years, even centuries, where people came together, traded in goods and knowledge. The significant transformation taking place around exploiting technology and digital management has made ecosystems and platforms a mainstream prospecting need in most of our businesses today. Continue reading →