This past week was a highly satisfying one. Besides different advisory, consulting, and mentoring activities, this was a week when I felt I had made some significant advances in my Interconnected Business Ecosystem Framework.
It is nicely taking shape, with many parts fleshed out and described. I completed four critical investigation parts and published them on my ecosystems4innovating.com posting site.
The Interconnected Business Ecosystem framework is pioneering in its approach, which aims to help organizations navigate the complexities of today’s business landscape through this interconnected, collaborative ecosystem approach.
The core is establishing an innovative collaboration foundation to reach dynamic collaborations across a diverse ecosystem of partners that unlocks collective prosperity.
The framework looks to 1) tap into collective intelligence, 2) accelerate innovation by cross-pollination, 3) enhance resilience and agility, 4) deliver superior customer experience, and 5) optimize resource utilization across the parties sharing in this interconnected ecosystem.
Here, I wanted to highlight this week’s progress on four critical parts of the framework you can follow up on and read on ecosystems4innovating.com
Let me summarise the four posts I completed this past week with links to the full posts. Links in blue
Post one: Debating the need for a super governance layer within the framework
I debated whether I needed to add a super governance layer to strengthen alignment, stability, and ethical practices across the entire ecosystem.
I decided to resist this ( at least at this stage) 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.
Post two: Interdependence and Feedback Loops.
The importance of these often does not get the attention it requires in interconnected 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.
Addressing interdependence and feedback loops is vital as they (highly) influence value co-creation, effectiveness, and resilience and foster evolving continuous learning and adaptation, making them dynamic and responsive.
Post three: Dynamic Adaptation and Resilience
Constantly extracting the essence of Dynamics in capabilities and ecosystems are the “essential oils” for ecosystems; they allow for rapid adaptability, continuous learning, extracting network effects, and greater decentralised decision-making and building resilience. Innovation thrives in an environment that recognizes dynamic ecosystems as the opposite of static, siloed systems. They constantly search for adapting, evolving and collaborating to thrive and grow.
Dynamic ecosystems should be treated according to our ability to adapt and build resilience. Dynamic Ecosystems should also be designed to strive to be future-orientated, focusing on advancement and continuous learning, and deliver the primary drivers for economic advantage by proactively shaping market dynamics and positioning to spot and seize breaking opportunities.
This dynamism must often be the contrarian force, the provocateur, and harness its power to challenge conventional wisdom, stress-test our resilience, and ignite a perpetual cycle of re-imagination and adaptation.
Post four: Designing and Resolving Effective Business Ecosystem Governance
Governance for Business Ecosystems is challenging to build out as robust and fit for a sustaining purpose. The relatively low long-term success rate of ecosystems rises or falls on good governance and a clear mission shared by all.
It has real challenges, but it is essential to have a comprehensive framework agreed upon by all and kept as a living document throughout the collaboration’s life. Operating in Ecosystems requires order and dependence, which is so important.
Any governance should be a living, breathing, evolving thing. It provides the rules, mechanisms, and framing for all the partners to sign on to and use as (one of) the foundation documents to refer to constantly as issues arise and need different resolution levels.
Moving forward from these building blocks for interconnected ecosystems– next steps.
Step one– I have been pulling together a somewhat defining set of measurements, metrics, and KPIs to measure impact and success in recent weeks. I need to work through these to give growing credibility and ways for accountability and judgment.
Step two – I have worked out a top-line implementation roadmap and now need to go deeper into it to provide the initial template for executing this ecosystem framework in a structured way.
Step three– The one that has been harder to provide is real-world examples. As this framework is pioneering, more tangible examples are needed in the future. What is clear is that many ecosystems are built out and relatable and piece together multiple parts of my framework. I will highlight these as they help identify and strengthen the credibility of the interconnected business ecosystems.
So a good, if not great, week to advance this work.
I am increasingly motivated and have strengthened my conviction that this interconnected business ecosystem approach holds sustaining promise to solve the growing complexity and tougher challenges we face today.
Here is my recent pitch
The value comes from transcending traditional boundaries and siloes, creating a virtuous cycle of value creation, and growing resilience and adaptability to strive for a sustaining competitive advantage in dealing in new ways with today’s dynamic business landscape.
