Fresh thinking | Paul4innovating Innovation Views

Returning to the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystems

Building out the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystems

In January of this year, I introduced the thinking behind “the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystem needs.” This framework was outlined initially in a series of seven posts on my dedicated ecosystem posting site.

On this posting site here, I provided numerous supporting posts in “given” areas of Business Ecosystems that covered some areas I felt were important explainers. This filled a number of critical gaps in building a more comprehensive understanding of Business Ecosystems in their different parts for providing a “fitting” context.

If you go to the “Explore My Insights and Thinking” tag shown above, you will see there are two files you can download that provide all of these posts in a PDF format.

In all, I think I wrote 20-plus posts during the weeks that followed with a final post of “Why are we navigating to the New: A summary of the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystem needs” By just reading this, you can pick up on a reasonable understanding of what I was suggesting.

My conclusions from that final post was

“The Hierarchy of Business Ecosystem Needs presents a holistic approach to navigating the complexities of the modern business landscape. It emphasizes collaborative ecosystems as the key to unlocking untapped potential, driving sustained growth, and achieving collective prosperity.

Pitching Business Ecosystems opens up the possibility of real change.

Designing the Business Ecosystem Approach

I have been looking at different ways to pitch Business Ecosystems recently for some evolving and hopefully sustaining work.

You can “pitch” to clients in several different ways. Some know their problems, while others don’t recognize them until they are prompted or confronted. If you have a tried and tested way to solve problems, you can become a little blocked from considering something that looks on the surface as radically different, but underneath might be the pathway (to salvation) for new sustaining solutions.

Pitching business ecosystems has to gain attention and be seen as a (radically) different way to tackle growing complex and challenging business problems. The problem for many is that it does “confront” them in considering the multiple layers of what this might mean regarding changes in mindset, organization thinking, and design, rethinking trust by opening up to others outside your existing network and adapting to a new way of design and thinking.

I will tackle different approaches over several posts, but first, let’s look at organizational strategies and the distinct advantages Business Ecosystems can have compared to the more traditional ways of tackling challenges today.

The building blocks of open innovation lead towards Business Ecosystems.

The building blocks of open innovation building towards Business Ecosystem design.

By incorporating Open Innovation Strategies as the next building block, businesses can create a dynamic and expansive innovation ecosystem beyond internal and partnership and certain collaborative boundaries.

This approach supports a culture of continuous learning, adaptation, and external collaboration, positioning the organization for sustained success in an ever-evolving business landscape that recognizes and learns how to collaborate and co-create, moving towards recognizing the value of Business Ecosystems.

Embracing Open Innovation Strategies as the next building block complements the collaborative nature of Business Ecosystems and broadens the innovation landscape out into a world of new possibilities where collaboration, co-creation and cooperation become realised for building and delivering products, concepts, and services that have new unique value and impact.

New Business Designs can be delivered through a Business Ecosystem Approach.

New Business Design- Empower Your Business Ecosystem.

When looking at radically different thinking and design in business, where Ecosystems become central, you need to ask yourself what industries would benefit from such an alternative design and thinking due to the changing complexities and challenges they are facing.

Are these pressures in their known and emerging markets posing future threats for businesses and whole market sectors?

Markets today are radically changing and are more demanding. The growing need to face growing complexity and challenges constantly unsettles the normal.

The value of opening up and embracing Ecosystems in design and thinking is that you can attract diverse expertise and knowledge into fresh partnerships and collaborations that can piece together radically different value propositions and shift competitors’ positioning.

I decided this posting site to be the principal supporting site for building different insights and understandings of Ecosystems. The main framework around the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystems Needs is over on www.ecosystems4innovating.com; in a series of detailed posts on each layer of the Ecosystem construct, take a look at each part in explanations of why each Ecosystem is interconnected and feeds the others.

On this site, I have been exploring issues associated with building Ecosystems, each valuable to read, such as collective learning, resistance, values of interconnected layers, barriers, a blueprint and a base post of “Why Ecosystems” and illustrating where and how ecosystems think and design are emerging.

Scroll down the home page or enter the topic in the search box to find these ready to read on this posting site. They provide a sound basis for considering Ecosystems by working through the views offered.

In this post, I provide different industries’ challenges that lend themselves to Ecosystem thinking and Design.

Collective Learning needs to be applied to the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystems.

Paradigm shifts come from collective learning within a Business to build different Ecosystems.

How can we realize the power of ecosystem thinking and design and its growing value to enterprises? This will come through collective learning, exchanging and exploring a diversity of opinions and experiences. Achieving alternative perspectives enables a level of discovery that enables innovation

it is the need to embrace new organizational design that Ecosystem thinking needs to be considered for building a different approach to the new business needs based on the recognition that the way we approach management in markets is going through radical change.

Today, we face fast-changing markets, constant change and growing complexity; customers are opening up to different and diverse experiences, and it is learning and gaining new understanding and knowledge that will give us the more significant potential to expand and build out new value and growth opportunities.

Ecosystem thinking and design require continuous collective learning. We require different conversations.

By Breaking Down Resistance to Business Ecosystems, we embrace them.

Resistance to Business Ecosystems does need to be broken down and addressed to realize the power of Ecosystem thinking and design and its growing value to Enterprises.

So why are we not doing this today?

Adopting any business ecosystem-centric approach involves a significant shift in mindset, culture, and organizational structures.

While some forward-thinking organizations have embraced aspects of ecosystem thinking, there are several challenges and barriers that hinder widespread adoption.

In the suggested Hierarchy of Business Ecosystems, recognizing the value of an interconnected series of (dedicated) Ecosystems that build out innovation, business, dynamic flexibility, and connected enterprise layers does need to address the natural instincts to resist the adoption of business ecosystems in the fear of sharing what we know, against what we often don’t know as it is outside our restricted view.

The question is whether we need to recognise the opposite; it is the need to embrace building a different approach to the new business needs of fast-changing markets, constant change and growing complexity and opening up to different and diverse experience and knowledge gives us the greater potential to expand and build out new potential opportunities.

What are the Barriers when Implementing Business Ecosystem-designed approaches

Implementing and Building Ecosystem Designs

While ecosystem-based approaches offer numerous advantages, there are also challenges and potential barriers that organizations may face.

As I was building out the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystem Needs, you have to consider many of the (current) issues and challenges being faced by advancing Ecosystem thinking and design. The business case adds more value and needs to think more about the impact of ecosystems in highly connected ways.

I believe in building the foundation layer, the Innovation Ecosystem pushes the “grey cells” and gives the best platform for integrating a comprehensive Ecosystem framework in my proposal, which comprises an Innovation Ecosystem, a Business Ecosystem, a Dynamic Ecosystem and the Enterprise Ecosystem.

The question of barriers and issues must be addressed to comprehensively understand the values of synergies, interdependencies and the exponential value created when these Business Ecosystem layers I am proposing in my Hierarchy framework are interconnected. Constructing an interconnected business ecosystem framework is undoubtedly “no walk in the park”; it is hard work.

Emerging Blueprint for Thinking Through the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystem Need

The Hierarchy Of Business Ecosystem Needs- A Blueprint View

Several vital considerations come into play in developing a blueprint to thrive and find solutions that provide growth and fresh impact to a business amidst growing complexity and uncertainty. One that argues for a different business approach, with Ecosystem thinking and design being central.

When I was pulling together my view of the needs and contributions Ecosystems can provide businesses, I recognized an identification of aspects as essential to consider, this blueprint consideration and then addressed what was necessary to provide a comprehensive solution for offering a Hierarchy of Business Ecosystem Needs as a viable alternative to the current way we undertake business.

Let’s explore these considerations to ensure a comprehensive approach to addressing the challenges at hand when building an ecosystem hierarchy for future growth and prosperity.

Being explicit about ecosystems in the context of organizational strategies provides several distinct advantages compared to traditional approaches. We increasingly need to consider ecosystems in our thinking and design to leverage more significant insights, extract knowledge and build on collaborative experiences and diversity of views.

A Profound Shift towards a Hierarchy of Business Ecosystems?

Building Resilient Business Ecosystems

As I begin my outline of the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystem needs, I believe it is essential to place this appropriately into the context of why.

Business Ecosystems have emerged as powerful catalysts for driving transformative change and fostering collaborative solutions in today’s complex and interconnected business landscape. As organizations open up their thinking and embrace ecosystem approaches, they experience a profound shift in perspective, recognizing the value of diverse partnerships and the need for new management models. Ecosystems provide innovation activities to multiply.

In this opening post to support this Hierarchy proposal, the critical point is today, ecosystems and their role are all about delivering increased value, building synergies, and addressing complex challenges while increasing the need for collaborative solutions rather than stand-alone ones offered by one organization.

By fostering collaboration, knowledge exchange, and co-creation, ecosystems offer a pathway to sustained growth and impact, unlocking untapped potential through co-creation and cooperation that bring more significant impact and return.

The critical differences in understanding Dynamic Ecosystems.

The need to understand Dynamic Ecosystems

I believe dynamic ecosystems require a richer understanding of the characteristics, environmental factors, and critical differences that can shape the dynamism of the business system.

This post highlights the essence of Dynamic Ecosystems and how they differ or provide active support for other ecosystem models, as they do have different roles to play in Ecosystem thinking and design:

Category: Fresh thinking