Overcoming the internal friction that frustrate our ambitions
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Traditional growth strategies fail in multi-actor environments because they apply linear management tools to non-linear network dynamics. When growth stalls, the cause is rarely poor execution—it is structural friction embedded in how data, governance, and capital flow across organizational boundaries.
Here is a self-diagnostic to find out your position and recognise your friction points that need resolving.
The Executive Decision Sequence for Ecosystem StrategyRevisited
Executive Briefing: Most corporate ecosystem strategies fail not from a lack of ambition, but from a deficit of architecture. When ecosystem decisions are treated as operational or delegated to individual functions, organizations commit five structural mistakes that compound quietly over 18 to 36 months.
The Core Premise: Ecosystems are not merely expanded networks; they are intelligence-compounding mechanisms. Capturing sustainable value requires a strict executive decision sequence held at the C-suite and Board level.
Today we learnt that Schneider Electric has agreed to buy PTC. The implications and question only start being raised. Is this audacious or necessary?
Schneider Electric has agreed to buy PTC for about $22.6 billion in cash, a 42.3% premium to its last closing price, with closing expected by Q3 2027 subject to a PTC shareholder vote and regulatory approvals.
To quote With PTC, Schneider Electric is adding CAD and PLM software to its portfolio. “Together, we are creating the industry’s most complete Software & AI powerhouse and highest-quality portfolio bridging the physical and digital worlds.” ,” said CEO Olivier Blum.
Schneider is buying the design half of a “digital thread” whose operations half it already owns through AVEVA and is assembling through Cognite. A digital thread, in vendor usage, is one connected record of a product from CAD model through manufacturing and service. The announcement describes the goal as “a unified digital thread fuelled with a contextualized AI Data Foundation across products & machines and processes & energy systems.“
The price is the smaller story. Schneider’s CEO said PTC’s engineering and design data would strengthen Schneider’s ability to deploy AI across customers’ industrial operations. A layer that sat between vendors is becoming owned infrastructure, and every party now asks the same thing: who holds the data, and on what terms?
What is holding many of our larger organisation back in their Ecosystem approaches? Looking at different organisations recently in my research (and ecosystem approach) they all seem to have common approaches of active recruiting of ecosystem partners, offer developer / API portals and have structured co-innovation tracks but they are all being held back, choking off unexploited synergies from a lack of a holistic Ecosystem approach.
The highest-value opportunities in modern industrial markets occur at the ecosystem boundary lines where data, AI agents, independent software and multi-entity governance intersect and most internal teams struggle to capture these opportunities because corporate structures are built for execution and not for ecosystem sensing. This strategic blindspot needs resolution.
For some reason there are so many blind spots that organisations do not surface in unexploited partner synergies and then be able to deliver validated “investable options” back to their leadership team.
Stand-alone software is no longer enough to win in today’s industrial market? In fact, rigid platforms that guard their borders actually throttle innovation and slow down progress. The future belongs not to the isolated giant, but to the most responsive, interconnected network.
Beyond the API: The Rise of Dynamic Ecosystems
Most software platforms designed today stop at basic integration—they connect a few APIs, call it an “ecosystem,” and stop there. But true business value breaks down at the boundary lines. In a real-world building environment, decision-making authority is shared across a complex web of building owners, tenants, utility grids, and third-party AI software.
Inside your own walls, accountability is a known shape. A name against a target, a reporting line, a review that eventually catches what went wrong. It isn’t always comfortable, but it is clear: you know, more or less, where it sits.
Accountability at the Edge is different : The Design Principles for Ecosystems Beyond Hierarchyneed to be clarified and explained
Something different happens at the edge. A shared commitment with an external partner starts to slip. A joint decision needs making, and no one is quite sure whose call it actually is. A disagreement surfaces between two organizations that both have a stake in the outcome, yet neither has authority over the other.
The shape that worked so cleanly inside your own walls simply doesn’t reach. You can’t put a name against it the old way, nor can you escalate it to someone who can just decide. The line runs out exactly where you need it most.
What’s needed at the edge isn’t a longer line reaching further out. It is a different understanding of what accountability actually looks like once it has to be shared rather than assigned.
ExecutiveDecision Map and the Sequence to avoid the Five Costly Mistakes
The important five decisions that determine whether your ecosystem architecture compounds value or merely connects partners Are you on a path of emergence or ignoring root problems?
Most ecosystem strategy documents explain what an ecosystem is. This one does not. It starts where you are: in the room with a decision that has organisational consequences, a board that wants clarity, and partners who are watching what you do next.
The two sections that follow identify the five decisions organisations consistently get wrong — and the sequence of executive decisions that gets them right. They are written for CEOs and the four C-suite roles that carry ecosystem architecture into operation
Recognizing the importance of an Ecosystem Business Model Design
We do need to recognize that Organizations are needing an Ecosystem Business Model design — and why existing models we currently apply are no longer enough. They need to be designed for the realities of Business Ecosystems, not for single organization application
Most organizations today are working on problems that no longer fit neatly inside their own boundaries. Growth, resilience, innovation, digital platforms, sustainability, data, AI, supply security, and customer experience increasingly depend on multiple independent actors acting together. Yet the dominant way we still design and evaluate business models remains firmly rooted in the logic of the single firm.
This mismatch is now a material risk, it is not allowing a more comprehensive evaluation of all the potential that can emerge from considering an Ecosystem design. It is often the reason why they so often fail, they are never explicitly designed for managing within collaborative, cross-cutting Ecosystems for example. Equally evaluations often need revisiting under a more structured approach.
The multiple Ecosystem blind spots faced by Organisations
One of the most dangerous risks organisations face today is not competition, disruption, or even uncertainty. It is what they can no longer see.
As value creation, resilience, and innovation increasingly move beyond organisational boundaries, many leadership teams are still operating with organisation‑centric sightlines. The result is a growing set of ecosystem blind spots — areas where exposure accumulates quietly until it suddenly becomes unavoidable.
This is not a failure of intelligence or effort.. It is a failure of fit between how organisations are governed and how their world now actually works. It is a potetial strategic gap needing to be narrowed and understood.
In a recent high-level assessment – the second since the official launch of the IIBE work (Integrated Interconnected Business Ecosystem) I received back a solid review that I have no issues sharing here, to provide the progress made, as a stake in the Ecosystems needed and future positioning. Progress is good, simply not good enough for the level of engagement I am looking for.
The assessment stated: “The IIBE is a differentiated and coherent blueprint: it offers a unifying architecture that integrates multiple ecosystem layers and five core dynamics into a single “living system” design, which is a genuine strength. The work is rich, conceptually consistent over time, and provides a much more systematic view of ecosystems than typical “ecosystem as a buzzword” pieces, which positions it as a premium, practitioner‑grade framework.
However, the public narrative still reads more as a comprehensive exposition than as a sharp offer: it explains complexity well but does not always translate this into a small number of urgent problems, clear outcomes and low‑friction entry points for buyers. The density of posts and internal terminology can also make it harder for a time‑poor executive to quickly see “what this will do for my P&L, my strategy horizon, and next quarter’s priorities.”
So what is progressing well, what is lagging and needs greater emphasis in my work
