ECOSYSTEMS · STRATEGY · GROWTH
Grow beyond the boundaries of your business.
Understand your ecosystem position, identify new growth opportunities and design how to create greater value together.
01 / ECOSYSTEM GROWTH
THREE CONNECTED DECISIONS
Find growth beyond your business.
Deliver the complete outcome your customers need.
Growth opportunities extend across skills, assets, channels and services held by other businesses. Map the wider ecosystem to identify unmet customer needs, secure critical capabilities and connect offers that create greater value together.
An ecosystem brings interdependent businesses together to deliver a shared customer proposition. Define the outcome, choose your role and establish the relationships needed to deliver it.
These are three connected decisions, not a three stage programme. Each has a practical framework; together they form part of a wider method from strategy through to scale.
Choose where to play.
Select your strategic role and identify the dependencies that shape your advantage.
Connect what matters.
Identify the contributions and handovers needed to deliver the customer outcome.
Make participation worthwhile.
Clarify who benefits, how value is shared and what makes coordination sustainable.
WHERE ECOSYSTEM ADVANTAGE COMES FROM
Where ecosystem advantage comes from.
Stronger customer propositions, access to capabilities and new opportunities for growth can emerge when firms combine what none can deliver alone.
The advantage depends on your position, the partners you can work with and the relationships you can influence. Competitors may also have complementary capabilities, creating opportunities to collaborate while still competing elsewhere.
See where to compete, where collaboration could create mutual value, what capabilities to control and which relationships will strengthen your position.
ECOSYSTEM STRATEGY
Map your position.
Explore your options.
Establish where you create value today, who controls the infrastructure you rely on and which positions strengthen your business.
THE ECOSYSTEM ADVANTAGE MAP
Identify your sources of advantage.
The map makes ecosystem positions visible: who competes with whom, who depends on whom and where firms could collaborate. It reveals where competitors have complementary assets or interests, where you rely on another orchestrator and which relationships may strengthen your advantage. This is coopetition: competing in some areas while working together to create value in others.
- Locate. Plot offers, firms and orchestrators in their respective roles and arenas.
- Diagnose. Map competition, dependencies and potential collaboration, including opportunities to work with competitors.
- Move. Evaluate positions and strategic options such as orchestration, participation and consolidation.
You leave with an informed view of strategic positions, competitive relationships, opportunities for collaboration and the moves worth investigating.
THREE EXAMPLES OF STRATEGIC MOVES
Choose the moves that strengthen your position.
Read the arenas. Then follow the move.
Each sector represents a distinct market or domain of activity. Name the arenas around the opportunity you are exploring—for example, accommodation, transport, insurance and experiences in a travel ecosystem.
A business can play different roles in different arenas. A move across a sector boundary takes capabilities into another arena; a radial move changes the business’s role within the value system.
These three examples illustrate how a firm can change its ecosystem position. They are not a complete list of strategic moves. The right choice depends on your value proposition, existing capabilities, competitors and the orchestrators in relevant arenas.
Become an orchestrator
Move to the customer rail and coordinate an ecosystem for end customers.
Define the proposition, align contributors and coordinate delivery of the customer outcome.
Join an ecosystem
Add a complementary offer to an established ecosystem in the same arena.
Build on another firm’s orchestration to reach customers, while working within the existing arena and its participation rules.
Consolidate capabilities
Move into the partner area by acquiring or creating a partner capability.
Bring a critical capability under your control and strengthen delivery of the proposition.
ARENAS = markets or domains · AROUND THE CIRCLE = change of arena · INWARDS / OUTWARDS = change of role
○ Producer offer ● Orchestrator ● Other firm’s orchestrator ■ Complement ↗ Direction of move
ECOSYSTEM DESIGN
Design how the ecosystem creates value.
Connect every contribution required to deliver the customer outcome. Define who provides what, how the handovers work and where capabilities must be built or secured.
THE ECOSYSTEM VALUE ARCHITECTURE
From customer jobs to ecosystem roles.
Start with the customer segment and value proposition. Map customer jobs across arenas—the markets and domains needed to fulfil them—then specify the required contributions and assign the roles that connect them.
- What is needed? Specify the contributions behind the promised outcome.
- Who provides it? Distinguish producers, complementors, orchestrators and partners.
- What must connect? Identify critical dependencies, define handovers and set the requirements for delivery.
You leave with a clear value architecture, defined participant contributions and priorities for securing missing capabilities.
ECOSYSTEM BUSINESS MODEL
Make the ecosystem work for everyone.
Bring the offer, contributors and ways of working together into one viable model. Make clear why each business takes part and how coordination is funded.
THE ECOSYSTEM BUSINESS MODEL
Make the incentives and economics explicit.
The Ecosystem Business Model brings the whole arrangement together: the customers and value proposition, the core and complementary offers, who contributes, how they work together, and how value is delivered and shared.
- Connect the offer. Bring together the core offer, complementary offers and the businesses that contribute.
- Coordinate the work. Orchestration simply means how the participating businesses are coordinated to deliver the proposition.
- Make it viable. Clarify how customers receive value, how participants benefit and how the orchestrator covers its costs.
You leave with a clear model of what the ecosystem offers, who contributes, how it works, why businesses take part and how coordination is funded.
SEVEN STAGES · ONE CONNECTED METHOD
From ecosystem strategy to scale.
The three frameworks above are examples of a wider set of ecosystem canvases, diagnostics and decision support tools. Together, they help businesses move from strategic opportunities through ecosystem design, validation, launch and scale. You can start with one priority decision or commission support across several stages.
Strategy
What will the ecosystem achieve?
Output
Strategic ambition, scope and success criteria.
Explore
Where are the opportunities?
Output
Priority opportunities and critical dependencies.
Frame
Which proposition and role?
Output
A defined proposition, customer and strategic role.
Design
Who contributes what?
Output
Participant roles, value architecture and business model.
Validate
Does the proposition work commercially?
Output
A go, change or stop decision.
Launch
What must be ready?
Output
Partner agreements, responsibilities and launch plan.
Scale
What is repeatable?
Output
Performance measures and expansion priorities.
Each stage draws on additional tools suited to its decisions, including environmental and ecosystem scans, opportunity selection, strategic intent, value and partner design, risk and commercial validation, launch planning and performance reviews. The purpose is not to complete every canvas: it is to reach well grounded decisions and implement them.
START WITH YOUR SITUATION
Explore your
ecosystem opportunities.
Bring your growth priority, critical dependency or new proposition. We will identify the strategic choices, define the work required and agree the next step.
Workshops, advisory and training are built around your strategic priorities and the decisions your team needs to make.
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