First published in July 2018 IDC Strategic Alliances & Ecosystem Newsletter
Re-published in Sept 2018
Background
We are experiencing an inflection point in building partner ecosystem in the new era, with data growing exponentially and high computing power associated with low cost storage. Business model innovations were made possible with partner ecosystem to drive growth, profitability, and social impact. These complex and inter-connected environments require agility and interoperability, resulting in a value-network model such as Uber versus taxis, YouTube versus DVDs, Skype versus traditional fixed-line, Airbnb versus hotel chains. As technology accelerates exponentially, organizations that learn to harness these disruptive forces to accelerate innovations will be able to create the most value for clients.
Challenges
As technology enters the new era, companies are facing challenges on time-to-market, costs to serve and quality delivery to continuously adapt to a changing and dynamic environment and inter-operate seamlessly with industry experts and technology partners.
Opportunities/Discussion
Experimentation with a rich network of trusted partners in an ecosystem is key to rapidly exploring various scenarios while successfully executing to deliver value to clients. We can adapt some of the lessons from the evolutionary success in the venture capital ecosystem in the following three pillars:
1. Collaborative – require a shift of mindset to crowdsource within the ecosystem for capital and expertise in order to spread out execution risks in a changing and dynamic environment
2. Intentional – align internally to identify core expertise and a roadmap for ecosystem development; experiment with new business model engagements to drive desirable outcome while bringing down costs with partners
3. Selective – adopt best practices to measure best partner fit at various stages of digital maturity
VegaLab Ventures 