Two Jays
Many companies have developed integration capabilities to establish upstream and downstream alliances through technology platforms. In conventional firms, the integration points are often static. The dynamic business ecosystems allow bilateral connections with a small, preselected group of partners and large firms in production and business operations such as manufacturing, distribution, and marketing activities. Successful business ecosystems develop operational networks between intra-organizational (across functional divisions) workstations and market players. Companies with such functional networks are able to integrate required elements of business ecosystem. Nonetheless, new enterprises struggle to collaborate with the upstream market players and compete in these markets. Such efforts of new ventures demand strategic thinking to leverage a firm’s resources and capabilities to establish strategic alliances. Strategic thinking helps new entrants adjust ecosystem with the socioeconomic, cultural, and market-led factors that influence one another and stimulate the management of the design-cube comprising design-to-market, design-to-society, and design-to-value. The business ecosystem is fundamentally based on these triadic design pillars. Large companies tend to explore radically new technology to disrupt existing markets, while the new entrants focus on pursuing value-adding improvement in the existing products and technologies on the frugal innovation platform. In this process of orchestrating business ecosystems, multinational companies and joint ventures follow an integrative and long-term perspectives in business embedding business goals and strategic interests in decision making.
In the competitive business environment, large firms operate with open ecosystems to gain competitive leverage by commercializing open-innovation and reverse-innovation products. This strategy helps firms in delivering high customer value and inculcate perceptions among customers on collective creativity. Consequently, firms can retain the loyalty and support of ecosystem partners and stakeholders to ensure their continued performance in the marketplace. Continuous learning and exploring ways to catch-up with changes in the industry drive firms to stay agile with the dynamic business ecosystems.
In the changing business trends today, a firm is no longer an independent strategic actor; it is dependent on collaborations and strategic alliances. Its success depends on collaboration with stakeholders and market players, and strategic alliances with other firms in a multisectoral ecosystem. Some orchestrators are able to manage multiple ecosystems successfully by covering different parts of the collaborative tasks leading to diverse business expansions.
Business ecosystems are becoming complex by developing pro-environment products for consumer and industrial use as firms are addressing global sustainability challenges including climate change, resource depletion, and ecosystem loss. Transformations caused due to the sustainability perspectives in business is being successfully managed by some companies through effective collaborations. Large firms are developing long-term value propositions to collaborate with business partners in new ways that treat fragile and complex ecosystems as a whole.
Incubation of innovations has emerged as a new model of startup facilitation in most developing economies. Venture capitalists review the incubators and assess the projected growth and profitability in businesses to invest. The venture capitalists review the incubators to diversify risky investment portfolios, while the prospecting entrepreneurs approach the incubators to review the economically viable and technologically feasible support for startup projects. Innovation incubators of the firms face challenges and opportunities to grow competitive in the marketplace.
