When combining industry partners in an ecosystem without involving the customer doesn’t provide full value and thus doesn’t allow an organization to innovate but does provide a cornerstone of innovation. That said, combining industry partners in an overt innovation ecosystem allows for those partners to ask each other burning questions that confront each other. The act of asking those questions of each other engenders trust. With trust as a bedrock to lay next to that aforementioned cornerstone, corporate partners can then lay the foundation for the next chapter of that industry partner ecosystem.
Discussion and involvement in everything from collaborative research and development, the involvement of start-ups and academia, the folding-in of learnings and players from other industries allow for true breakthrough thinking and action. The orchestration of such an ecosystem must be done with insight knowledge. That insight knowledge doesn’t always come from the largest player within an ecosystem. Often, it might come from a start-up. “Especially in start-ups, we see very capable young people with good ideas and in some cases, we have good experience letting them orchestrate the ecosystem by just providing the people, the know-how and background knowledge.”
Coupling that type of orchestrator with a seasoned corporate veteran from the largest player in an innovation ecosystem provides positive results by infusing past experience into the equation. Moving forward, organizations are more open to this type of innovation ecosystem approach especially due to budget pullback and the need for increased speed in innovation.
