flevyblog

Flevy Blog is an online business magazine covering Business Strategies, Business Theories, & Business Stories.
MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP STRATEGY, MARKETING, SALES OPERATIONS & SUPPLY CHAIN ORGANIZATION & CHANGE IT/MIS Other

Adaptive Innovation Ecosystem Strategy

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Design Thinking (225-slide PowerPoint presentation). [NOTE: Our Design Thinking presentation has been trusted by an array of prestigious organizations, including industry leaders such as Apple, MIT, NASA, Ford, Boeing, Fujitsu, Syngenta, Palo Alto Networks, and Mercer, to name just a few.] Design Thinking is [read more]

Also, if you are interested in becoming an expert on Innovation Management, take a look at Flevy's Innovation Management Frameworks offering here. This is a curated collection of best practice frameworks based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. By learning and applying these concepts, you can you stay ahead of the curve. Full details here.

* * * *

When new technologies and competitors disrupt markets, numerous organizations struggle to keep up using arcane Business Models, strategies, technologies, and practices.  Most likely reason is that they are inadequately prepared to develop new products and services amidst uncertainty.

Situations like this stimulate some organizations to partner with others.  Fruitful partnerships comprise of having the appropriate people, processes, and organizational backing—in other words a whole ecosystem.

Partnering with complementary organizations in order to create an Innovation Ecosystem radically improves an organization’s competitive or technological strength.

Setting up the correct type of Innovation Ecosystem is key in order to guarantee success and to detect and manage sources of conflict.

The Centralized Innovation Ecosystem is the most commonly used system across the globe.  Key characteristics of this Innovation ecosystem include company acting as a Broker or Hub, creating separate relationships with each involved entity, entities involved not interacting with each other directly rather via the Broker.

Centralized Ecosystem Strategy hinges on containing precise, distinct problems and solutions.  It is successful in mature industries.

In many situations, the conventional approach for Innovation Ecosystem Strategy development does not work.

The Adaptive Innovation Ecosystem is suited better for environments where requirements are fuzzy or industries are still maturing and need collaborations.  Adaptive Innovation Ecosystem has the company acting as an Orchestrator, connecting entities that work together directly.

Adaptive Ecosystem Strategies are appropriate for circumstances where the problem and the solution are indeterminate or still being categorized. 

Research on how companies create value from partnerships and Innovation Ecosystems has been on-going for more than 15 years.  Findings of this revolutionary research suggest that implementing an Adaptive Ecosystem Strategy necessitates utilizing the following 6-phase approach.

  1. Define the area of exploration.
  2. Find and attract the right partners.
  3. Connect uncommon partners.
  4. Connect the partners into an ecosystem.
  5. Leverage opportunities to transform.
  6. Allow partnerships to be flexible.

Let us delve a little deeper into details of the first 3 phases of this approach.

Define the Area of Exploration

Adaptive Innovation Ecosystems are deployed where the environment is ambiguous.  It is, therefore, logical that the first step in an Adaptive Ecosystem Strategy should be to define the area that needs exploration.

After defining the area to explore, the problem can be analyzed in detail and refined, as comprehension regarding the prospect evolves.

Find and Attract the Right Partners

In order to develop an Adaptive Innovation Ecosystem, it may be necessary for the Orchestrator to look beyond its industry to find partners.  It may have to use unconventional ways of attracting them.

Experience has shown that partnering with uncommon entities have resulted in some of the most effective Adaptive Innovation Ecosystems Strategies.

Partnering entities are, at times, on the outer fringes of the industry or even outside the industry in which the said company operates.  Challenge in this phase is ascertaining the competences needed for Innovation.

Connect Uncommon Partners

Centralized Innovation Ecosystems often operate on the basis that keeps partners separate from one another.  Effectiveness of Adaptive Innovation Ecosystems is contingent on direct collaboration among partners.  Orchestrators play the part of bringing these uncommon partners together.  Bringing together uncommon partners can be demanding as many of the partners have never worked with one another.  Also, there are few models for such collaboration.

Companies that have worked in Adaptive Ecosystems have come to the conclusion that, intrinsically, group effort do not go along a fixed pattern.

Interested in learning more about all the phases of Adaptive Innovation Ecosystem Strategy development?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Adaptive Innovation Ecosystem Strategy here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro LibraryFlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

159-slide PowerPoint presentation
This presentation is a compilation of PowerPoint diagrams and templates used to convey 36 different innovation management frameworks, models and methods. (Please note that the materials are meant to be used to supplement your own business or classroom presentations. These slides may not be [read more]

Want to Achieve Excellence in Innovation Management?

Gain the knowledge and develop the expertise to become an expert in Innovation Management. Our frameworks are based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. Click here for full details.

To be competitive and sustain growth, we need to constantly develop new products, services, processes, technologies, and business models. In other words, we need to constantly innovate.

Ironically, the more we grow, the harder it becomes to innovate. Large organizations tend to be far better executors than they are innovators. To effectively manage the Innovation process, we need to master both the art and science of Innovation. Only then can we leverage Innovation as a Competitive Advantage, instead of viewing Innovation as a potential disruptive threat.

Learn about our Innovation Management Best Practice Frameworks here.

Readers of This Article Are Interested in These Resources


35-slide PowerPoint presentation
A systematic Innovation process allows an organization to clearly understand who its customers are, their unmet needs, needs to be targeted, product positioning, and new products to be developed. This presentation highlights the Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) approach. ODI is a [read more]


 
149-slide PowerPoint presentation
 
 
24-slide PowerPoint presentation

About Mark Bridges

Mark Bridges is a Senior Director of Strategy at Flevy. Flevy is your go-to resource for best practices in business management, covering management topics from Strategic Planning to Operational Excellence to Digital Transformation (view full list here). Learn how the Fortune 100 and global consulting firms do it. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by leveraging Flevy's library of best practice methodologies and templates. Prior to Flevy, Mark worked as an Associate at McKinsey & Co. and holds an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. You can connect with Mark on LinkedIn here.

, , , , ,





Complimentary Business Training Guides


Many companies develop robust strategies, but struggle with operationalizing their strategies into implementable steps. This presentation from flevy introduces 12 powerful business frameworks spanning both Strategy Development and Strategy Execution. [Learn more]

  This 48-page whitepaper, authored by consultancy Envisioning, provides the frameworks, tools, and insights needed to manage serious Change—under the backdrop of the business lifecycle. These lifecycle stages are each marked by distinct attributes, challenges, and behaviors. [Learn more]

We've developed a very comprehensive collection of Strategy & Transformation PowerPoint templates for you to use in your own business presentations, spanning topics from Growth Strategy to Brand Development to Innovation to Customer Experience to Strategic Management. [Learn more]

  We have compiled a collection of 10 Lean Six Sigma templates (Excel) and Operational Excellence guides (PowerPoint) by a multitude of LSS experts. These tools cover topics including 8 Disciplines (8D), 5 Why's, 7 Wastes, Value Stream Mapping (VSM), and DMAIC. [Learn more]
Recent Articles by Corporate Function

  

  

  

  

  


The Flevy Business Blog (https://flevy.com/blog) is a leading source of information on business strategies, business theories, and business stories. Most of our articles are authored by management consultants and industry executives with over 20 years of experience.

Flevy (https://flevy.com) is the marketplace for business best practices, such as management frameworks, presentation templates, and financial models. Our best practice documents are of the same caliber as those produced by top-tier consulting firms (like McKinsey, Bain, Accenture, BCG, and Deloitte) and used by Fortune 100 organizations. Learn more about Flevy here.


Connect with Flevy:

     
  


About Flevy.com   /   Terms   /   Privacy Policy
© . Flevy LLC. All Rights Reserved.