Ecosystems, Automation and Interdependent Capabilities

Ecosystem business strategies involve emerging, changing, and evolving patterns of interdependence between businesses, which are designed to maximize the value of working together. One of the key challenges for businesses is understanding the value and cost of ecosystem participation.  For example, Amazon provides the following illustrative list of value drivers to participating sellers in their ecosystem:

• Marketplace for B2C and B2B

• 300 million active users (potential customers)

• 1.5 million active sellers (vibrant market)

• 353 million listed products

• Instant and automated website

• Storage of inventory

• Shipping services

• Customer service

• Returns management

• Shipment tracking

• Marketing services

• International product sales

• Secure payment systems and processes (B2C/B2B)

• Banking services (credit/debit cards, corporate line of credit, expense management)

• Web Services

Innovation for the Purpose of Human Flourishing

We are drawn to profits like a moth to a flame.  Although the window of opportunity for humans to flourish may be open, we turn away away away to chase the dollar.

We have lived through the invention, innovation and evolution of social media which could have united us in friendship, kindness, love, and compassion, but used it to create social conflict, agitation, divisiveness, disinformation, mistrust, depression in our kids, and to weaken our democracy and diminish our ability to respond to a global pandemic with a unified front.  All for the purpose of generating increasing profits.

We are witnessing the deployment of low-cost lethal drones that can swarm, follow, and attack a person silently from the air using artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and lethal weapons.   These are developed and sold in the pursuit of profits.  Profits don’t respect borders, and these technologies will soon be available to be purchased by all - a fearful thought.

Ecosystem Strategies with Dr. Ron Adner

An understanding of ecosystem strategies is required for every business leader today.  It involves a new way of thinking - a new mindset.  There are massive opportunities for new businesses, processes and innovations to be created by connecting together new and different combinations of data rich businesses into new value creation engines.  In this interview with author Dr. Ron Adner, we take a deep dive into ecosystem strategies.  Enjoy!

For more insight read the article Ecosystem Business Strategies.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Ecosystem Business Strategies

It seems business leaders today must recognize and implement two distinct kinds of business strategies.  One strategy for well established businesses in traditional industries designed to maximize efficient operations.  The other is ecosystem business strategies required for innovative, fast transforming and emerging business environments.

In the traditional automobile manufacturing industry, competitors and suppliers were well known and competition was mostly centered around incremental design changes and improving efficiencies.  Today electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers often use new and different supply chain ecosystems, and are just as likely to emerge out of Silicon Valley as Michigan.  

Giving Our Own Moral Codes to Robots

In military and other time sensitive environments the ability to shorten, or compress the time it takes to gather relevant information, make a decision and then act on it is critical.  For that reason, no matter how concerned people are about introducing artificial intelligence, automation and robots onto the battlefield, it will happen.  

Already today, inexpensive swarms of commercial drones supported by open source software and algorithms, high definition cameras and commonly available weapons can be launched by the dozens to attack predesignated targets.  The low costs of these attack drones guarantee that large numbers will be used to overwhelm slow, human dependent defense strategies and responses.  These vulnerabilities today ensure that automated defense systems will need to be employed in the future.  The speed and complexity of an offense dictates what is required of a defense.

Starting at the Finish Line

Starting at the finish line

Every futurist I know seems to be emphasizing that the speed of change is accelerating.  Are you hearing the same thing?  Have you ever pondered why that might be the case?  There are many reasons given including the famous phrase by Marc Andreessen, "Software is eating the world," so in this article we will touch on a few additional ones.

Let's start by considering a line of automated robots building vehicles on an assembly line.  If the manufacturer needs to scale up and produce more vehicles they simply deploy more robots with all necessary best practices and instructions pre-loaded.  There is no long recruitment, training, experience and probation period required. The robots are optimized on day one.  This example represents an ability to introduce change much faster than in the past as digital automation provides far more agility.

Another reason change can be accelerated is that once institutional knowledge is captured, codified and algorithms developed there are near-zero costs to duplicating and distributing them anywhere around the world.  Instantly best practices from Europe or Asia can be uploaded to systems anywhere and the benefits of the digitized knowledge utilized.  There is no need to start from the beginning again in a different location - when you can simply start at the finish line.  

The Future of Climate Risk with Expert Stephen Bennett

Each of us are experiencing the effects of extreme weather, so I reached out to Stephen Bennett, the Chief Climate Officer and Co-Founder of The Demex Group to learn how businesses and markets should strategically think about and adapt to them. A fascinating interview!

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

An Optimistic Futurist

At any given moment, there are events within our control and out of our control.  There are areas we can influence, and areas we cannot.  As an optimistic futurist, I read and analyze the positive with the negative, and then I seek opportunities to influence a positive outcome. 

The global COVID-19 pandemic is a timely point of reference.  I read all the distressing news and projections like everyone else, and then look for opportunities to both mitigate the risk and to achieve the best possible outcomes.  

Imagine if you would sitting in a canoe full of your dearest family members.  The canoe is drifting quickly toward a dangerous waterfall.  Our choices are to focus on all the possible negative future scenarios of going over the waterfall, or focusing on influencing a positive outcome.  What will it be?

We need the clarity and wisdom of recognizing all the possible negative scenarios and consequences, but once we have that recognition, we should focus on shaping the outcome to something purposely positive.  Wouldn’t you agree?  Some might say futurist are better off being objective spectators, but I want a futurist to throw me a rope.

Doomsday futurist are often secretly hopeful they’ve got it right.  They sit back and wait for the canoe to go over the waterfall...as they predicted.  Optimistic futurist, identify, reverse engineer and rehearse both positive and negative possible future scenarios to learn what needs to be done today to purposefully influence our path to achieve the best possible outcome.

Future

My Futurist boss here at TCS, Frank Diana, always says, “It is impossible to predict the future - anyone who tries is on a fool's errand.”  There are simply too many building blocks of the future including, science, technology, societal, geopolitical and economic converging together, plus catalysts of change (think pandemic), mixed into this giant pot of stew we call the future.  Exactly what comes out can be guessed at, but not predicted.  At best we can identify a range of possible and plausible future scenarios to consider and rehearse. 

Given that we can’t predict the future - let’s identify the future we want and do everything possible and purposeful to achieve it.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Future of Safety

In this interview with Autoliv's expert, Christoffer Malm, we take a deep dive into the Future of Safety.  We explore the role of digital services and how they have created a revolution in safety, not just inside vehicles, but for all vulnerable road users.  

The complexity of our journeys is increasing.  We might take an e-bike to a train station, then take a train into the city, then we take an e-scooter into work.  On the way back we might take an Uber to the train station, or ride an electric unicycle or skateboard.  All of these modes of transportation need traditional and physical safety systems and digital safety systems protecting us.   

Join us as we dive into the future of safety.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

A Plausible Future for Higher Education with Expert Dr. Paul J. Bailo

In this episode, I explore the future of higher education with expert and Adjunct Professor Dr. Paul J. Bailo.  I present him with 16 different future scenarios and ask if they are possible, plausible, impossible or implausible.  Join us for some deep thinking, insight, laughter, and a look into the future.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.