The increase of Ecosystems across industries is driving innovation and collaboration worldwide. But successful Ecosystem growth and adoption requires a stable, secure digital framework – one that Cloud is providing.
Episode Three of the series explores ecosystems, and how partnerships and collaboration are becoming increasingly vital parts of business strategy to ensure organisations continue to deliver value and stay adaptable.
“Cloud & Clear” host Des O’Connor, Cloud Intelligence Lead UK at Dell Technologies, is joined by Greg Sarafin, Global Alliance and Ecosystem Leader for EY, and Margarete McGrath, Global Advisory & Strategy Partner Lead, Dell Technologies.
Listen In To Learn
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- Why ecosystems and partnerships are becoming increasingly important in delivering value
- How organisations can broaden their understanding of ‘value’ and ‘revenue’ beyond the bottom line
- Where Cloud is enabling both wider ecosystem integration and faster innovation
- How organisations, through ecosystems, are powering the circular economy and delivering on social responsibility
The Ecosystem Era has Arrived
“Companies have always worked together, partnering with each other, and industries have developed ‘patterns of partnering’.” – Greg Sarafin
Before exploring what the advent of the ‘Ecosystem Era’ means, it’s important to have a solid understanding of what an ecosystem is – as asking different individuals to define it will result in a myriad of different answers. Greg Sarafin’s summation of an ecosystem as “a concept that recognises organisations in a closed system where members of that system must work with, and around, each other to keep that system stable, ideally optimising the collective benefit” emphasises the collective and collaborative nature of ecosystems that we are seeing developing across industries.
Ecosystems are not a new concept. Organisations have worked together to achieve common goals or support one another with supply and demand for many years. However, with business models changing at pace, we are seeing a change in the focus of businesses working together, with partnering increasingly seen as the answer. As the business landscape and ecosystems change, understanding types of partnerships, and how traditional partnerships models must change, is paramount in staying flexible, adaptable and successful.
Cities in the Cloud
With businesses now moving past being purely competitive with one another, finding new ways of identifying value, sharing risk and contributing to final value propositions is the order of the day. In order to shift towards this new mode, ecosystems need a strong, shared digital foundation to build on, and Cloud plays a critical role in this.
As an enabler of innovation and acceleration within an ecosystem, Cloud is second to none, and has enabled organisations to be more interoperable by lowering access barriers that may have acted as a hurdle to adoption before, like cost of implementation. By doing so, it is allowing even more organisations to partner and find new ways of working and innovating together.
Born in the Cloud
“You can’t have a circular economy when you’re driven by a linear value chain.” – Greg Sarafin
Ecosystem based business models present a huge opportunity as the ‘next step’ in creating new economic opportunities across industries and wider society. But they also present opportunities to drive social good, including establishing circular economies and environmental initiatives.
To truly tap into the circular economy, complex ecosystem networks and value chains are required to transform traditional infrastructures. Organisations need to establish where their responsibility for ecosystem strategy sits at C-suite level, and how aligned their operating and business models are to ecosystem based operations and goals. Naturally, companies that are ‘born’ in the Cloud find this much more straightforward as they are fundamentally ecosystem centric in their structures and outlook – and it is up to companies that have a more traditional structure to make this much needed pivot.
Dell Technologies provides a portfolio of solutions and ‘as-a-Service’ offerings to help organisations pivot towards ecosystem based operating models. From driving revenue and delivering value in new ways, to working collaboratively to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges through technology, Dell is fully committed to supporting and embracing ecosystems through technology.
You can listen to all episodes of “Cloud & Clear” podcast, including this conversation on Cloud and Ecosystems, here.
