How do companies create value from digital ecosystems?
Ecosystem strategies can generate significant value both by growing the core business and by expanding the portfolio into new products and services.
Leading companies are increasingly offering an interconnected set of services—from Alibaba offering a broad ecosystem of lifestyle services (including retail, payments, credit scoring), to Apple launching an AppleCard with Goldman Sachs (expanding on ApplePay), and BMW/Daimler creating a shared mobility ecosystem with a number of startups (Car2Go, moovel, Mytaxi) under the Your Now brand.
However, we still see that many companies that have tried to replicate the ecosystem successes of tech giants like Google and Amazon have struggled. Because ecosystems are complex, defining the right approach to capture maximum value from them is challenging. We recommend that companies determine their ecosystem strategy by assessing market characteristics and trends as well as their “fit” within specific ecosystems. Companies also need to assess their value-creation agenda—whether it is to grow the core business, create new products and services, build an end-to-end solution for a new segment, or improve operational efficiency.
