"Ecosystems require a shaping strategy"

"Ecosystems are attractive partly because of the new possibilities they create for products and services spanning traditional boundaries — often using digital platforms, APIs, internet of things technology, and new tools for data gathering and analysis.
...
The essential characteristics of business ecosystems are the following: They are multi-entity, made up of groups of companies not belonging to a single organization. They involve networks of shifting, semipermanent relationships, linked by flows of data, services, and money. The relationships combine aspects of competition and collaboration, often involving complementarity between different products and capabilities (for instance, smartphones and apps). Finally, in ecosystems, players coevolve as they redefine their capabilities and relations to others over time.
...
In order to make use of ecosystems, organizations need to shift from using a traditional, static, company-centric perspective, and instead apply new ways of thinking about strategy from an ecosystems perspective. This perspective is distinctive in multiple ways:
.
Dynamic: Based on a coevolutionary rather than a static view of relationships and capacities.
Collaborative: Driven by crafting novel product combinations drawing on complementary offerings.
Influence based: Shaped by partial influence rather than full ownership or control.
Indirect: Profits from system transactions or involves cross-subsidies, as often monetization occurs indirectly.
Emergent: Generates and embraces unanticipated shifts, reversals, and unintended consequences.
Network oriented: Involves overlapping networks, rather than discrete, linear value chains.
Externally focused: Focuses strongly on activities beyond individual company borders.
...
Ecosystems require a shaping strategy, which refers to collaborating with others using indirect influence (including being influenced by others), being responsive to unpredictable changes, and evolving the ecosystem for mutual benefit. Enacting such a strategy can feel counterintuitive, as we are likely much more familiar and adept with the practices of a classical “plan and execute” strategy.
...
The shift to ecosystems thinking challenges the very idea of “industry” that we inherited from the industrial revolution — a discrete set of broadly similar players competing to produce a common end product in a vertically integrated fashion. The coming decades will likely see the further spread of ecosystems, with companies coevolving in temporary clusters of semifluid relationships, spanning traditional industry boundaries. We should therefore be wary of inadvertently applying assumptions from more classical environments or overgeneralizing from a handful of well-known precedents. Instead, we should adopt an ecosystems perspective and consider the specific strategic choices we face, based on our particular situation, aspirations, and capacities."

Trechos retirados de "The Myths and Realities of Business Ecosystems"