SYMBIAN OR UBER? THRIVING OR COLLAPSING IN DIGITAL BUSINESS ECOSYSTEMS

“In an avalanche, no snowflake ever felt accountable,”  - Voltairei THE RISE OF BUSINESS ECOSYSTEMS What do Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, Netflix, Uber, TradeLens, and SAP have in common? In the contemporary digital economy, all are platform-based1. In turn, platforms are the tip of the iceberg of a new market organization as the main orchestrators of so-called business ecosystems2, – in which organizations interact co-dependently to increase, share, and maintain value. In order to thrive, ecosystems have a shared common evolutionary vision, and each player contributes to the growth and robustness of the network. To paraphrase Moore3, strong ecosystems are dynamic systems of diverse interactions, arrangements and partnerships between the leading center (orchestrator or platform), the network and peripheral players, to exploit complementarities. Through its strategic vision and ecosystemic relational skills,…