In previous blogs, I have shared with my community thoughts on how virtual ecosystems have become the next frontier of the digital transformation journey, and how ecosystem computing appears to be emerging as the next generation of cloud computing. In a recent blog post, my colleague Jay McBain at Canalys talked about the “ecosystem multiplier” as the value that can be extracted from virtual ecosystems, while another colleague, Allan Adler over at Digital Bridge Partners, recently wrote that by 2027, ecosystems will be the only way to “drive the LTV economics of our business”.
In attending several recent ecosystem and alliance conferences around the world, I have noted that many are wanting to join the ecosystems movement, seeing the potential benefits that ecosystems can bring, but are asking what are some keys to unlocking virtual ecosystems? This blog aims to summarize them by highlighting 5 keys to unlocking virtual ecosystem nirvana.
Key #1: Ecosystems Apps: Holistic and multi-workload approach
The first key organizations are looking for to unlock their virtual ecosystem is ecosystem solutions that deliver multiple ecosystem apps (aka ecosystem workloads). An ecosystem platform with one app that promises something like contact sharing or MDF or marketing each in isolation won’t cut it. Instead, organizations are looking for ecosystem solutions that can deliver a multitude of these ecosystem apps seamlessly. These ecosystem apps need to parallel partner or customer journeys. For example, a partner ecosystem platform needs to provide ecosystem apps that support the entire partner journey, beginning with partner enablement (knowledge sharing, learning, and certification), to partner collaboration, partner marketing, marketplace listing and/or transactions, and all the way to partner support. Ecosystem platforms If a single ecosystem platform does not offer this, organizations will want to work with ecosystem tools that easily integrate with one another, which is the next topic.
Key #2: Integrated Ecosystem Tools
The second key is that of ecosystem integration. Organizations who decide to go with best of breed ecosystem platform solutions first need to look at those that can easily integrate with one another. They then need to look at those ecosystem platform tools that can easily integrate with the multitude of traditional cloud solutions that they have deployed in recent years as most are not looking to rip and replace them. Rather, they would like to integrate them, or what we like to term as “ecosystemize” them. For example, if they already have an LMS like Adobe Activate and are deploying an ecosystem enablement platform, like TIDWIT, they will want them to integrate with each other—be it for user access, catalogs, content, or metrics. Similarly, if they are deploying an ecosystem marketing solution, like Channext, they will like it to integrate it with say their Hubspot Automated Marketing solution. And if organizations are deploying a partner and account mapping ecosystem platform like Crossbeam or Reveal, they will like to integrate with their Salesforce CRM. Why is this key? Quite simply, because integrated ecosystems can help boost their initial cloud investment and provide the aforementioned “multiplier” LTV that they are looking to realize.
Key #3: Quantitative and Qualitative Expansion of Ecosystem Reach
The third key to unlock is for the ecosystem platform to scale by supporting a notable increase in quantitative and qualitative reach. This is important because due to sheer volume, traditional Internet marketing is losing effectiveness year after year. Just think, when was the last time you clicked on a Facebook or Google Ad or responded to a LinkedIn in-mail? In many cases, I personally find myself turning away from such ads because of their use of my data (see next section on privacy). In organizational settings, there is increased scrutiny and compliance that inhibits the sharing of employee data, which naturally means limited reach for any provider trying to reach them. Therefore, organizations are looking for new and more effective ways to reach audiences. When considering virtual ecosystems, they are attempting to hit two birds with one stone. The first is quantitative reach, meaning to increase footprint from what it currently is. So, if they used to access 100 people within a partner organization, they are looking for ways to now reach 1,000 or even 10,000. Virtual ecosystems provide the key to unlock these droves of users who otherwise would be hidden from view behind partner legacy systems. How? By allowing the partner organizations on the virtual ecosystem to themselves to spread the word internally. The second key is increased qualitative reach. Meaning, organizations do not wish to reach just about any lead (as traditional internet marketing does), but rather leads within their partner organizations who are qualified and interested. Virtual ecosystems therefore provide the key to both scaling footprint and equally important improving quality of this expanded reach.
Key #4: Ecosystem Privacy
The fourth key that organizations are looking to unlock is that of ecosystem privacy. The internet partying days of zero privacy are over. What organizations were willing to accept in the Year 2000 no longer works in 2022. Governmental regulations such as GDPR have emerged, but so have organizational compliance rules and standards that will simply not allow that the data of employees be shared freely with other organizations. Ecosystems are designed to solve this very problem, because aside from allowing connectivity to be based on the acquiescence of each organization within the ecosystem, it also allows for privacy settings to be synthesized per the requirements and constraints of each organization. Typical portals can never give this choice to partner organizations or their users because they are a one size fits all. Ecosystems offer a flexible nodal architecture and therefore allow organizations to connect to their approved partners first, and then for strictly and specifically allowed data to pass through, with other activity remaining anonymized. At TIDWIT, for example, multiple layers of ecosystem privacy have been designed to pass through only permitted user data, and to anonymize or to create aliases data, which is not.
Key #5: Ecosystem Security
The fifth key is that of security. Over the past decade, as large data breaches have hit some of the most advanced and secure organizations in the world, cybersecurity has become utmost on the minds of CTOs and CSOs. The ecosystem paradigm provides a shift in security thinking since it aims to offload part of the security risks from a single monolithic approach to a dispersed nodal approach that lessens risk for each entity and the therefore the virtual ecosystem as a whole. In a virtual ecosystem, each organization is responsible for assuring its own security and that of its personnel by applying its own SSO (Single Sign On), which runs on its own backends, connecting it securely to the ecosystem. Meaning, the credentials of its users are not hosted or run by the ecosystem, but rather by its own security organization. The ecosystem platform simply acts as a clearing house for the participant organizations within the virtual ecosystem, allowing each of their respective credentialed users to access the available resources, without taking over any form of ownership over access security. Ecosystem “aliasing” adds another layer of security where the credentials of the user are established through an alias.
Ecosystem apps, integration, reach, privacy, and security are altogether keys that can help organizations unlock immense lifetime value out of their virtual ecosystems with a notable multiplier effect.
If you would like to learn more, please contact us at info@tidwit.com
