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Brain Circuits
True or false? Digital ecosystems
The recent IMD–AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Report produced some counterintuitive findings on digital ecosystems. Test your knowledge on where value lies.
True or false?
- The main barriers to digital ecosystems stem from competitive risk.
- AI is the backbone of ecosystem coordination in the majority of organizations.
- Orchestrators represent the only path to real value.
- Sustainability is the highest-scoring ecosystem benefit.
- The businesses most likely to succeed in the next phase of development will be those that do the boring stuff.
Answers:
- False: While competitive risk is the concern most often raised in boardrooms, the real constraints are integration complexity, legacy infrastructure, and lack of shared rules.
- Also false: According to the report, which included data gathered from a global survey of 275 senior leaders across 12 industries, leaders see strategic value in ecosystems, but operational behavior lags significantly and AI is rarely deployed – just 3% say it is the backbone of ecosystem coordination.
- False again! Orchestrators report higher value than participants across all stages of value creation, delivery, and capture, but it’s not the only path to value. Participants who invest in both strong governance and broad collaboration report value scores on par with orchestrators – suggesting that what organizations do with their ecosystem position matters more than the position itself.
- This is another misconception. Even for industrial organizations, which are among the most active digital ecosystem participants, sustainability remains the lowest-scoring ecosystem benefit.
- True! The organizations that stand to gain most from the next wave of development are likely to be those that solve the unglamorous problems currently preventing ecosystems from delivering on their promise: governance structures aligned across partners, deeper data sharing, and the capability to collaborate broadly across diverse partner types.
Key takeaways for leaders
Two priorities will shape success in the next phase of ecosystem development:
- Building the right foundations
Ecosystem success is not being held back by a lack of ambition or technology spending, but by underinvestment in the foundations of collaboration. Governance, integration, and learning matter more right now than algorithms.
- Turning foundations into strategic advantage
The next phase is about converting the foundations into strategic advantage through better data sharing, coordination, clearer roles, and more deliberate leadership.
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