Introduction

The degree in which enterprises have to compete today in a globalised market cannot be compared with primarily scale-based competition of the previous century (Teece & Linden, 2017). Acting in a turbulent and dynamic market, enterprises experience global competition, rapid technological developments, digitalisation, and sustainability requirements. As such business relationships and corresponding ties have become increasingly more complex. Traditional agreements with business partners, which have been based on bi-lateral relationships, have now been transformed into network structures. Consequently, enterprises are collaborating with business partners and suppliers to co-design and co-develop services to customers and business partners. Hence, enterprises, business partners and suppliers all become part of an ecosystem in which interdependencies and ties between them are paramount. As a result, enterprise management must develop new strategies and act more systemically on how to identify and address market demands and find relevant and valuable business partners to provide services to their customers. As such, enterprises have to transform, which is more difficult than before, to achieve a competitive advantage and market longevity and remain relevant in the market. Examples of enterprises that transformed successfully correspond to Lego, Nike and Disney. These enterprises collaborated with business partners and suppliers intensively and used digitalisation to create new products and services to their customers. Consequently, they transformed their enterprises and strengthened their market position.