Design, Setup, and Growth of Successful Ecosystems

This chapter begins by outlining the roles that independent partner organizations can play in the ecosystem. This part discusses both the role of the orchestrator and the crucial role of complementors in ecosystems. Furthermore, it outlines the additional roles of customers, connectors, regulators, and suppliers. The chapter then dives into three sections: building ecosystems, finding complementors, and levers of ecosystem growth. The section on building ecosystems explains the rationale behind the long-term journey of launching an ecosystem, emphasizing the importance of having a strong “why” as the ecosystem’s purpose from the outset. This chapter also introduces the concept of a minimum viable ecosystem and presents the complementor fit analysis, which assists in identifying potential complementors. Finally, this chapter provides an overview of the challenges of scaling in ecosystems as well as of the specific levers of ecosystem growth. These include (among others) building on network effects and modularity and the deliberate management of strategic bottlenecks.