Insight: BCG on how Platforms are Changing Innovation

What possibilities does your company have to innovate faster in a technology driven economy?

Large and small companies alike are benefiting from digital innovation more than ever—and embracing AI, platforms, and ecosystems to gain the upper hand. Avollon is such a platform; sharing data and insight so you can access the right expertise when hiring top talents. What possibilities does your company have to innovate faster in today’s dynamic and complex technology driven economy? Download BCG’s latest report on “The Most Innovative Companies 2019” for some actionable insight.

The Name of the Game is External. Today, companies need to search beyond their own walls for new ideas. As an example, we see huge rises in the use of partnership models such as corporate venture capital, incubators and accelerators.

Collaborating to Build Capabilities. The increasing use of platforms is making innovation more multiparty and collaborative. Collaboration platforms enable ecosystems that bring organizations together to build new capabilities and enhance the final outcome. Ecosystems are set up to bring in expertise from other industries, and “BCG research finds that 83% of digital ecosystems involve partners from four or more industries and 53% involve partners from six or more industries.”

Expanding the Horizon of Your Offer. Ecosystems can give multiple companies a powerful way to build new revenue streams from offers that they could not develop and bring to market on their own. As an example, Alibaba’s ecosystem provides a range of services for Alibaba platform users: everything from finance and e-commerce to travel and entertainment. On a much smaller scale platforms such as Avollon, offering new ways of connecting insight, solutions and users.

Collecting and Taking Advantage of Data. Data ecosystems take on a critical role defining the future of competition, particularly in many B2B industries, because they make it possible for anyone to build data businesses. This is valuable not only because it generates recurring high-margin revenue streams, but also because it creates competitive advantage.

Gaining Access to IP. Shifts in the IP marketplace are creating new possibilities for companies that are long on IP to cooperate and enhance traditional companies that may be short on it. The classic IP strategy is not dead, but many firms need a more sophisticated and nuanced playbook for creating competitive advantage through IP.

Bringing Physical and Digital Channels Together. B2B and B2C companies are finding innovative ways to merge the digital world and the physical one to offer new services, seamless customer experiences, and—in some cases—brand new business models.

Advancing with New Technologies. Companies that develop new technologies such as quantum computing or synthetic biology will want to explore emerging deep-tech ecosystems. This creates groups of entrepreneurs, startups, investors, corporate and academic partners, and others that join forces to develop a technology in new ways.

The Rules of Engaging in Ecosystems. An ecosystem often operates differently from other types of business partnership and may seem foreign to more traditional companies. As ecosystems are dynamic environments that tend to contain lots of different entities, they have multiple sources of influence. The use of ecosystems will undoubtedly expand as more companies experiment and develop more successful use cases. “The more complex the technology, the narrower the expertise—and the more likely it will become that companies must look outside their own organizations for the skills to use the latest developments”, says BCG research. However, gaining access to the latest science is one thing. Integrating that science with existing programs and processes is another. The latter remains the area where most companies will face their biggest challenges.

Read the full report from BCG here.