Page 244 - The Design Thinking Playbook

The concept of business ecosystem can be applied to all levels of maturity. In our considerations, we focus How do the ecosystem champions build systems?
on the business ecosystem at the third maturity level, which has the following features:
The traditional path of an ecosystem structure usually consisted of it-
• focuses on the user/customer erations with a few customers to test the full value proposition. After
• loosely coupled and designed for co-creation the pilot phase came the rollout. The development costs were largely
• networked and decentralized system elements incurred before the rollout. An alternative procedure is visualized by
• coordinated and accepted value systems of the actors way of the example of WeChat. The alternative path shows the evolu-
• cross-industry offerings tion of a minimum viable ecosystem (MVE). With this approach,
• maximum benefit for the participants and actors the functionalities and the value proposition are heightened if there
• enabled by new technologies (e.g., blockchain) are enough players in the ecosystem. Today, WeChat is a digital eco-
system that has systematically developed on this path over the last 10
years. The ecosystem is currently expanding in terms of acceptance of
cryptocurrencies and the integration of blockchain.

Large-scale
adoption
complete “Rollout” 20xx
Integration of Related layers
Traditional path Bundling of every applications social causes
blockchain
Media, finance,
2014
tion in an app
“Pilot” 2012 successful innova- Societal layer
Economy, tech, laws
Cooperation
with companies
Scope of and authorities Expansion layers
2008
value New add-on third-party developers,
proposition 2006 services official account platform
Payment and Alternative path
marketplace Core
2005
Commercial WeChat social
social network WeChat users
2003 Minimum viable ecosystem
China’s
limited 1999 Web sites
Messenger
Scale of business large
small ecosystem WeChat!
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