Initialising the team of teams
Published by Mysorean on Monday, August 29, 2005 at 10:30:00 pm.
His question was, "What is an ecosystem?". Interesting because of the context in which the word was being used.
ecosystem n : a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical environment
(Source: www.dictionary.com )
This is in the biological sense of the word. Nowadays it's being increasingly used in the business context too.
In the business context, ecosystem means a group of companies who are facing the market with a single combined front.
It's a kind of an integrated supply chain that has strategic relationships among themselves. So, there are not many risks with regards to the supply chain.
How does it help the companies in the ecosystem?
The marketing efforts of each of the companies can be synergised towards the ecosystem on the whole. Yeah, similar to a group of companies with related diversification as the base strategy. But different from a group in the sense that each company's takes home the profit it makes.
The fluctuations in the market demand can be met (to an extent) by being a part of one such ecosystem.
Hence, building an ecosystem is a better strategy.
How do we go about building one?
I heard arguments to whoever I sounded the idea that it takes so much of energy and effort to build one company and you are talking about an ecosystem, are you mad?
Well, cool it. I am just saying if we all direct our efforts in together then we stand to gain more than lose. It's like this. I know of 4 people who have a burning desire to go on their own. As of now, they have no idea how they are going to go about it. So, we might as well agree that we will build an ecosystem and build on it further. That is, each of us will build a team on our own and build skillsets in areas that will complement each other. This will be a better way of going on our own.
