How to Get Ecosystem Buy-In

In many industries today--including aerospace, electronics, chemicals, software, global construction, global investment and commercial banking, and international manufacturing--even simple product or service innovations can become complicated, because so many companies now operate in ecosystems made up of powerful and highly interconnected stakeholders. That means you can't focus exclusively on the customer and yourself: You need value propositions that stakeholders in your ecosystem can also buy into, which vastly complicates the process of identifying innovation opportunities. The authors have developed a tool-based ideation process that a major pharmaceutical company has rolled out worldwide. They describe the six steps in the process: (1) Identify key stakeholders and their most pressing needs; (2) outline stakeholder consumption chains; (3) categorize features of the current offer and build offer profiles; (4) create growth opportunity profiles; (5) map stakeholder tensions; and (6) choose your best opportunity.