One way to help this happen is to set up a dedicated ecosystem function and appoint an individual at the highest level in the organization who can move ecosystems from a silo to an enterprise-wide growth and value-creation strategy. That individual will be best placed to assess what new capabilities are required and whether you need to buy, build or partner to access them.
Whichever capabilities are needed and however you plan to acquire them, successful FS ecosystems rely on these essential criteria: connectivity, speed and trust.
Connectivity determines how well you deliver for your customers and partners.
It means connecting with customers where they are, whether that be social media or online marketplaces. But it’s also about connecting with partners aligned with your proposition and your purpose and having the interoperability to work with them.
Speed is a function of your platform strategy and your ability to work differently.
Using cloud and automation technologies alongside agile methodologies, for example, will help you remove friction and adopt new processes so you can think, experiment, and move faster. At the same time, you need to be able to move quickly as the market changes and pivot ever more speedily to new business models.
Trust holds your ecosystem together and helps you to perform your chosen role.
It can be secured by consistently delivering on your purpose and proposition, and by being a valued and reliable partner. But it’s important to realize that trust can be undone if value is not ultimately created and the accountability of ecosystem partners is not tracked and accepted. Putting in place appropriate governance structures can help to mitigate any issues. When there’s trust, new ways of creating and sharing value become possible and your employees become resilient to transformation.
Alongside these criteria, all successful ecosystems focus on what creates value for customers. Defined metrics should reflect how value is delivered and how performance is measured in an open and transparent way. It’s important to articulate a clear link between the metrics that measure meeting the customer needs and how they will ultimately translate into value for the group and its stakeholders, including investors and shareholders. While financial KPIs are an obvious place to start, it is important that FS organizations deliver on their purpose and provide financial well-being to customers, employees, and society.
Bringing all these elements together is hard but not impossible. EY Nexus, for example, offers transformational technologies, data and services from a range of trusted partners in an easy-to-use, cloud-native platform. Optimized for the FS industry, it accelerates innovation and powers frictionless customer experience through a curated and trusted ecosystem of partners that any company can tap in to.
