Navigating disruption with ecosystems, partners and platforms

Abstract

Purpose

The IBM Institute for Business Value, which has been conducting Global Chief Executive Officers studies for 15 years, has been reporting on CEO concerns about business and economic disruption and described their efforts to respond to it. But surprisingly, in the 2018 study CEOs also indicate that the shock of disruption is waning. Only 26 percent of the CEOs say new entrants are actually taking market share. 10; 10; 10;

Design/methodology/approach

This report is based on input from 2,148 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), who were interviewed as part of the 19th IBM Global C-suite Study. Both quantitative and qualitative responses were collected from 346 face-to-face meetings and 1,802 in-person phone interviews. To understand how top-performing organizations navigate disruption differently, IBM researchers applied cluster analysis to examine the approaches of three groups of CEOs – Reinventors,. Practitioners and Aspirationals. 10;

Findings

Most CEOs see the emergence of platforms and the growing importance of network economics – both scale and scope – as the crucial drivers of future growth.

Practical implications

Almost six in ten Reinventors co-create new products, services or experiences with their customers.

Originality/value

Today’s CEOs have learned to not only accommodate but embrace disruption. Anticipating and responding to sudden and dramatic change has become standard operating procedure. Chief executives from top performing businesses understand that success requires collaboration with partners within ecosystems and on platforms. Indeed, Checklists for leaders are included.

Citation

Berman, S., Davidson, S., Ikeda, K. and Marshall, A. (2020), "Navigating disruption with ecosystems, partners and platforms", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 46 No. 5, pp. 26-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-07-2018-0064