Collaboration is the route to success in a fragmented world

Our world is facing some formidable challenges, with climate change arguably the greatest threat. Research from the United Nations Environment Programme warns that we are on track for global warming of between 2.4°C and 2.6°C by 2100 – a temperature rise that would have potentially devastating consequences for our planet.

We are also being tested on a number of other pressing issues. These include social inequality and inequity, the degradation of our natural environment, and the ongoing geopolitical turmoil that is destroying both lives and livelihoods. There are many more examples besides.

The complexity of these challenges is so great – and the scale of them so vast – that no single person, organisation or country could possibly hope to tackle them. Collaboration has to be the route to success. Yet, unfortunately, many of our efforts at cooperation are currently being hindered by the fragmented state of the world.

The case for radical collaboration

It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to accept fragmentation and ineffective cooperation as the permanent status quo. In fact, I firmly believe that we can, and must, work together to reframe a better future – a future that creates value for all. And the best way to do that is through radical collaboration. 

What do I mean by radical collaboration? In the context of business – which is my own background – radical collaboration can be defined as an organisation partnering with not just one or two like-minded peers, but with its entire industry ecosystem. This ecosystem is sufficiently broad to include customers, suppliers, tech solutions providers, start-ups, non-profits, academia, research organisations, scientists and potentially even competitors.

By the sheer nature of their diversity and breadth, ecosystems combine a broad range of people and skills, as well as data, technologies, products and services. Ecosystems understand the collective value that they bring to customers. What’s more, they can accelerate innovation and drive performance by transforming what’s possible.

When looking to harness the power of ecosystems, organisations should ask themselves these three important questions: What do your customers and ecosystem partners really value? Where will you create value – by being the orchestrator of one or more ecosystems, a vital participant in one or more ecosystems, or some combination of both? And how could you use technology to accelerate your transition into the ecosystem world?

There are a number of different ecosystem business models in existence. While they might vary in attributes and characteristics, what they have in common is that ecosystem participants know what their purpose is, the unique value they bring, and the means by which value is shared amongst the participants. Of course, creating an effective ecosystem is by no means easy. It takes a special kind of leadership vision, management mindset and technology infrastructure to make one work.

Ecosystems in action

We can already see the power of ecosystems in action today. Organisations are using ecosystems to innovate at scale, transform their operations and challenge sector boundaries, all with end goal of serving customers and other stakeholders better. By developing new business models, they are disrupting industries and markets. And they are harnessing the power of their ecosystems to create new sources of value, gain competitive advantage and seize market share.

According to the EY Ecosystem Study, 69% of business leaders who are from companies that are part of an ecosystem believe ecosystems are very important to their company’s current success. Ecosystems make up 13.7% of their total revenues, on average, and reduce costs by 12.9%.

At EY, we collaborate closely with our own ecosystem partners – including our alliances with Dell, Microsoft, SAP, IBM and ServiceNow – for the benefit of our clients. Together with our partners, we focus on providing the right data, relationships and technology to enable our clients to transform their businesses and unlock sustainable, long-term value.

As well as collaborating with our ecosystem partners in a business context, we also innovate with them for the purpose of building a better world. A good example of this is the mobile app, ERA by EY, which was built using SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). The app helps Ukrainian refugees in Poland to access critical information and support from humanitarian organizations. This technology leverages its own ecosystem of support organizations to provide accessible services for people at risk.

We’re also collaborating with Microsoft to help bridge the digital divide and improve access to digital learning and technologies. Working with social impact organizations across the globe, we’re upskilling communities lacking access to the necessary technology and education through the launch of community training platforms with user and teacher-facing tools and content. We have a simple and clear shared objective: to increase social equity in the digital economy. Specifically, we are going to support millions of people to enter or re-enter the workforce or build new businesses by 2025.

Our ecosystem approach goes beyond projects and initiatives with individual partners. For example, back in 2021 we launched the EY-Nottingham Spirk Innovation Hub in Cleveland, Ohio. Clients are dealing with challenges in bringing new products, services, and business models to market; but given the constant threat of disruption and rapid pace of industry change, they cannot afford to go at it alone. We established the Hub to provide access to a broader ecosystem of business, value chain, capitalization, and technology partners with experience in bringing solutions to market in a speedy, scalable, and sustainable fashion – bridging the gap from strategy to execution. The Hub provides a physical space and set of capabilities that allow us to orchestrate clients and ecosystem partners along with the brightest minds in business, technology, and design to explore new opportunities, bring ideas to life through rapid modeling and prototyping, and then commercialize them in the real world.

Notably, greater collaboration with other members of our ecosystem is a major reason why we are proposing to split EY’s business. The new publicly listed consulting company that would emerge from the separation would be well-placed to forge new alliances since it would no longer need to abide by audit restrictions.

Transform to succeed

There’s an old adage that says, ‘A problem shared is a problem halved’. While many of our problems will not be easily halved, we will still make more progress with solving them if we share them among our ecosystem rather than try to solve them on our own.

By participating in ecosystems, organisations can create more value collectively than they could create individually. They can also achieve their goals with a level of speed, flexibility and scale that those traditional ways of working and partnerships can’t deliver. Thanks to this speed, flexibility and scale, organisations will be able to create long-term value while helping our world to overcome its huge challenges.

If we want a better tomorrow, we must unlock the power of our ecosystems today.