 In increasingly dynamic business environments business development managers must be able to identify and address new opportunities quickly and effectively. Business environments can best be understood as ecosystems consisting of interacting roles and exchanges focused on an industry segment.
The key challenge for business development managers from an ecosystem perspective are identifying a) organizations that would benefit from a tighter integration into the system, and b) "white spaces" in the system that will give rise to new offerings that compete with or complement their own organization´s products and/or services. In both cases ValueNet Works supports identifying and leveraging such opportunities, when combined with webcrawl technologies and organizational information available in online databases.
The basic approach is to map industry connections through URL connections. Then each organization in that network is assigned to one or more roles that they play in the industry. This forms the basis for mapping the ecosystem.
The website descriptions of the identified organizations are then translated into value network maps in order to identify tangible and intangible deliverables the organizations claim they produce. This information is used to enhance the industry-level value network map. The ValueNet Works application is then used to identify network characteristics and assess factors such as role population or diffusion paths. Finally the extent that the organization serves other network participants and roles is evaluated. If, for example, the organization is selling software, then the users of the software are identified and mapped into roles.
Based on the above mapping and analysis the business development manager is now in a position to identify exactly how other organizations are interacting with their customers. This provides a vital context for approaching them with proposals to integrate more tightly with the ecosystem by using their software or other products and then integrating across organizational boundaries with other players. In the technology area this begins a process of standardizing the IS landscape of the ecosystem resulting in faster and more accurate operation of vertical and horizontal supply chains in the system.
Business development managers are also able to identify "white spaces" in the network that indicate where no explicit activity is occurring in the ecosystem. These spaces offer possibilities (or risks) for a new service or product offering that would "short-circuit" existing interactions to the detriment of the organizations involved. Business developers can also better assess relationships that are “at risk” due to minimal intangible interactions. By moving to strengthen the existing relationships, the risk of radical disruptions of the ecosystem is minimized.
Data required to monitor such ecosystems is typically obtained from a) the input of webcrawl tools (e.g., Issuecrawler.net), b) the role mapping of organizations based upon either evaluating their website or mapping to industry categorizations (e.g., I-Metrix), c) current customer information as found in internal CRM systems (e.g., Salesforce.com) and d) from historical industry performance data. This information is aggregated based on the ValueNet Works data model and then provided to business developers for:
· gaining insights into market dynamics
· identifying business development opportunities
· extending the penetration of products and services into horizontal and vertical supply chains
· developing explicit sales and branding strategies
· understanding what alliances (potentially) exist in an ecosystem.
Three final perspectives of importance emerge from specifically applying value network indicators and metrics. Value network indicators provide the ability to benchmark industries over time to understand network behaviors and cycles, to predict the impact of outlying influencers such as regulators on the network, and to justify the development of unique value propositions for business development that are centered around "integration" of the ecosystem based on a whole systems view.
Data aggregation can be completed outside the ValueNet Works application in tools such as Microsoft® Access® or SQL, however due to the large amounts of data required we suggest using Oracle® database solutions such as those driving the ValueNet Works solution. A certain amount of data cleansing is required, however this can be easily accomplished with ValueNet Works service support.
A good analogy for the above considerations is an online traffic report that constantly monitors the conditions of traffic in a metropolitan area. The ValueNet Works application can be custom configured to create a similar custom traffic report for your own unique business ecosystem.
If you have questions or wish further information please contact us at info@valuenetworks.com.
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