Value Ecosystems: Everything Is Interconnected
The following is an excerpt from The Lean Brand: How Brand Innovation Builds Passion, Transforms Organizations and Creates Value. More at: http://leanbrandbook.com.
Everything in an organization is interconnected. You can't go about the business of developing a brand without taking into account the product, the customers, the distribution channels, the business model, the production cycle, and so on. The inverse is true as well: You can't go about the business of building great products, business models, production cycles, and so on without taking into account your brand development.
Everything is interconnected.
Do you remember playing Jenga or pick-up sticks as a kid? Pulling one stick out of the pile might unsettle all the others. In the same way, there are three interconnected and vital parts working together to establish a value-creating organization — product, culture, and brand.
One part can’t be removed without disturbing the whole and undermining the capacity and strength of an organization’s value-creation potential. Which means an organization must live within a value ecosystem wherein products, culture, and brand work in concert to deliver value to its audience. Keeping the entire ecosystem healthy isn't child’s play, it’s a fragile game of company survival — hyper-focusing on or ignoring any element affects everything.
In nature, the ant colony demonstrates the interconnectedness of value ecosystems. Is it the worker ant (product) going out to gather food and ward off enemies who is most important? If everyone in the hill were a worker ant, how successful would the colony be?
Is it the nurse ant that tends to the eggs (culture) who is most important? How many generations of future ants would exist without food and protection from competition, let alone more eggs to tend, if every ant was a nurse ant?
Is it the winged Queen, laying eggs and starting colonies (brand) who is the most important element of an ant ecosystem? Surely the ability to start colonies is the most important element of ant success! But how does the old say- ing go? “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
Of course, it’s not the worker, egg-tender, or Queen who is most important — it’s all three that gives the colony the ability to survive, grow, and thrive.
All the resources, abilities, and relationships interconnect to determine an organization’s value-creation potential. Products create functional- value. Branding creates emotional-value. And culture creates the impetus for both product and brand.
All three are fundamentally and inextricably interconnected to one another. In turn, an organization’s business model must also accommodate and recognize the interconnectedness of these resources, abilities, and relationships throughout this ecosystem.
Any reduction or neglect of any of the elements of the ecosystem affects the whole. Growth in all three areas is needed for the ecosystem as a whole to progress and evolve or all the others are held back as one unit and the whole suffers. Moving forward as a value ecosystem is a gunny-sack race, not a baton race, and not a solo marathon or sprint.
In terms of business models (or books, articles, opinions, methodologies, and the like), the purpose of focusing in on one aspect — product, culture, or brand — is to understand the role each plays in the whole. In other words, successful organizations do not rely on value to the customer being delivered only via one aspect, but rather all three are integrally involved.
Once you zoom in to understand how one element creates value, you must zoom back out to understand how it impacts the other elements. No one aspect alone creates the totality of value for the organization.
Jeremiah Gardner is an author, speaker, lean brand practitioner, and bulldog lover. He helps startups, entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 organizations reframe the way they think about brand innovation, culture, and leadership. He is the author of The Lean Brand, the first book to apply lean principles to branding, is a sought after speaker, and has been featured in several media outlets including Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Lifehacker, The Guardian, Branding Magazine, and SayDaily.
