Widening the aperture: How partner ecosystems are changing

Partnerships are an essential part of doing business, a way for organizations to meet both specific challenges and longer-term strategic goals. In fact, 75% of executives responding to a KPMG survey agreed and acknowledged the advantages of ecosystem partnerships in expediting their growth strategies.

But evolving market demands are changing the way companies look at their partner portfolios. Today, businesses need partners that can accelerate innovation, market penetration, and customer reach. Put another way, partnerships are evolving from ad hoc solutions to mission-critical ecosystems that drive growth.

A partner ecosystem constitutes a dynamic network of interconnected companies that collaborate for mutual benefit. When operating at an optimal level, these entities share resources and expertise, forming a cohesive unit and generating greater value collectively than individual components could achieve independently.

One driver in the evolution of partnership ecosystems is emerging technologies, most recently artificial intelligence (AI) and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). 

In fact, according to our survey, technology dominates 80 percent of respondents’ partner ecosystems, 67 percent of respondents are prioritizing technological advancements within their ecosystems, and more than half (54 percent) identify digital transformation as the primary driver of partnership growth.

As technology becomes more complex, the build-or buy debate becomes moot, with companies turning to tech partners for an increasing number of enhanced capabilities, such as real-time data sharing and analytics, streamlining supply chains, and improving customer experiences. Top of mind are AI-powered tech solutions that can reshape the value-creation process by automating and optimizing key aspects of the workflow, increasing productivity and efficiency, and accelerating innovation.

These factors will ensure that technology partners continue to play a significant role in future ecosystems. 

The partnership landscape is evolving toward a broader, more inclusive future state that incorporates a diverse range of strategic collaborations. Selecting partners based solely on their capability to address immediate operational challenges or gaps may result in missed future opportunities. Further, this approach can lead to a disjointed patchwork of partners, each with its own goals and priorities, as well as the risk of overdependency on specific partners.

Instead, companies need to embrace “the intentional partner ecosystem.” Intentional partners provide products and services that are key enablers for long-term strategic transformation and growth. In an intentional ecosystem, partnerships are a network of many-to-many relationships, not merely transactional but built on mutual commitment and trust.

A key challenge when establishing an intentional ecosystem is fostering effective collaboration and interoperability among your partners. The portfolio of relationships should connect in a way that adds maximum value to the organization at the heart of the ecosystem, as well as to the individual partners. This necessitates clear expectations, aligned objectives, and identification of potential risks. A comprehensive roadmap outlining key milestones, coupled with mechanisms for monitoring progress, evaluating partner actions, and ensuring accountability, is essential to achieving successful outcomes.