Discovering the Tools & Tactics of Trust in Business Ecosystems – BCG

This article first appeared in The Insights Review July 2021 by ICG.

It also appeared in the Australian Financial Review's Professional Life, 25 August 2021.

BCG’s study argues that successful ecosystems embed systemic trust while friction from mistrust causes ecosystems to fail. The article offers 22 instruments that, when deployed in combination and with a heavy emphasis of digital implementation, can engender trust by ecosystem participants and be tracked over time to uncover trust imbalances.

Source: BCG Henderson Institute analysis

In my review, I suggested three additional instruments to be considered.

1. Analytics

Going beyond reporting, transparent and ongoing analytics about status and ecosystem health go a long way to engender trust.

2. Communication SYSTEMS

Often overlooked, ecosystems cannot survive without predictable and reliable communication systems across ecosystem participants.

3. What about intrinsic motivators?

Or, better, how can ecosystem designers tap into and augment intrinsic motivators to engender trust in ecosystems? Perhaps the next study in this interesting field.

All in all, the article sheds light on an important, long-term ecosystem building block that often receives a lot of attention from ecosystem designers but equally as often takes a second seat to short-term financial success factors once the ecosystem is up and running.

Talk to me about the best tools and tactics to embed systemic trust and manage your alliance ecosystem successfully.