Open Digital Business Ecosystems: A Pathway for Value Co-creation

Individual businesses enthuse over participating in the 4 “We Economy” era [1] through a digital business ecosystem (DBE). DBE is seen as a gateway for an individual company to penetrate new markets where new products, services, and highly personalized experiences are delivered to their customers. Despite the benefits of DBE, collaboration uncertainty is the main challenge for a company wanting to participate in a wider ecosystem. This paper presents an open digital business ecosystem model that prepares companies prior to participating in the world of digital business and to secure multi-faceted benefits. This model demonstrates three key functionalities: (1) evaluating a company’s current digital and non-digital business capabilities driven by its vision, (2) capturing these capabilities in a value cloud register, and (3) integrating the business capabilities determined by innovative collaborations. A case study of a global non-profit organization is employed to demonstrate how a company connects its partners in an innovation ecosystem.