You can’t do it on your own

It’s become very clear that with the current speed of innovation happening simultaneously on multiple fronts (mobile, big data, consumerization, virtualization, social etc etc), corporations can’t keep the pace on their own. There is a clear shift toward appreciating the importance of ecosystems of partners, but a lack of understanding how to embrace and build an ecosystem.

Software companies have mastered this, working with third party partners building applications on their operating systems and building features in the software. Companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc have a strong history and legacy investment in developer ecosystems. More and more technology companies are building out these skills to extend their capabilities to the more nimble and faster moving smaller companies and start-ups.

This trend will rapidly move across into the enterprise world with Walmart, J&J, Coca Cola and Mastercard already investing in developer communities to exploit the mobile opportunity.