Connecting the Value Chain

Connecting the Value Chain

Many of the recent Innovation success stories have been about the creation of new ecosystems which have created new customer value in a way that wasn't imagined previously.  The iPod and iTunes created an ecosystem of music which included the simple purchase, organization, and portable playback that previously took several steps and suppliers to achieve.  Square is doing a similar thing by connecting the wallet and payment process with the retail point-of-sale system to build an ecosystem and environment that allows both sides of the payment equation to do things more easily than they have in the past. Much has been made of the "ecosystem" as the business model of the future and a key to Innovation success, but in most of the reading I've done the piece that doesn't get connected is how exactly one should think about innovating a new ecosystem.  Certainly if several people and companies have been successful in building new ecosystems in the past we should...
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