The Digital Foundations of Business Ecosystem Leadership: Digital Maturity

How would you rate the level of your digital capabilities when it comes to co-shaping your business ecosystem? Are they enabling or limiting your impact? What are the digital building blocks required for ecosystem leadership? How are they linked to a corresponding social infrastructure?

Welcome to the 11th installment of my article series on Business Ecosystem Leadership. It explores Digital Maturity, the last – and perhaps the most foundational – element of the nine dimensions of our capability framework.

Digital Maturity has become indispensable for companies that aspire to participate meaningfully in business ecosystems. When it comes to operating in these complex networks, digital technology is not simply about productivity and innovation. It is a critical ingredient for enabling and sustaining collaboration across organizational boundaries—via a shared digital infrastructure, a shared digital strategy, and a mindset that appreciates the overarching system requirements.

We know that ecosystems thrive on openness, shared value creation, and fluid coordination. To enable and nurture these key success factors, companies need to create a robust technological infrastructure, and a corresponding social infrastructurethat is grounded in digital dexterity, curiosity, and collaboration. Let’s take a closer look at this complex dynamic universe and understand what it takes to achieve a high level of digital maturity.

Digital Technologies as Ecosystem Enablers

Digital leaders actively enhance the functionality of an ecosystem

Digital technologies are both the engine and the lubricant of ecosystem performance. Cloud platforms, intelligent software agents, shared data repositories, and other connective technologies enable entirely new forms of engagement. They allow organizations to co-develop offerings, share resources in real time, align workflows across entities, and respond jointly to dynamic market shifts.

However, the power of digital maturity cuts both ways. If even one ecosystem participant lacks digital sophistication, the friction introduced can degrade performance for everyone. Weak infrastructure or low interoperability tends to lead to coordination failures, data bottlenecks, or cybersecurity vulnerabilities—symptoms of an immature ecosystem. Conversely, digitally mature organizations not only avoid becoming bottlenecks; they actively enhance the functionality of the whole. By contributing digital capabilities, such as APIs, dashboards, or collaborative platforms, they increase their relevance, influence, and stickiness in the network.

In a nutshell – digital maturity is no longer just an internal transformation goal. It is a key element of ecosystem readiness—and a key differentiator when trust and speed are important.

Two Sides of the Digital Maturity Coin

Technology alone is never enough

We must not forget that digital maturity has two intertwined dimensions.

The first is the “hard” or technical side: the quality and architecture of an organization’s digital infrastructure. This includes everything from cloud computing environments and integration platforms to cybersecurity protocols, data analytics, collaboration tools – the entire configuration of a company’s hardware and software assets. These systems form the backbone of digital interoperability. They must be secure, scalable, and designed for seamless interaction across organizations.

Yet, technology alone is never enough. The “soft” dimension—let’s call it “digital dexterity”—is equally essential. This includes the behaviors, skills, mindsets, and culture that determine how effectively, and creatively digital technologies are used. It’s not just about technical know-how; it’s about understanding the opportunities that come with digital tools, and applying them in the service of innovation, co-creation, and agility. As such, digital dexterity does not rest in the IT department; it must be embedded in the entire organization—from the C-suite to the front line, across all functions.

Organizations that excel in both dimensions don’t just use digital tools effectively; they understand their strategic, enabling role. They recognize that digital maturity is a collective capacity, cultivated through continuous learning and development.

Bridging Boundaries

A connective tissue integrating diverse actors into a functional network

For the needs of ecosystems and the opportunities that they promise, the most critical technologies are those that enable collaboration beyond the boundaries of a single firm. Here, digital does not just support internal efficiency, it serves as connective tissue integrating diverse actors into a functional network.

In this context, Artificial Intelligence is becoming a powerful ecosystem orchestrator. It enables real-time coordination by anticipating partner needs, detecting weak signals, and automating decision cycles. AI-driven dashboards can surface relevant data across the network, facilitating shared decision-making and adaptive responses.

Digital platforms and marketplaces add another layer of enablement. They offer shared environments where multiple organizations can co-create, transact, and innovate. By modularizing services and making them discoverable, platforms reduce transaction costs and accelerate network effects. Platforms like Siemens’ Xcelerator, Microsoft’s Azure, or SAP’s Business Network serve as an ecosystem anchor—offering a shared space for interaction and innovation.

Other examples are technologies like digital twins and collaborative design environments that allow distributed teams to simulate and iterate joint solutions in real time. And blockchain and smart contracts enable trusted data exchange and enforce decentralized governance rules.

However, none of these technologies matter unless organizations are ready and able to use them effectively. Which brings us to the integrated capability set that constitutes true digital maturity.

Six Elements of an Integrated Digital Capability Set

If we want to understand what it takes to become a player who empowers an ecosystem through digital maturity, it is helpful to distinguish six building blocks.

Three of these building blocks relate to technology:

• The Foundational Infrastructure – This is the technical bedrock upon which all digital collaboration is built. It includes secure cloud environments, scalable platforms, integrated APIs, robust cybersecurity, and interoperability protocols. Without this infrastructure, collaboration will be held back by bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or risk exposure. Foundational infrastructure ensures that ecosystem participants can plug in and operate without friction. It is the enabler of speed, reliability, and trust.
• Data Fluency & AI Capabilities – Here lies the ability to generate, manage, interpret, and share data—securely and insightfully. This includes analytics pipelines, machine learning operations, shared data models, and clear governance frameworks for privacy, quality, and access. In ecosystems, where decisions span multiple actors, trusted data becomes the shared currency. It also involves understanding AI’s potential and limitations and ensuring responsible use of algorithms in joint decision-making.
• Digital Tools for Collaboration – This layer encompasses the actual applications and platforms that enable distributed teams to work together: digital twins, shared workspaces, virtual co-creation environments, integration dashboards. These tools allow for simulation, collaborative prototyping, and feedback across boundaries. They reduce coordination costs and enable asynchronous, real-time, and cross-cultural engagement.

The other three relate to the equally important social infrastructure that puts technology to purpose:

• Organizational Competencies – This layer includes agile ways of working, cross-functional teaming, and newly defined roles (e.g. ecosystem managers or platform product owners) that can operate across firm boundaries. It also involves decision-making protocols, governance clarity, and adaptive structures that support distributed collaboration. Organizations that build these competencies are not only able to participate in ecosystems — they’re able to shape them. (more on this in my recent newsletter on dual governance)
• Cultural Enablers – Even with the right tools and roles, collaboration will fail without the right culture. This layer consists of behavioral norms like openness to external input, curiosity to experiment, and psychological safety to take risks and speak up. A dedicated learning architecture can foster this culture, through skill-building, sensemaking through dialogue, and communities of practice. These enablers foster resilience and adaptability, allowing people to act with confidence even when formal control mechanisms are weak.
• Leadership & Narrative – And finally, at the top of the pyramid sits the strategic and symbolic layer: the ability of leaders to craft and communicate a compelling narrative that connects digital investments to ecosystem value and organizational purpose. This includes setting direction, piloting new behaviors, and helping people make sense of change. In ecosystems, where no single player is in charge, narrative leadership becomes a primary tool for influence.

Each of these six building blocks are important on their own, and most companies address them via different functional verticals. Often, the technology side lies with the IT people, the organizational and cultural side with HR. And, sadly, more often than not, not much love is lost between the two.  But the six blocks belong together – they will unleash their potential only if they are shaped into an integrated architecture.

Advancing Digital Maturity for Ecosystem Leadership

To make digital maturity actionable, organizations should focus on five practical and mutually reinforcing moves:

1. Design for Interoperability from the Start – Shift from one-off tech upgrades to strategic infrastructure that prioritizes modularity and external compatibility. Use scalable architectures, APIs, and cloud-native systems that make it easy to plug into evolving ecosystems.
2. Expand Digital Dexterity Beyond IT – Build cross-functional digital fluency across the enterprise. Focus on capabilities that support external collaboration — real-time data literacy, platform agility, and the ability to operate in boundaryless workflows.
3. Institutionalize Ecosystem-Centric Design – Encourage product and service teams to design with interoperability in mind. Align KPIs with partner enablement and reward solutions that enhance ecosystem-wide functionality—not just internal optimization.
4. Empower Boundary Roles with Structure and Status – Create and legitimize roles that bridge internal functions and external partners. These “boundary spanners” require both authority and credibility, as they enable the flow of insight, trust, and alignment.
5. Activate Cross-Organizational Learning Loops – Build peer learning platforms—inside and across firms—that surface insights about tools, governance, and joint practices. These shared spaces become accelerators of ecosystem readiness and innovation.

Conclusion

Digital maturity is not a destination—it’s a dynamic capability, evolving alongside technologies, strategies, and relationships. In the context of ecosystems, its value multiplies. It becomes the linchpin of participation, a key source of influence, and the enabler of collective agility.

To lead in this space, organizations must move beyond isolated digital initiatives and think systemically. They must invest in infrastructure and mindset, in architecture and learning, in culture and governance. They must see themselves not just as digital transformers, but as digital enablers, catalyzing their environment.

And perhaps most importantly, they must remember that it is not enough to be digitally mature alone. True maturity reveals itself by how well others perform when connected to you.

I’d be curious to learn how you think about this complex capability. What is your experience? Do you have stories to share that illuminate successes and failures? As always, I love to see your comments and engage in conversation. And if you like the topics I am writing about, please subscribe to this newsletter and follow me and the Center for the Future of Organization (CFFO).

This is the 11th installment of a multi-part series on a capability framework for business ecosystem leadership. It is based on our work at the Center for the Future of Organization at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University (CFFO). If you would like to get immediate access to the entire framework, you can get it as a physical booklet or Kindle version here.

To actively discuss and address the challenges of ecosystem leadership, we have launched a cross-functional dialogue and action platform which currently includes about 40 companies from around the globe. To learn more about this initiative click here.

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