Abstract
Increasing competition forces companies to find new business opportunities by building business ecosystems together. The business ecosystem, where a set of companies develop and provide digital services together for a specific customer segment, can be referred to as a software ecosystem. The planning of ecosystems has been researched in some case studies, but more comprehensive knowledge on how to start building software ecosystems is still needed. The goal of this case study was to investigate activities and challenges in the planning phase of a Finnish software ecosystem. The case study was conducted by interviewing representatives of all six actors of the ecosystem and analyzing the material of the 12 planning workshops. The definition of a vision and objectives, the selection of actors, and the definition of a governance model were the main activities of the planning phase. It was also essential that the actors of the software ecosystem started the conceptualization of digital services and the definition of the business model together. One of the main challenges was that a clear strategy was not defined at the beginning of the planning phase. Furthermore, trust-building between the actors, different decision-making capabilities and a lack of the substance knowledge slowed down the planning phase. The actors also felt that much stronger leadership was needed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bosch, J., Bosch-Sijtsema, P.: From integration to composition: on the impact of software product lines, global development and ecosystems. J. Syst. Software 83(1), 67–76 (2010)
Boyce, C., Neale, P.: Conducting in-depth interviews: a guide for designing and conducting in-depth interviews for evaluation input. In: Pathfinder International Tool Series, Monitoring and Evaluation, vol. 2, 16 p. (2006). http://www.pathfind.org/site/DocServer/m_e_tool_series_indepth_interviews.pdf?docID=6301
Charmaz, K.: Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis, p. 208. Sage Publications, London (2006)
Das, T.K., Teng, B.-S.: Between trust and control: developing confidence in partner cooperation in alliances. Acad. Manage. Rev. 23(3), 491–512 (1998)
Dedehayir, O., Mäkinen, S., Ortt, R.J.: Roles during innovation ecosystem genesis: a literature review. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 136, 18–29 (2018)
Cusumano, M.A., Gawer, A.: The elements of platform leadership. MIT Sloan Manage. Rev. 43(3), 50–58 (2002)
Hanssen, G.K.A.: Longitudinal case study of an emerging software ecosystem: implications for practice and theory. J. Syst. Software 85(7), 1455–1466 (2012)
Holmström Olsson, H., Bosch, J.: Strategic ecosystem management: a multi-case study in the B2B domain. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES), vol. 9459, pp. 3–15 (2015)
Iansiti, M., Levien, R.: The Keystone Advantage: What the New Dynamics of Business Ecosystems Mean for Strategy, Innovation, and Sustainability, p. 304. Harvard Business School Press, Boston (2004)
Jansen, S., Brinkkemper, S., Finkelstein, A.:. Business network management as a survival strategy: a tale of two software ecosystems. In: 1st International Workshop on Software Ecosystems, IWSECO, vol. 505, pp. 34–48 (2009)
Jansen, S., Cusumano, M.A.: Defining software ecosystems: a survey of software platforms and business network governance. In: 4th International Workshop on Software Ecosystems, IWSECO, vol. 879, pp. 40–58 (2012)
Knodel, J. and Manikas, K.: Towards a typification of software ecosystems. In: 6th International Conference on Software Business (ICSOB), vol. 210, pp. 60–65 (2015)
Lenkenhoff, K., Wilkens, U., Zheng, M., Süße, T., Kuhlenkötter, B., Ming, X.: Key challenges of digital business ecosystem development and how to cope with them. In: 10th Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems, Procedia CIRP, vol. 73, pp. 167–172 (2018)
Manikas, K., Hansen, K.M.: Software ecosystems – a systematic literature re-view. J. Syst. Software 86(5), 1294–1306 (2013)
Manikas, K.: Revisiting software ecosystems research: a longitudinal literature study. J. Syst. Software 117, 84–103 (2016)
Markham, S.K., Ward, S.J., Aiman-Smith, L., Kingon, A.I.: The valley of death as context for role theory in product innovation. J. Product Innov. Manage. 27(3), 402–417 (2010)
Moore, J.F.: Predators and prey: a new ecology of competition. Harvard Bus. Rev. 71(3), 75–86 (1993)
Moore, J.F.: The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystems, p. 297. HarperBusiness, New York (1996)
Mukhopadhyay, S., Bouwman, H.: Multi-actor collaboration in platform-based ecosystem: opportunities and challenges. J. Inf. Technol. Case Appl. Res. 20(2), 47–54 (2018)
Pichlis, D., Raatikainen, M., Sevón, P., Hofemann, S., Myllärniemi, V., Komssi, M.: The challenges of joint solution planning: three software ecosystem cases. In: Jedlitschka, A., Kuvaja, P., Kuhrmann, M., Männistö, T., Münch, J., Raatikainen, M. (eds.) PROFES 2014. LNCS, vol. 8892, pp. 310–313. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13835-0_29
Rong, K., Shi, Y.: Business Ecosystems – Constructs, Configurations and the Nurturing Process, 263 p. Palgrave Macmillan (2014)
Scaringella, L., Radziwon, A.: Innovation, entrepreneurial, knowledge, and business ecosystems: old wine in new bottles? Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 136, 59–87 (2017)
Schultis, K-B., Elsner, C. and Lohmann, D.: Architecture challenges for internal software ecosystems: a large-scale industry case study. In: Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering, pp. 542–552 (2014)
Valenca, G., Alves, C., Heimann, V., Jansen, S., Brinkkemper, S.: Competition and collaboration in requirements engineering: A case study of an emerging software ecosystem. In: Proceedings of the IEEE 22nd International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), pp. 384–393 (2014)
Valkokari, K., Seppänen, M., Mäntylä, M., Jylhä-Ollila, S.: Orchestrating innovation ecosystems: a qualitative analysis of ecosystem positioning strategies. Technol. Innovat. Manage. Rev. 7(3), 12–24 (2017)
Yin, R.K.: Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Third Edition. Sage Publications, Applied Social Research Methods, vol. 5, 179 p. (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Saarni, K., Kauppinen, M. (2019). Activities and Challenges in the Planning Phase of a Software Ecosystem. In: Hyrynsalmi, S., Suoranta, M., Nguyen-Duc, A., Tyrväinen, P., Abrahamsson, P. (eds) Software Business. ICSOB 2019. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 370. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33742-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33742-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-33741-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-33742-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)