Business ecosystem

A business ecosystem is a network of organizations, including suppliers, distributors, customers, competitors, government institutions, etc., that participate in the creation, production and delivery of a product through competition and cooperation.

The idea is that every business in a business ecosystem influences and is influenced by others, and creates an ever-changing relationship in which every business should be flexible and adaptable to survival, like in the biological ecosystem.

The main driver of the evolution of the business ecosystem is the reduction (minimization) of the aggregate social costs for the creation of products and scaling up production.

As it follows from the definition, the business ecosystem includes a variety of participants that are interrelated a certain way. In other words, the business system has some structure. A number of business models are associated with the development of the structure of the business ecosystem.

The actors (the participants in the business ecosystem) interact within a business ecosystem by exchanging various tangible and intangible resources.

The following figure shows the main types of flows between actors in any business ecosystem:

One of the main flows in the business ecosystem is the flow of goods and services, also called the Value-added Chain. A large number of business models are associated with the development of a value chain in the business ecosystem.