Orchestrating in the era of cross-sector ecosystems

Abstract

The financial services sector is under pressure. These days, customers want holistic services tailored to their personal needs. This increased customer demand forces institutions to rethink the services they offer. In addition, new regulations press upon this sector. Know Your Customer and PSD2 are examples of regulations that make the current ways of working out-of-date. Moreover, new technologies give start-ups the opportunity to take over parts of the services offered by existing companies. These three trends together cause existing institutions to search for new ways to innovate; their current way of working will simply not be enough in 5-10 years time. Operating in an ecosystem, which are networks of companies working together to create new customer value, is one of the new ways that financial institutions are exploring for new potential revenue streams. The potential of these ecosystems is high: 30% of the gross world product in 2025 will be created from ecosystems. However, consortia, which are small ecosystems, miss the managerial guidelines needed for success. Furthermore, academic research is lacking on the adoption process of a consortium. Hence, the first aim of this thesis is to bridge this knowledge gap by performing a multiple case study with four financial services clients. This research is performed in the context of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) aka Blockchain, as this technology is seen as the ‘conversation starter’ for collaboration. The research results in a strategic framework that includes the managerial guidelines (drivers and barriers) and the desired steps in the adoption process of a DLT consortium within the financial services sector. The strategic framework identifies a service gap present in consortium adoption and asks for a neutral orchestrator with industry, technical and ideation expertise. Therefore, the second part of this thesis aims to fill this gap by designing an ecosystem proposition that Accenture, a multinational consultancy, could offer her clients. The designed proposition, Maestra, is a cross-sector orchestration service that includes three main activities: spotting opportunities, co-creating cross-sector concepts, and orchestrating the consortium. The purpose of this service is to bridge sectors by collaboration and thus creating social and environmental impact. The deliverables of Maestra consist of a service process, an implementation roadmap and a business plan. The service is validated through expert interviews and a validation session with eight consultants of Accenture. Furthermore, the service is being considered to be implemented by Accenture Benelux and the service process has already been used during a client proposal.