WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.350 Companies in many industries 2 00:00:01.350 --> 00:00:03.990 have significantly invested into digital ecosystems 3 00:00:03.990 --> 00:00:05.340 over the past years, 4 00:00:05.340 --> 00:00:06.540 and that was an important move 5 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:09.000 for them to be able to compete against the startups 6 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:10.503 that are entering their space. 7 00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:13.320 However, now in the economic downturn, 8 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:15.330 we actually notice that many of those companies 9 00:00:15.330 --> 00:00:17.220 made the decision to stop those investments 10 00:00:17.220 --> 00:00:19.170 because they have proven to be hard. 11 00:00:19.170 --> 00:00:20.670 They take quite a while to build up 12 00:00:20.670 --> 00:00:22.410 those digital ecosystems. 13 00:00:22.410 --> 00:00:25.680 But I would like to argue that this is a very bad choice. 14 00:00:25.680 --> 00:00:29.160 It's a difficult timing to do this at this very moment. 15 00:00:29.160 --> 00:00:31.530 The reason for that is actually in downturns, 16 00:00:31.530 --> 00:00:33.720 digital ecosystems are even more important 17 00:00:33.720 --> 00:00:35.130 than in regular times. 18 00:00:35.130 --> 00:00:36.630 If you look at the top line, 19 00:00:36.630 --> 00:00:39.000 digital ecosystems would allow those companies 20 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:40.770 to actually be much more flexible 21 00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:43.650 in offering new kinds of solutions to customers, 22 00:00:43.650 --> 00:00:47.640 new products, new offerings by partnering more flexibly. 23 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:48.660 And on the bottom line, 24 00:00:48.660 --> 00:00:50.280 especially if you think about supply chain, 25 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.460 we saw all the issues by the traditional supply chains, 26 00:00:53.460 --> 00:00:54.420 where you actually are dependent 27 00:00:54.420 --> 00:00:56.040 on many different suppliers. 28 00:00:56.040 --> 00:00:59.490 If you would have digital ecosystem approach with platforms 29 00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:00.960 with hundreds of different players 30 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:02.910 where you have direct interconnections, 31 00:01:02.910 --> 00:01:05.490 that would also give you substantially more flexibility 32 00:01:05.490 --> 00:01:07.410 in those more difficult times. 33 00:01:07.410 --> 00:01:08.790 And the last argument I would make 34 00:01:08.790 --> 00:01:11.190 is actually we've seen that technology companies 35 00:01:11.190 --> 00:01:13.920 have laid off significantly people over the last year. 36 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:16.560 So now is actually the time to acquire that talent, 37 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:19.080 build on it, use them to also leverage 38 00:01:19.080 --> 00:01:21.150 and get into digital ecosystems, 39 00:01:21.150 --> 00:01:23.913 and really make yourself the winner in the downturn.