WEBVTT

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<v ->Companies in many industries</v>

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have significantly invested into digital ecosystems

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over the past years,

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and that was an important move

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for them to be able to compete against the startups

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that are entering their space.

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However, now in the economic downturn,

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we actually notice that many of those companies

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made the decision to stop those investments

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because they have proven to be hard.

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They take quite a while to build up

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those digital ecosystems.

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But I would like to argue that this is a very bad choice.

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It's a difficult timing to do this at this very moment.

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The reason for that is actually in downturns,

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digital ecosystems are even more important

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than in regular times.

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If you look at the top line,

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digital ecosystems would allow those companies

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to actually be much more flexible

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in offering new kinds of solutions to customers,

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new products, new offerings by partnering more flexibly.

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And on the bottom line,

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especially if you think about supply chain,

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we saw all the issues by the traditional supply chains,

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where you actually are dependent

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on many different suppliers.

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If you would have digital ecosystem approach with platforms

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with hundreds of different players

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where you have direct interconnections,

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that would also give you substantially more flexibility

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in those more difficult times.

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And the last argument I would make

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is actually we've seen that technology companies

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have laid off significantly people over the last year.

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So now is actually the time to acquire that talent,

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build on it, use them to also leverage

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and get into digital ecosystems,

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and really make yourself the winner in the downturn.