Unlocking the Power of Partnerships: The Minimum Viable Ecosystem
As a product manager at a B2B company, you understand the importance of developing great products. However, in today’s complex business landscape, it’s equally crucial to develop great partnerships and ecosystems. This article explores the concept of the Minimum Viable Ecosystem (MVE), a crucial strategy for B2B companies that rely on partnerships to bring their products to market.
The Role of Partnerships in B2B
Unlike consumer goods, B2B companies often require multiple products to deliver a successful solution. As a product manager, your role is to navigate the various permutations and combinations of getting your product integrated into an ecosystem. When customers seek to solve enterprise-level problems, a single product company may not be able to meet their needs. This is where partnerships come in – and identifying the right partners is crucial.
The Minimum Viable Ecosystem (MVE)
An MVE is the smallest configuration of activities and partners that can create evidence of value creation to attract new partners. It’s a strategy that involves testing and learning with customers and partners, similar to developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The key difference lies in the added layer of complexity on the partner side, where you’re testing whether partners are committed to solving the customer’s problem.
Characteristics of an MVE
A successful MVE should take into account the overall value proposition to the end customer and the value chain involved in delivering that value proposition. Key characteristics include:
- Alignment on a common value proposition among all players
- Representation of key parts of a segment or market’s value chain
- Contribution of business-viable products or solutions to the overall solution
- Development of an initial concept or MVP to be tested
Identifying Your MVE
When identifying your MVE, consider both internal and external factors. Internally, examine your ability to educate and manage partner expectations. Externally, ask yourself if the partner is easy to work with and willing to experiment with the overall value proposition.
An IoT MVE Example
To illustrate the concept of an MVE, let’s consider a retail end customer seeking to enhance their customer experience using edge computing, computer vision, and sensing applications. The initial MVE would involve mapping the IoT value chain, including embedded boards, switches, routers, appliances, and more. By identifying the customer’s highest ROI problem to solve, you can test a single application of the concept and decrease the scope and size of the MVE.
Closing Thoughts
Product partnerships are akin to transitioning from single-player mode to multiplayer mode. By developing strong partnerships, you can unlock long-term benefits as each company brings its unique value to the partnership. As a product manager, it’s essential to understand the customer’s larger problem set and the potential ways you and your partners can solve it. By doing so, you can create a winning strategy that drives meaningful action and growth.