The traditional economic model, in which companies compete head-to-head within well-defined industries, is rapidly breaking down. In the emerging ecosystem economy, companies are increasingly collaborating across industry boundaries to create value for customers in new and innovative ways. This shift, fueled by technological advancements and new commercial models, is poised to fundamentally change what’s possible in the field of learning and development (L&D). The impacts are far-reaching — including unlocking personalization at scale, increasing learner engagement and efficacy and providing unprecedented ability to demonstrate the return on investment of learning initiatives on core business outcomes.

Let’s examine a common L&D challenge to illustrate how the ecosystem approach differs from traditional models. Consider the perennial topic of new manager development: In the past, L&D practitioners would typically address this need through a range of programmatic solutions — off-the-shelf training, some 1:1 coaching, a series of eLearning modules, supplemented by resources in the company’s learning management system (LMS) or learning experience platform (LXP).

While such an approach, if well designed, could certainly drive impact, it also has some shortcomings. The solutions tended to be one-size-fits-all rather than personalized to the unique needs of each learner. Experiences were often fragmented across multiple disconnected systems and vendors. Practitioners had to act as jacks of all trades, piecing together generalist solutions rather than leveraging specialized best-in-class capabilities. There was limited flexibility to adapt programs over time due to time and expense. And demonstrating the impact of development on performance and business outcomes was an uphill battle due to data silos.

Enter the Ecosystem Economy

The limitation of traditional models is driving a paradigm shift to an ecosystem approach, characterized by shared goals, open innovation and an unrelenting focus on the end customer. Several factors are fueling this change:

Technological Advancements

The exponential growth in computing power, bandwidth, APIs and cloud infrastructure is making it vastly easier for companies to share data and resources while ensuring seamless interoperability between systems. Artificial intelligence is adding fuel to the fire by enabling hyper-personalization and extracting meaning from massive datasets.

Changing Customer Expectations

In their personal lives, individuals have grown accustomed to highly personalized, integrated digital experiences — think of the way Netflix seamlessly serves up the perfect movie, or how Uber connects you to a ride with a tap. People increasingly expect this same level of tailored, friction-free experience in their professional lives as well.

New Competitive Dynamics

In the traditional economy, companies primarily competed against familiar rivals in well-defined industries. But in today’s world, competition is increasingly cross-industry and centered around capturing the time, attention and trust of the end customer or employee. To deliver compelling, differentiated experiences, companies must collaborate across traditional boundaries, bringing together unique capabilities and datasets.

A New Paradigm for L&D

Let’s revisit our new manager development example through an ecosystem lens. Imagine that your HCM connects to best-in-class solutions for manager enablement, tying together:

• Personalized learning paths served up in the flow of work.
• Behavioral nudges and micro-actions triggered by and embedded in productivity tools.
• AI-based coaching and digital role-plays for skill development.
• Real-time manager dashboards aggregating team sentiment and performance.
• Organizational network analysis to assess and strengthen the manager’s connectivity.
• Tie-ins to the manager’s performance goals and business objectives.

By connecting these systems and data streams, you can deliver a radically personalized, adaptive and measurable development experience at scale. Engagement and efficacy increase as a result of hyper-relevance. Skill acquisition and behavior change are accelerated through novel touchpoints like behavioral nudges. The tie-in to business objectives enables you to clearly demonstrate the impact of development on individual and organizational performance. It’s a flywheel effect with the learner at the center.

An Action Plan for L&D Professionals

To position your organization to unlock the benefits of the ecosystem economy, start by cultivating an ecosystem mindset:

• Imagine the Future: Envision the art of the possible in a boundaryless world. What does a frictionless, hyper-personalized, optimized learner experience look like?
• Build a Coalition: Engage HR, IT, analytics, legal, and infosec stakeholders to pressure-test your vision and align on an execution roadmap. You’ll need a strong coalition to drive this type of transformation.
• Partner With Vendors: Understand what your current vendors are doing today, and what’s on their future roadmaps around interoperability, partnerships and AI. Identify gaps between your vision and their existing offerings and plans. For net-new capabilities, seek out innovation partnerships with existing or emerging vendors.
• Be an Optimistic Skeptic: It’s easy to get enamored with flashy demos and slick user experiences. Carefully pressure-test new technologies to ensure they measurably improve learning outcomes. Avoid shiny object syndrome.
• Design for Analytics: As you connect disparate systems, ensure that data is captured and structured in a way that enables you to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of your learning initiatives. This is the key to unlocking the flywheel.

Conclusion

Change is never easy, especially when it comes to dissolving long-standing boundaries between technologies, vendors and ways of working. But the transition to an ecosystem economy represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unlock the next horizon of innovation and impact in the field of learning and development.

While this transformation will continue to unfold over time, you can influence what vendors prioritize and build. This means that you can use your influence to ensure that these technologies and partnerships evolve to capitalize on the opportunity to make L&D more effective and personalized. By cultivating an ecosystem mindset and adopting a test-and-learn approach to partnerships, L&D professionals can position themselves at the forefront of this exciting new frontier.