Organisations are not established for charity purposes. Over time, they must grow and make profit. As such, businesses are always searching for ways to boom. One of such ways organisations are yet to explore is the ecosystem model.
Jumia, Africa’s only e-commerce unicorn, has proven over the years that the ecosystem model works.
Starting out as an e-commerce platform where you can only order for household items, Jumia has gone beyond buying household items. Shoppers can now book hotels and flights, order food and even pay for orders within the Jumia ecosystem. In fact, it has gotten to the extent that there is now Jumia One where you can get almost every service you desire from paying for your subscription to recharging your phone and even reading the news. It is all about keeping the customers within the ecosystem.
Companies in the ecommerce sector that are not looking at adopting this model are either being sold off or liquidated. This said, we shall discuss some of the ways the ecosystem model can boost business growth.
Higher chances of attracting investments
Investors are interested in companies that have a solid lifespan. So, when it comes to attracting investment from investors, it has a higher chance of attracting them. Importantly, not just any kind of investor, but one that is ready to strive and dive with the business to ensure that it grows and becomes profitable.
Reduce costs
One of the ways to reduce cost is by adopting the ecosystem model. This is because when processes are efficient, they take less time to execute, can have fewer steps, and can make wasteful activities more obvious and therefore easier to eliminate. So, if you are offering products in different verticals, you will try as much as possible to guarantee quality and efficiency by preventing wastages and ensuring that the right number of people is doing the job.
Improve customer experience and revenue
Effective processes on the revenue side of the business drive sales success and improve pricing accuracy and product development. Structured processes mean you can measure and understand what customers want and create a consistently excellent customer experience that the salespeople can use to sell and retain customers. This allows sales managers to actively manage the sales process without clashing with other verticals, improve sell-through rates and control pricing and discounts.
Reduce risk
The risk of running a business ecosystem is reasonably low as long as you have the right people running the different verticals. Simply, ensure that there is a clear line of reporting as well as checks and balances. Since rigorous processes make it easier to identify causes, they reduce the risk of issues existing in your operations for very long.
Make the business easier to manage
Over time, an ecosystem model will become very easy to manage. This is because processes can be measured, and this means that you can put those processes into systems, measure them and know their outputs without needing to directly observe them. This means that good processes allow executives and managers to manage the business without needing to be involved with every operational detail.
Source: Adeniyi Ogunfowoke
