According to Ralph Welborn, CEO at Imaginatik, an innovation software and services company, "Business ecosystems are no aberration; nor are they a surprise. They represent an inevitable, adaptive response to changes in the types of value that folks care about and the interplay of technology innovation, behavioral expectations, regulatory changes and novel business models."

By 2018, IDC predicts that more than 50% of large enterprises -- and more than 80% of enterprises with advanced digital transformation strategies -- will create and/or partner with industry platforms.

All this leads to a number of important considerations in terms of how organizations need to think about strategy and innovation in the years ahead.

On the strategy side, the questions and considerations are numerous:

• What percentage of investment should go into ecosystem business models?
• What types of ecosystems should be considered?
• When should an organization choose a hub vs. spoke strategy?
• What is an appropriate pricing strategy which will spur growth of the ecosystem or platform?
• Should an organization hedge its bets by playing within competing ecosystems?
• What sustainable competitive advantage and differentiation can be gained from an ecosystem model versus a traditional value-chain oriented business model?

The implications on strategy and execution also ripple back to corporate innovation. Just as corporate strategic planning will need to respond to the new environment (i.e., the growing ecosystem and platform economy), so too will corporate innovation programs.