“Disrupt or be disrupted.”

The demise of market giants like Blockbuster and the rise of digital unicorns like Uber are pretty convincing evidence that if you’re operating at business as usual, your business is probably at risk. But that mandate to “disrupt or be disrupted” can misleadingly paint a market landscape of only adversaries: winners and losers; digital predators and digital prey. In reality, for digital businesses, real opportunities to change the business often require leveraging a wide ecosystem of partners. Digital leaders recognize that delivering holistic customer experience takes a village — and that village is comprised of an inclusive ecosystem of partners from startups to stalwarts.

On May 8 at Forrester’s Digital Transformation Forum in Chicago, Liz Herbert and I will lead a session on ecosystems and partnerships titled From Startups To Stalwarts: How You Can Use A Wide Ecosystem For Digital Success. In this session, you’ll learn how to think of your ecosystem as a strategic differentiator and how to source and partner with the right players. You’ll hear an interactive discussion from a range of experts representing different ecosystem components (including leaders from a crowdsourcing community, innovation network, leading SaaS marketplace, and industry analysts) as well as from a company that has taken an ecosystem approach to deliver on an ongoing digital transformation.

If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time to sign up here.

I look forward to seeing those attending on May 8 and hope you’ll join us at this session!