Rule 29

The Orchestra Has Many Instruments

Solution delivery invariably involves intercompany collaboration

To realistically assess the required investment and likely returns of offering a solution, companies must first understand what role they will play in a solution stack. That will determine key decisions, including product development investment, required sales capabilities, and alliance strategy. There are four types of participants in a complete solution:

1. Orchestrators provide the vision and define the solution. They own the intellectual property to a substantial portion of the functionality or capabilities that address customers’ needs.
2. Completers offer niche products with functionality critical to the success of the overall solution. Completers solidify their role in a solution stack by clearly defining the value they provide to both the orchestrator and the end customer. Their goal is to participate in every sale of the solution that the orchestrator makes. They do so by simplifying the adoption and use of their product or service alongside the orchestrator’s offering, or completely embedding their functionality through OEM agreements.
3. Complementors provide products or services that enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, or attractiveness of the solution but are not critical to its fundamental ability to deliver customer value. Complementors have a tougher sell than completers, as their offerings lie on the periphery of the solution. Orchestrators will concede to customer choice of complementary vendors. That means complementors can expect to encounter competitors’ products as alternatives within the same solution. Complementors must influence the customers’ mindset to perceive them as completers. They must also make it easy and beneficial for the orchestrator to do business with them to help make their product the preferred option.
4. Delivery Experts are the companies that make the solution usable and easier to adopt for the end customers. In construction, they are the general contractors. In event marketing, the event management companies play this role. Delivery experts have relationships with all solution participants and the experience to know how to assemble them into the best possible solution. Not surprisingly, delivery experts and orchestrators are often the same company. They can also be competitors, even as they partner to deliver the solution.

In enterprise software, the role of orchestration was traditionally held by system integrators. In recent years, the larger technology vendors have taken on the task, not coincidentally expanding their own consulting capabilities. These vendors have recognized that developing an ecosystem of completing and complementary technologies makes their products more attractive for SIs to adapt and recommend. IBM, Oracle, and many others offer industry and use case-specific solutions based on their completely horizontal (e.g., industry-neutral) software. To create the solutions, they partner with other software vendors for key capabilities such as content management, application performance management, and analytics. Over time, they acquire completing offerings to be able to offer more of the solution footprint on their own. As orchestrators of the solution, these platform also assemble ecosystems of complementary technologies that include industry-specific applications such as billing for telecommunications or risk management for financial services. Finally, they rely on both internal resources and third-party SIs to play the role of delivery expert. Though the SIs have hardly given up their role in assembling solutions, they are also attracted to the services revenue opportunities that the vendor’s present.

Until a vendor formally creates and begins to sell a solution, customers orchestrate the solutions they need for their businesses. They collect and assemble the solution components and develop expertise internally or via consultants. By taking over this work and complexity, the orchestrator creates significant value for the customer that reaches far beyond the vendor’s own products.

It is common for a single company to play more than one role. Even so, solution delivery invariably involves intercompany collaboration. From the customer’s point of view, a successful solution will be one where the collaboration is so well planned that the boundaries between the participants are invisible.