Why Strategy is Changing in the Age of AI - Part II: How Companies Win as Complementors in Digital Ecosystems
TL;DR
Most companies in an ecosystem aren’t orchestrators, and don’t need to be.
Complementors matter because they bring depth, integration, and trust into the system.
Our research shows three recurring complementor roles: technical specialists, workflow integrators, and trusted partners.
These firms gain influence by being reliable, interoperable, close to users, and experts in the part of the system they serve.
The best strategy isn’t to “move up” to the orchestrator position, but to strengthen the role you already hold and build from there.
In the first article of this series, I explored how advantage is shifting in digital ecosystems and why orchestrators often set the tone. That perspective resonated, but it also prompted an important question from many readers:
“This is useful, but what about companies like ours? We’re not the orchestrator.”
It’s a valid question. In our research on agricultural ecosystems, and in the adjacent energy cases we studied, only a few actors were ever positioned to orchestrate the wider system. Everyone else contributed in different ways, often more quietly, but with a form of influence that was just as meaningful.
Ecosystems only work because many actors play different roles. In these, value rarely comes from trying to be everything. It comes instead from recognising where you sit, understanding the types of contributions others rely on, and strengthening the position you already hold.
This article focuses on those firms: the complementors who create value by bringing clarity, depth, or trust into the ecosystem.
Why Complementors Matter
Complementors can be the actors designing a sensor, calibrating an algorithm, building a farm-management system, offering advisory services, or helping farmers integrate technology into daily routines. In practice, they often carry much of the innovation load: they shape the user experience, translate complexity, and make the system usable.
In our agricultural research, we saw this constantly. Tractors, sensors, weather data, satellite imagery, and advisory services all contribute to the same outcome. And while no single actor controls the entire chain, certain firms clearly shape more of the interaction than others. Often, these weren’t the biggest firms, but the ones that had carved out a distinctive and reliable role.
The point is simple: you don’t need to orchestrate the whole ecosystem to be central to how it works.
Three Complementor Positions That Create Real Advantage
When we looked at the agricultural ecosystem over time, three types of complementors kept resurfacing. They did different things, but they followed similar patterns in how they built influence. Below, I describe them with more narrative depth so leaders can recognise where they might fit.
1. The Technical Specialist
Some firms become essential because they solve a very specific problem better than anyone else. It might be a sensor that measures moisture with exceptional accuracy, an analytics model that detects crop stress earlier than competitors, or a calibration tool that integrates smoothly across brands.
These firms don’t try to cover the entire workflow. They focus on a narrow capability that others depend on, and they invest in making it reliable, consistent, and easy to integrate. Over time, this gives them a quiet but significant influence. Others design around them because replacing them would introduce risk or create friction for users.
What strengthens this position is not scale, but depth. The more specialised the capability, the harder it becomes to substitute. And the more interoperable it is, the more widely it can spread.
2. The Workflow Integrator
Agricultural ecosystems, and many others, are full of tools that don’t always speak the same language. Farmers manage equipment, sensors, imagery, and advisory inputs, often juggling multiple apps or devices. Integrators step into this space and bring clarity.
They might build a farm management system that collects data from different sources, or offer an advisory service that turns scattered information into a coherent recommendation. Dealers, cooperatives, and service providers often play this integrator role as well, stitching together products and technologies in a way farmers can act on.
Their influence comes from reducing complexity. When you make the system easier to use, you become the entry point others rely on. And when customers consistently pass through your interface, whether physical or digital, your role in the ecosystem strengthens naturally.
3. The Trusted Partner
Some complementors hold influence because they are close to the user and understand their world. In agriculture, dealers and agronomists often have long-standing relationships with farmers: they know local conditions, understand constraints, occupy the point where decisions are made.
This proximity creates trust, and trust shapes adoption. It influences which technologies farmers try, which they keep using, and which they abandon. Even sophisticated tools succeed or fail depending on how well they are introduced, supported, and interpreted for users.
Being a trusted partner doesn’t require controlling data or building advanced systems. It requires being present, reliable, and genuinely grounded in customer needs. Many firms underestimate the strategic weight of this role.
How Complementors Build Influence Over Time
Although technical specialists, integrators, and channel partners look different on the surface, they accumulate influence through similar mechanisms.
One of them is reliability: in ecosystems with many moving parts, stability becomes a quiet source of power. When others plan around your component because they trust it, your position strengthens almost naturally.
Another is interoperability: closed systems might offer short-term control, but open integrations usually lead to broader adoption. Complementors who are easy to plug into become part of more workflows, and that reach matters.
Customer proximity is another important factor. Those who speak regularly with farmers or end-users often understand practical needs the fastest, and that ability to interpret reality becomes a strategic advantage.
And finally, unique expertise: it may come from a dataset, an algorithm, a local understanding, or simply years of solving a problem better than anyone else. Expertise creates stickiness.
Staying Resilient Without Becoming Dependent
Complementors face a legitimate risk: becoming too dependent on an orchestrator. We heard versions of this concern from multiple companies in our interviews.
Some were tied too closely to a single machinery brand, others built their business on top of a software platform that later changed its rules or pricing. These situations don’t always end well.
There are ways to avoid this:
Broadening integrations;
Owning a piece of the customer relationship;
Investing in something that is uniquely yours: a model, a method, or a form of knowledge;
Building small “micro-ecosystems” around your product;
Or simply staying adaptable as standards evolve.
None of these require becoming the orchestrator, they require clarity about where value comes from in your role.
Should You Try to Become an Orchestrator?
Sometimes firms believe they should “move up” and orchestrate the system themselves. But becoming the orchestrator is a very specific commitment. It requires shaping architecture, governing interactions, and coordinating many actors who do not work for you. It also requires substantial investment and responsibility.
In our work, the firms that genuinely had this potential had a mix of strong market position, technical capabilities, trusted customer relationships, and the ability to set standards. Most companies did not fit all of these criteria, and trying to orchestrate would have weakened their existing strengths.
For many complementors, deepening their current position - rather than trying to expand into orchestration - leads to better outcomes.
A More Practical Way to Think About Your Role
If you want a reflection prompt rather than a framework, here is one that proved helpful in workshops:
What part of the ecosystem breaks if you disappear?
And equally important:
What part becomes stronger if you evolve your role just slightly?
Those two questions often reveal more about your strategic position than long diagrams or labels. They bring the conversation back to impact, dependencies, and the real value you offer.
Closing Thoughts
Complementors are not side players. They carry expertise, data, integration, and trust, the elements that make ecosystems function in the first place. They solve the problems users actually feel, and they create the bridges that allow others to innovate.
Being a complementor is not a lesser role. It is a distinctive one, and often a very durable one.
The firms that succeed in this position are those that know what they contribute to the system, invest in their strengths, and stay open to the relationships that help the whole ecosystem work.
And when they do, they become part of the foundation others quietly depend on.