Since commerce started millennia ago, businesses have been trying to ensure their growth and survival with an eye to beating the competition. For about the last 100 years, businesses have used the principles of scientific management in order to make sense of their world of commerce, using a variety of models and techniques to improve the way businesses operate. However, these methods are all based on a premise that we have an array of various business processes, and that each process can be understood by analyzing their component elements of Inputs, Processes and Outputs: the I-P-O as it is known. The I-P-O model is one of the most fundamental models used in business analysis. In this model, we seek first to identify the Inputs, the resources needed for a business process to happen. Then we examine the specific Process itself, a component of the broader process consisting of specific, individual steps along the way that are needed to produce some desired outcome. Finally we consider the Outputs, or what is actually produced for the customer. This mental model is as valid today as it ever was.

However, what if we are wrong about our underlying premise? What if business operations are not made up of a conglomeration of individual and independent processes? In order to understand and refine the whole, we study the component parts. But does this model adequately and authentically account for our known universe of situations in business? Is it possible that we need to draw on other sources to complete and improve our existing model, thereby enhancing its relevance to and our understanding of the business domain? This book proposes that we consider an ecosystems model as an alternative or supplement to the I-P-O model. It will examine the use of the ecosystems model in business analysis in order to provide a more holistic model and to link the micro-level factors with their macro-level linkages.