When it comes to realizing the growth potential of additive manufacturing (AM), industry players have been their own worst enemy. Although equipment providers, in particular, have enjoyed high margins by employing a razor-and-blades business model, intense competition within and across value chain segments has impeded end users’ adoption of industrialized AM applications. As a result, despite high expectations, the industry remains a niche market.

The AM industry’s natural business ecosystem has encouraged some companies to work together. But to unleash the potential of AM, industry players should go further and collaborate to advance the technology, identify new applications, and enable users to fully exploit its advantages. Research by the BCG Henderson Institute points to the concept of an actively managed business ecosystem as the best way to accomplish this goal.

Well-managed business ecosystems have important advantages over classic organizing structures, such as hierarchical supply chains and vertically integrated companies, that are typically used to create a product or service. For example, managed ecosystems are made up of multiple partners that can contribute their specific capabilities toward “co-innovating” and developing new products and services. Such ecosystems can also scale quickly because their modular structure makes it easy to add partners. And they are very flexible and resilient because they enable a greater variety of offerings and adapt more easily to changing customer requirements and technologies.

The AM industry can use these advantages and apply the lessons learned by other successful managed ecosystems in order to foster collaboration among independent companies.