The idea of organizations working together to create mutual value is not new.  Many partnership models have succeeded over time. However, today’s pace of technological change — combined with growing constraints across labor, intellectual property, raw materials, energy, and other critical resources — has elevated the importance of effective partner ecosystems.

These ecosystems are now essential for achieving faster time-to-value at scale. That capability directly impacts our Nation’s economic strength, cybersecurity posture, physical defense, and geopolitical influence. As a result, partnership ecosystems have become both a battleground and a proving ground for mission success across sea, land, air, space, and cyber operations.

During this session, we will explore the evolving nature of partnership ecosystems and share lessons learned from real-world collaboration models. The discussion will include a deeper dive into three common mistakes organizations make when building and managing ecosystems and the criticality of prioritization:
1) “We CAN do it ourselves” vs. “SHOULD we do it ourselves?”
2) “We DON’T partner with competitors.”
3) “Our people are less expensive than automation”.