The Ecosystem view offers the possibility to model and analyze the economic community in which an organization interacts with other stakeholders, such as organizations, groups and individuals. The emphasis in an Ecosystem view is on the following aspects of a business model:

• Key partners and Customer segment as the stakeholders of the ecosystem. 
• Value proposition as the values exchanged between the stakeholders.
• Cost structure as the monetary values flowing from the organization.
• Revenue streams as the monetary values flowing towards the organization.
• Key activities and Key resources: Only in the case of value exchanges in the form of capabilities and resources. The Key activities and Key resources that are used by the organization to create their Value proposition are usually not exchanged with others. Thus, they would not be included in an ecosystem model.

The Ecosystem view is one of the business model views for ArchiMate^® modeling and only allows use of specific ArchiMate concepts and relations. Stakeholders are represented by Business actors and Business roles, relations between them by Flow relations. Exchanged value types are linked to interactions using Association relations.

Steps:

1. In your ArchiMate model in the model browser, right-click the folder in which you want to add the Ecosystem view, and then click New > Business model > Ecosystem view.
   
   

2. Click the newly added view in the model browser to open it. An empty Ecosystem view is shown.
   
   

3. Add a Business actor to the view that represents the organization the ecosystem is modeled around. To do this, create a new Business actor by using the Create pane or the quick-create pop-up window, or add an existing one if already present in your ArchiMate model. In that case drag the Business actor from the model browser onto the view.
   
   
   
   
4. Define the key partners and customer segment. They can be other organizations, groups, and individuals. Add Business actors and Business roles to the view that represent them, and organize them around the organization. Create new actors and roles or drag existing ones onto the Ecosystem view if they are already available in your model.
   
   
   
   

5. Define the interactions between the key partners and the customer segment (organization). Draw Flow relations between the customer segment and the key partners, and between key partners who interact with each other.
   
   

   To improve the visibility of some of the key partner labels, their label position has been changed using the Attach label function (Home ribbon tab, group Layout).

6. For each interaction, specify the value types that are exchanged. The value which is exchanged can take the following forms: money, products, services, information, materials, capabilities, resources, and other tangible and intangible values.
   
   

   1. Select a flow relation, click  , and select the type of value.
      
      
      
      

   2. Name the value, and move the value to the desired position along the relation line.
      
      

      You can easily remove a value type again by selecting it, and then pressing Delete.

7. Score the elements with a metric. They can be used for analysis goals.
   
   
   1. Open the canvas menu , and click  to open the metrics form. A list is shown of all objects and relations in the view.
      
      
   2. Click , and select a metric. Repeat this for each metric you want to score elements on.
      
      
   3. Add values to the relevant elements, and close the window when you are ready.
      
      
      

The result is an Ecosystem view with specified value types for all interactions, including metric data that can be used for analyses, for example in color views.