The Strategic Role of the Partner Ecosystem in Belden’s Transformation from Products to Solutions

How can midsize firms create and capture value within ecosystems dominated by technology giants? Belden’s transformation from a manufacturer of industrial networking components to a provider of data-powered solutions required the company to work within an ecosystem of giant partners. Based on interviews with nine executives from Belden and Accenture, this case examines the organizational, technological, and commercial changes needed to build ecosystem-based solutions. 

Confronted with the commoditization of networking hardware and the opportunities of AI, digital twins, and Internet of Things technologies, Belden redefined its strategic role as the provider of an “intelligent data pipe” bridging operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) networks. To support this strategy, the company was developing the Belden Horizon platform to reliably provide trustworthy industrial data across edge, on-premises, and cloud environments, creating a foundation for ecosystem collaboration. Belden also had to persuade much larger technology partners—including Accenture, AWS, and NVIDIA—that intelligent networking was essential for delivering benefits to customers. Finally, the company redesigned its sales organization, incentives, and go-to-market approach to co-sell solutions with ecosystem partners.