The Hourglass Model: a framework for digital ecosystem design
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, delivering intelligent, connected services is no small feat. Whether you’re building a smart city platform, enabling industrial automation, or designing a digital twin, you need a clear framework to understand how all the moving parts fit together.
That’s where the Hourglass Model comes in.
The Hourglass Model is a conceptual framework that illustrates how stakeholders and capabilities interact across the layers of a digital ecosystem.
Named for its distinctive shape, the model starts with the physical and network infrastructure at the base, moves up through orchestration and platform, and finally reaches user interfaces at the top.
Each layer matches:
- A stakeholder group (those who build, enable, or govern the system)
- A key capability (the technical function making that layer work)
Together, these pairings form a powerful lens to understand and design scalable, interoperable systems.
How stakeholders and capabilities shape digital ecosystems
Each stakeholder group plays a vital role in maintaining the modularity (each layer can evolve independently), interoperability (standards connect across systems) and scalability (ecosystems grow without breaking) of their layer. Each stakeholder group is paired with a specific capability because they manage the tools and services at that layer, ensure performance, scalability and trust and collaborate across layers for seamless end-to-end integration. But more importantly, they don’t operate in silos, but as coordinated layer of responsibility and capability.
Who is the Hourglass Model designed for?
In modern digital ecosystems, no layer works in isolation, every step depends on strong coordination across technologies and teams. The Hourglass Model offers:
- A structured way to identify where you fit
- A lens to understand your dependencies and opportunities
- A toolkit for aligning people, processes, and platforms
Whether you’re a policymaker shaping digital strategy, a systems architect building next-gen platforms, or an SME innovating in IoT and AI, the Hourglass Model can help you gain a clearer view of your role within the digital ecosystem, identify key integration point and dependencies, align their services with broader industry capabilities and uncover new opportunities for growth and collaboration
Start applying the Hourglass Model today
The Hourglass Model is more than a visual, it’s a tool for strategic thinking in complex digital environments. Now is the time to take advantage of this model to strengthen your understanding of the digital landscape.
Download the Hourglass Model here: https://ceisphere.eu/form/hourglass-model-webform