Ecosystem thinking as a competitive advantage: the view of Aleksandr Kalinin

The digital products market is going through a turning point: companies are facing a decline in user attention, increasing complexity of algorithms, and increasing competition among services. Against this background, those who are able to think systematically, design platforms around real user tasks and adapt them to the new rules of the digital environment win.

The hero of the interview, Aleksandr Kalinin, is an expert in creating SEO architecture and digital ecosystems, whose projects have been awarded the Global 1000 Award in the category “For Outstanding Achievements in SEO-Driven Digital Platform Development”. In this interview, we look at why traditional models of digital development have stopped working, how companies can rethink their product approach, and what determines the viability of platforms in an era of rapid automation.

Many companies talk about digital transformation, but it often comes down to installing fancy tools. From your point of view, what really distinguishes a mature digital platform from formal “digitization” today?

A mature platform is a system that creates value regardless of which technologies are connected to it. Most companies start with a tool, not a meaning: “let’s implement AI”, “let’s collect analytics”, “let’s make a marketplace”. Scale scale is not something that technologies themselves scale, but only the logic of the product scales.

When the architecture is built around user behavior rather than functions, the platform becomes alive. It can change interfaces, modules, and algorithms, but it remains stable. This is a real transformation — the ability of a product not to depend on a specific stack, but to adapt to changes in the environment without loss of quality.

Aleksandr, today many people say that SEO is “dying” or turning into a narrow technical function. You receive an international award for achievements in the SEO-oriented architecture of digital platforms. What’s really going on? 

— In fact, SEO has never been about a set of technical manipulations. It has always been about the meaning, structure, and ability of the platform to respond honestly to a person’s request. It’s just that today the market has reached a point where it has become obvious.

My position is simple: SEO is the foundation of a digital product, which determines how it will be discovered, interpreted, and scaled. Platforms built around the logic of search intent live longer, are cheaper to support, and adapt better to algorithm changes.

Many companies announce the transition to data-driven management, but in practice everything is often limited to reports. What do you consider a real transformation? 

— Data-driven is not a panel, but a culture. If the data doesn’t change the decision, it doesn’t. The real transformation begins when a company abandons “intuitive management” and translates strategy into measurable models: user behavior, forecasts, scenario modeling. At some point, the business stops arguing “how to do it better”, it sees it in the data. And it frees up a huge amount of energy.

Let’s talk about the hardest part: why do most companies fail to build truly working digital platforms? 

— Because they do not start with the question “what value are we creating?”, but with the question “what technologies will we use to do this?”. A platform is a living organism, not a set of services. And the first thing I do is create an architecture of meaning: why the user needs the product, what problem it solves, and how this value scales. Code, design, integration — these are the consequences. Not the other way around.

How do you personally approach evaluating the effectiveness of a digital product? 

I have three criteria: can a product grow faster than its costs increase? Does the user understand what they are getting and why they should return? Is the product resistant to market changes?

If a platform collapses after another algorithm update or transition to a new content format, then its foundation was wrong.

How has your perception of technology changed after participating in the international professional community? 

— I saw that the world had moved towards complexity. Today, it’s not enough to be a “good SEO specialist” or a “cool architect.” You need to be able to think through end-to-end processes, from the user scenario to the infrastructure. International awards and communities only confirm that such specialists are shaping the future of the industry.

They are currently discussing the rapid development of AI and its impact on organic traffic. Some experts predict that SEO will soon become irrelevant. Do you agree? 

— Absolutely not. AI picks up surface requests, but it also enhances the role of in-depth expertise and platform quality. Frankly speaking, SEO approaches will live as long as there is a human intention, and it does not disappear anywhere. Only the user’s “entry point” changes. And the task of the new generation of specialists is to adapt platforms to these points, rather than arguing with technology.

The phenomenon of “digital fatigue” has emerged: people want to download apps less, read less, and pay less attention to brands. How to work in an environment where the audience does not want to interact? 

— You need to make products that you do not need to “get to”. Minimum friction, maximum benefit. Today, services that integrate into natural human behavior are winning. They don’t force you to complete training, create profiles, or watch long onboarding sessions. If a digital platform does not respect the user’s time, it loses. This is a new, very tough, but honest market.