Business Model Innovation in the Context of Industry 4.0

The fourth industrial revolution is making it possible to connect information, objects and people due to the intersection of the physical and the virtual worlds in the shape of Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of things. A phenomenon which has been proven to provide great benefits, however it remains to be specifically figured out how digitalization and business model innovation correlate. . The new industrial paradigm is transforming the current ways of value creation, the value proposition, and the value capturing, since it involves changes in the technical and production development, which in turn has brought extensive challenges and opportunities not only in a production-technical matter, but also in organizational consequences. Overarching research purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics of business models in the context of industry 4.0 and digitalization. It is a question that is highly relevant for firms seeking to adopt industry 4.0 related technologies. That will help them in identifying the required resources, activities as well as capabilities in order to embrace industry 4.0. The key-drivers, opportunities, and barriers that industry 4.0 cause regarding business model innovation is to be determined. The literature reviews on business model innovations for Industry 4.0 is reviewed and evaluated in order to gain a broad understanding of the topic and to create a framework that enables firms to gain insights into the impact of Industry 4.0 on their business models. The expected business model characteristics for Industry 4.0 are gathered and structured according to the Business model Canvas (BMC) by Osterwalder. Then through desk research, empirical data of firms implementing industry 4.0 is gathered and used in order to evaluate the theoretical framework.