Geschäftsmodellinnovationen im Zeitalter von Digitalisierung und Industrie 4.0

Numerous results of research in the field of business model innovation demonstrate that during the last five decades more than 90% of all new business models evolved out of re-combinations of existing concepts. This is true for digital business model innovations, too. The authors of this article wanted to investigate the relevance of digital business model patterns in the real economy. They conducted an empirical study based on qualitative interviews with 68 companies and identified seven business model patterns, classified their disruptive potential from evolutionary to revolutionary and analysed them regarding their degree of realisation within the companies.

The conclusion—strongly shortened—says that the topic of business model innovations by Industry 4.0 and digital transformation has reached companies. Yet, there are big differences in the speed of implementation and the degree of novelty of business model ideas. Most companies prefer an incremental development of business models step by step (evolutionary), as this does not change the basic range of services offered by the company. But there are also companies who enhance radical shifts which affect their whole logic of value creation. Therefore, this article clusters business model innovators—from hesitator to follower to optimizer to leader in business model innovation.