New business models enabled by the technological disruption of Industry 4.0

Abstract

The current work explores the opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution applied to the business models, by merging the field of technology and the field of economics.

The methodology consists of a structured literature review, in which a keywords research has been done on Scopus and Business Source Complete. The selected papers have been coded in Nvivo.

The structure is composed by four chapters; the first one examines the literature about strategic innovation, in order to follow the evolution of the concepts and understand the main schools of thought. Then the focus shifts on the description of the difference between competitive and innovative strategy and the main sources of innovation.

The second chapter explores the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its impact on the redesign of business models. After a short summary on the past three Industrial Revolutions, the focus shifts to the study of Industry 4.0 in depth.

The third chapter presents an accurate description of each technology that is now shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution era. After a technical explanation, further considerations have been done at the level of the impact that every technology has on the business model. This section shows graphically the operational benefits that emerge from the technologies, compared with the operational drivers that categorize them.

The fourth chapter explains the macro business models coming up from Industry 4.0 and how they are related to the value disciplines, namely operational excellence, product leadership, customer intimacy, and ecosystem leadership.