Industry of the future: Digital platforms and data-driven service innovation

The project aims to examine how businesses can exploit the potential of digital technology and data to develop innovative and value-creating services that benefit both customers and society at large.

This knowledge will aid a deeper understanding of the role played by digital platforms and industrial ecosystems, and enable the formulation of specific guidelines to make Swedish industry more competitive.

The project is based on the premise that digital platforms, rather than linear value chains, are playing an increasingly important part in the growth and competitiveness of businesses by way of service innovation. Network effects enable digital platforms to offer new data-driven services with potential for exponential growth in value creation. But this potential will only be realized if new industrial ecosystems are developed, in which various players with complementary resources and abilities work together and share data.

Previous research has highlighted the importance of orchestration and governance in the successful establishment of industrial systems. But too little is known about how these processes can support data-driven service transformation.

Moreover, business researchers have pointed out that several central assumptions about digital platforms are based on consumer markets; they do not apply in the business sector, in which scalability and the existence of advanced industry-specific applications such as digital twins are vital. The major digitization and service innovation challenges faced by many established businesses are also testimony to the importance of empirical research in this field.

The aim of the project is to study this multifaceted phenomenon. To do so, the researchers, led by Christian Kowalkowski, will be using multiple methods: interview and field studies, qualitative comparative analysis, and statistical modeling. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods will enable them to build as well as test theories on the scope for, and effects of, data-driven service transformation in complex industrial ecosystems.

The project will be conducted in three stages. In the first stage the researchers will be carrying out field studies of industrial companies and new advanced services in multiple sectors to identify the mechanisms that support or hinder data-driven service transformation. Stage 2 consists of analysis and evaluation of the interaction between the various players in industrial ecosystems, and the role played by data sharing. Lastly, the researchers will be attempting to understand how data-driven service transformation creates customer value. Their main focus will be on analyzing the relationship between digital services and various outcome variables, such as financial and customer-related metrics.