Business model

About: Business model is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 31509 publications have been published within this topic receiving 599504 citations.

Literature review of Industry 4.0 and related technologies

Abstract: Manufacturing industry profoundly impact economic and societal progress. As being a commonly accepted term for research centers and universities, the Industry 4.0 initiative has received a splendid attention of the business and research community. Although the idea is not new and was on the agenda of academic research in many years with different perceptions, the term “Industry 4.0” is just launched and well accepted to some extend not only in academic life but also in the industrial society as well. While academic research focuses on understanding and defining the concept and trying to develop related systems, business models and respective methodologies, industry, on the other hand, focuses its attention on the change of industrial machine suits and intelligent products as well as potential customers on this progress. It is therefore important for the companies to primarily understand the features and content of the Industry 4.0 for potential transformation from machine dominant manufacturing to digital manufacturing. In order to achieve a successful transformation, they should clearly review their positions and respective potentials against basic requirements set forward for Industry 4.0 standard. This will allow them to generate a well-defined road map. There has been several approaches and discussions going on along this line, a several road maps are already proposed. Some of those are reviewed in this paper. However, the literature clearly indicates the lack of respective assessment methodologies. Since the implementation and applications of related theorems and definitions outlined for the 4th industrial revolution is not mature enough for most of the reel life implementations, a systematic approach for making respective assessments and evaluations seems to be urgently required for those who are intending to speed this transformation up. It is now main responsibility of the research community to developed technological infrastructure with physical systems, management models, business models as well as some well-defined Industry 4.0 scenarios in order to make the life for the practitioners easy. It is estimated by the experts that the Industry 4.0 and related progress along this line will have an enormous effect on social life. As outlined in the introduction, some social transformation is also expected. It is assumed that the robots will be more dominant in manufacturing, implanted technologies, cooperating and coordinating machines, self-decision-making systems, autonom problem solvers, learning machines, 3D printing etc. will dominate the production process. Wearable internet, big data analysis, sensor based life, smart city implementations or similar applications will be the main concern of the community. This social transformation will naturally trigger the manufacturing society to improve their manufacturing suits to cope with the customer requirements and sustain competitive advantage. A summary of the potential progress along this line is reviewed in introduction of the paper. It is so obvious that the future manufacturing systems will have a different vision composed of products, intelligence, communications and information network. This will bring about new business models to be dominant in industrial life. Another important issue to take into account is that the time span of this so-called revolution will be so short triggering a continues transformation process to yield some new industrial areas to emerge. This clearly puts a big pressure on manufacturers to learn, understand, design and implement the transformation process. Since the main motivation for finding the best way to follow this transformation, a comprehensive literature review will generate a remarkable support. This paper presents such a review for highlighting the progress and aims to help improve the awareness on the best experiences. It is intended to provide a clear idea for those wishing to generate a road map for digitizing the respective manufacturing suits. By presenting this review it is also intended to provide a hands-on library of Industry 4.0 to both academics as well as industrial practitioners. The top 100 headings, abstracts and key words (i.e. a total of 619 publications of any kind) for each search term were independently analyzed in order to ensure the reliability of the review process. Note that, this exhaustive literature review provides a concrete definition of Industry 4.0 and defines its six design principles such as interoperability, virtualization, local, real-time talent, service orientation and modularity. It seems that these principles have taken the attention of the scientists to carry out more variety of research on the subject and to develop implementable and appropriate scenarios. A comprehensive taxonomy of Industry 4.0 can also be developed through analyzing the results of this review.

The business model concept: theoretical underpinnings and empirical illustrations

Abstract: The business model concept is becoming increasingly popular within IS, management and strategy literature. It is used within many fields of research, including both traditional strategy theory and in the emergent body of literature on e-business. However, the concept is often used independently from theory, meaning model components and their interrelations are relatively obscure. Nonetheless, we believe that the business model concept is useful in explaining the relation between IS and strategy. This paper offers an outline for a conceptual business model, and proposes that it should include customers and competitors, the offering, activities and organisation, resources and factor market interactions. The causal inter-relations and the longitudinal processes by which business models evolve should also be included. The model criticises yet draws on traditional strategy theory and on the literature that addresses business models directly. The business model is illustrated by an ERP implementation in a European multi-national company.

Bike-sharing: History, Impacts, Models of Provision, and Future

Abstract: This paper discusses the history, impacts, models of provision, and future of bike-sharing, or public bicycle programs. The author covers the history of bike-sharing from the early 1st generation program to present day 3rd generation programs, presenting a detailed examination of models of provision, with benefits and detriments of each, and a description of capital and operating costs. In the government model, the locality operates the bike-sharing program must as it would any other transit service. The university model has the educational institution providing the service, most likely in a campus setting. The non-profit model has an organization that was either expressly created for the operation of the bike-sharing service or one that folds the bike-sharing service into its existing interests. With the advertising company model, companies offer a bike-sharing program to a jurisdiction, usually in exchange for the right to use public space to display revenue-generating advertisements. And in the for-profit model, a private company provides the service with limited or no government involvements. The author maintains that there is no one ideal model that is appropriate for all situations. The third-generation of bike-sharing brought the use of smartcards, mobile phones, and kiosks with screens; the fourth generation will be distinguished by improved efficiency, sustainability, and usability. This will be achieved by improving distribution of bikes, installation, powering of stations, tracking, offering pedal assistance bikes, and new business models. The author discusses each of these improvements and concludes that the era of bike-sharing has just begun.