Description
As the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) increasingly connects various assets, firms are establishing platforms to harness the data and make it available to third parties to create complementary offerings. As a result, IIoT platforms possess high generativity, i.e. the potential of triggering a variety of innovations. However, little is known to date about how this generative potential is leveraged. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the solutions provided via the IIoT platform of a large European industrial firm along two dimensions: the diversity of solution scenarios they address, and the diversity of capabilities they display. Our preliminary results indicate that the diversity of scenarios addressed by IIoT solutions is quite high, whereas the diversity of capabilities is mainly limited to monitoring. Our study provides empirical insights on the generativity of IIoT platforms and extends the literature on digital platforms by indicating that generativity might require a more differentiated analysis.
Recommended Citation
Pauli, Tobias and Lin, Yanpei, "The Generativity of Industrial IoT Platforms: Beyond Predictive Maintenance?" (2020). ICIS 2019 Proceedings. 3.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2019/paperathon/paperathon/3
The Generativity of Industrial IoT Platforms: Beyond Predictive Maintenance?
As the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) increasingly connects various assets, firms are establishing platforms to harness the data and make it available to third parties to create complementary offerings. As a result, IIoT platforms possess high generativity, i.e. the potential of triggering a variety of innovations. However, little is known to date about how this generative potential is leveraged. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the solutions provided via the IIoT platform of a large European industrial firm along two dimensions: the diversity of solution scenarios they address, and the diversity of capabilities they display. Our preliminary results indicate that the diversity of scenarios addressed by IIoT solutions is quite high, whereas the diversity of capabilities is mainly limited to monitoring. Our study provides empirical insights on the generativity of IIoT platforms and extends the literature on digital platforms by indicating that generativity might require a more differentiated analysis.