Description
Data have become a key ingredient for ICT-enabled business models. Nevertheless, there is great uncertainty among scholars and practitioners alike about how to leverage data as an essential innovation resource. This raises the question of how to design data roles to innovate business models. To answer this question and to facilitate a deeper, cause-effect-relation understanding of the interdependencies between data roles and business models, system dynamics was chosen as the approach of analysis. Within a multiple case study of five business model cases with multiple embedded units per case, the study shows that there are four recurring basic data role patterns e.g. ‘incremental improvement’ or 'initial data boost’ and two data role characteristic patterns, describing how data roles unfold within business models e.g. ‘change in self-reinforcement’ pattern. Overall, the patterns help to visualize and articulate data usage in business models and therefore contribute to the ongoing endeavor of innovating business models.
Understanding the Role of Data for Innovating Business Models: A System Dynamics Perspective
Data have become a key ingredient for ICT-enabled business models. Nevertheless, there is great uncertainty among scholars and practitioners alike about how to leverage data as an essential innovation resource. This raises the question of how to design data roles to innovate business models. To answer this question and to facilitate a deeper, cause-effect-relation understanding of the interdependencies between data roles and business models, system dynamics was chosen as the approach of analysis. Within a multiple case study of five business model cases with multiple embedded units per case, the study shows that there are four recurring basic data role patterns e.g. ‘incremental improvement’ or 'initial data boost’ and two data role characteristic patterns, describing how data roles unfold within business models e.g. ‘change in self-reinforcement’ pattern. Overall, the patterns help to visualize and articulate data usage in business models and therefore contribute to the ongoing endeavor of innovating business models.