Industry 4.0. and an upgrade of the business models of large mining companies

Abstract

With the depletion of easily accessible deposits and the transition of the industry to the Industry 4.0 principles the need for more than just increasing production volumes and applying new technologies including automation and modern digital technologies, but also for solutions to a number of organizational and socio-economic problems faced by this sector. All these problems are in one way or another related to the change in the business model of extractive companies. Under these conditions, studying the features of the business models of the major Russian companies in the extractive sector under the transition to the Industry 4.0 is a relevant research task. The purpose of this article is to characterize the features of business models of large Russian extractive companies operating in the fuel and energy complex and to describe the possible directions of their transformation under the influence of Industry 4.0. Our analysis of the business models of the major Russian mining companies and comparison to their foreign counterparts showed a certain conservatism in Russian companies and the lag in the implementation of digital platforms, despite the interest of companies’ management in using digital technologies. This is largely due to the low willingness of most companies to complicate their business models and to implement digital transformation. Such trends can be explained by the fact that companies tend to choose a vertically integrated model. They are in the early stages of digital transformation and mainly focused on operational aspects. In most Russian mining companies, the level of automation of production and administrative processes is low, and the use of digital technologies is still limited mainly to pilot projects. To achieve a systemic effect from digitalization, it is necessary to combine the efforts of all interested parties – the government, companies, the innovation community, and academic circles.