Mapping the Wave of Industry Digitalization by Co-Word Analysis: An Exploration of Four Disruptive Industries

Levan Bzhalava,Javed Imran,Sohaib S Hassan,Jari Kaivo-Oja,Bengt Köping Olsson

doi:10.1142/s0219877022500018

Abstract

This paper aims to identify global digital trends across industries and to map emerging business areas by co-word analysis. As the industrial landscape has become complex and dynamic due to the rapid pace of technological changes and digital transformation, identifying industrial trends can be critical for strategic planning and investment policy at the firm and regional level. For this purpose, the paper examines industry and technology profiles of top startups across four industries (i.e. education, finance, healthcare, manufacturing) using CrunchBase metadata for the period 2016–2018 and studies in which subsector early-stage firms bring digital technologies on a global level. In particular, we apply word co-occurrence analysis to reveal which subindustry and digital technology keywords/keyphrases appear together in startup company classification. We also use network analysis to visualize industry structure and to identify digitalization trends across sectors. The results obtained from the analysis show that gamification and personalization are emerging trends in the education sector. In the finance industry, digital technologies penetrate in a wide set of services such as financial transactions, payments, insurance, venture capital, stock exchange, asset and risk management. Moreover, the data analyses indicate that health diagnostics and elderly care areas are at the forefront of the healthcare industry digitalization. In the manufacturing sector, startup companies focus on automating industrial processes and creating smart interconnected manufacturing. Finally, we discuss the implications of the study for strategic planning and management.

Highlights

IntroductionDigital technologies disrupt markets and radically restructure entire industries [Nylen and Holmstr€om (2015); Savastano et al (2018); Rof et al (2020); Hanelt et al (2021); Fernandez-Rovira et al (2021); Yang et al (2021); Tavoletti et al (2021)]
The results obtained from the co-word analysis show digitalization trends across industries and the links between digital technologies and subsectors
Lookingrst at the education sector, startup companies focus on bringing AI, augmented reality, blockchain, machine learning and virtual reality technologies in training and e-learning domains

Summary

Introduction

Digital technologies disrupt markets and radically restructure entire industries [Nylen and Holmstr€om (2015); Savastano et al (2018); Rof et al (2020); Hanelt et al (2021); Fernandez-Rovira et al (2021); Yang et al (2021); Tavoletti et al (2021)]. While a case study can provide some in-depth analysis of the current state and specic nature of digital transformation in a sector, it usually lacks bases for generalizing results to a much broader population [Kraus et al (2021); Massaro (2021)] Another strand of literature uses patent and scientic publication data analysis to detect technology trends [Yoon and Kim (2011); Choi et al (2012); Guo et al (2016); Kim et al (2016); Massaro (2021)], but the actual disruption of businesses and value networks across industries comes not from inventions and new emerging technologies but from the way entrepreneurs deploy them to create novel applications and business models

Objectives

Results

Conclusion