Abstract
PurposeIn the past decade, in the space industry, many initiatives intended at offering open access to big data from space multiplied. Therefore, firms started adopting business models (BMs) which lever on digital technologies (e.g. cloud computing, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence), to seize these opportunities. Within this scenario, this article aims at answering the following research question: which digital technologies do impact which components the BM is made of?Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory multiple case study approach was used. Three cases operating in the space industry that lever on digital technologies to implement their business were analyzed. Despite concerns regarding reliability and validity, multiple case studies allow greater understanding of causality, and show superiority respect to quantitative studies for theory building.FindingsBig data, system integration (artificial intelligence, high-performance computing) and cloud computing seem to be pivotal in the space industry. It emerges that digital technologies involve all the different areas and components of the BM.Originality/valueThis paper sheds light on the impact that digital technologies have on the different BM components. It is only understanding which technologies can support the value proposition, which technologies make the infrastructural part able to support this proposition, which technologies may be helpful for delivering and communicating this value to customers and which technologies may help firms to appropriate the value that it is possible to seize the impact of digital technologies on BM.
Highlights
The space industry has seen the multiplication of initiatives offering open access to big data from space and the possibility for firms to exploit the huge quantity of data made available at an ever increasing rate
We propose an explorative methodological approach based on multiple case studies in the space industry, where, as anticipated, digital technologies are deeply impacting the constituents of business models
Products are divided into electrical ground support equipment (EGSE) and intellectual property (IP) cores:
Summary
The space industry has seen the multiplication of initiatives offering open access to big data from space and the possibility for firms to exploit the huge quantity of data made available at an ever increasing rate. This is, for instance, the case of downloaded data from Earth Observation (EO) satellites that in the past were mainly sold to service providers, which on their turn made a profit by selling them to end-users such as, for instance, consultant companies, cost guards and fisheries. The full terms of this license may be seen at http://creativecommons. org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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