Abstract
The challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution (I40) entail new business models to improve customer value creation. So far, academic investigation into I40 has been extensively focused on large enterprises, and only marginally on SMEs. The present paper aims to answer to the following four research questions: How do manufacturing SMEs perceive the I40 phenomenon? How do manufacturing SMEs innovate their business models because of I40? How do manufacturing SMEs behave with their suppliers because of I40? How do manufacturing SMEs behave with their customers because of I40?
Highlights
The goal of this paper is to investigate the transformation of business models as a consequence of the fourth industrial revolution (I40) in the manufacturing industry considering the production chain relationships of small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
The fourth industrial revolution implies a deep transformation in the way production takes place, whereby traditional manufacturing plants are replaced by smart factories based on communication between humans, machines and products through the implementation of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) for industrial production
The present paper aims to answer to the following four research questions: RQ1: How do manufacturing SMEs perceive the I40 phenomenon? RQ2: How do manufacturing SMEs innovate their business models because of I40? RQ3: How do manufacturing SMEs behave with their suppliers because of I40? RQ4: How do manufacturing SMEs behave with their customers because of I40?
Summary
The goal of this paper is to investigate the transformation of business models as a consequence of the fourth industrial revolution (I40) in the manufacturing industry considering the production chain relationships of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Many large firms act as suppliers to SMEs and have SMEs as suppliers, the importance of understanding how SMEs implement I40, how this impacts industrial value creation and their role in the value chain. The present paper aims to answer to the following four research questions: RQ1: How do manufacturing SMEs perceive the I40 phenomenon? We present the theoretical background on business models focusing on production chain relationships in the context of I40. We provide a framework for the analysis, and third we present the empirical results, the implications and conclusions
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