The circumstances for shifting to new kinds of economies and to new ways of doing business are compelling, with the concept of the sharing and circular economies opening up novel ways to reconcile the quest for growth and business value with the environmental prudence perspective: “doing more with less”. The evolution of Sensing Enterprises is expected to capture new business value across supply chains and drive digital business innovation to undiscovered pathways in product design, development of product-to-service approaches, customer engagement and internal structure and performance. In this paper, a glimpse of the business models innovations that are relevant for Sensing Enterprises is provided, leading to the elaboration of the research challenges to accelerate new forms of enterprises, mainly along the following dimensions: (a) Collaborative, Real-time, Proactive Business Analyticsas-a-Service, and (b) Innovative, Web-based Business Models for New Kinds of Economies.
Currently the Internet is influenced by multiple forces whose actual impact in everyday business has not been yet
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apprehended. In this constantly changing and challenging environment, successful companies of the future will be
characterized by open and blurry boundaries and will compete by outreaching to harness external knowledge,
resources and capabilities, and becoming hubs for innovation and magnets for uniquely qualified minds (Tapscott &
Williams, 2014). Stimulating break-through innovation for added value products and services is in fact well
acknowledged at policy level and embedded in the mind-sets of leading enterprises, successful entrepreneurs, and
forward-looking researchers, yet recognized philosophies of doing business 'better' are still not integrated in the
strategies and approaches of many companies, especially in Europe which has traditionally struggled to convert its
scientific excellence into successful market products
To fully exploit the potentiality inherent to the future IoT (Internet of Things) and smart objects, there is a need to
decentralise intelligence, moving to a scenario where the enterprise is seen as a smart complex entity capable of
sensing and reacting to (business) stimuli
In the context of our work in the EC-funded FutureEnterprise project, the term “new forms of enterprises” has been adopted to reflect the next evolutionary step of a Digital / Sensing Enterprise, along the following definition: New forms of enterprises are “Enterprises of the Future, driven by constant business model transformation and innovation, acting as multi-sided platforms built on -as well as emerging from- digital innovations at the global, as well as local level, to produce shared value including that beyond monetisation”.
Along these lines, the present paper aims at discussing a number of instrumental research challenges that need to be tackled by researchers and practitioners in order for new forms of enterprises to evolve and flourish. In section 2, the methodological approach is presented, leading to sections 3 and 4 that summarize the business models innovations and the identified research challenges related to the sensing enterprise. Section 5 concludes this work and presents next steps along this approach.
In order to pave the research path towards future developments that accelerate new forms of enterprises, a
brainstorming methodology featuring 5 steps was followed:
1. Multiple sustainable business model innovations, based on bibliography
According to
In our work, a number of business models innovations along their research directions have been identified for sensing enterprises that want develop the capability to innovate their business models. Collaborative, lean-startup oriented project management platforms Real-time, prescriptive analytics platforms for shop floor processes
Product and Service Coupling Collaborative Hub platforms
Big Data Analytics for Multisided Marketplaces Decentralised community platforms
Virtual Currency Enablers
With a perspective towards 2030, a radically different context for business analytics and their provision of them to enterprise personnel, whether these are highlevel executives or shop floor workers, is anticipated. Thanks to smart devices, and to the unparalleled deployment of sensor grids and the progress in IoT technology, enterprises will be in a position to collect enormous amounts of data, exceeding the current classification of Big Data and will possess raw business knowledge that could be turned into intelligence. Enterprise data will be delivered in real-time and in huge amounts, and new novel approaches for extracting the meaningful part of it would be necessary, while also transportation of this data would require next generation network infrastructures.
Radically different business realities in which prosperity and wellbeing of humans prevail against the backdrop of pure shareholder’s value at any cost will also emerge. Disruptive and creative technologies, like the Internet of Things, Big Data, Social Media, Mobile and Cloud Computing, have been put in place to be used as a means to an end: how to generate value from more efficient resource use and conduct business in a sustainable manner that benefits all stakeholders and the overall society. The design of products and services, as well as the overall business operation, shall abide by the principles of flexibility, durability, restoration and prosumption.
In total, the draft release of the roadmap includes four (4) Grand Challenges that collectively contain 25 research challenges: - Grand Challenge 1: Collaborative, Real-time, Proactive Business Analytics-as-a-Service, dealing with a radically different context for business analytics for the enterprise personnel, either high-level executives or shop floor workers. - Grand Challenge 2: Innovative, web-based business models for new kinds of economies, exploring the definition, experimentation and constant evolution of novel business models that challenge traditional operating models, follow the paradigms of the Sharing Economy and the Circular Economy, and capitalize on novel technologies and Future Internet assets in business environments in order to introduce unique innovation propositions at multiple levels, ranging from the innermost configuration and the core offerings of an enterprise, to the customer-facing, networking elements of its business system (user experience). - Grand Challenge 3: Distributed, Innovation-driven Enterprise Platforms, embodying a radically different context for business innovation and collaboration among organisations, where platforms promote collaboration among enterprises and web entrepreneurs, boost productivity and enable business innovation in consistent lifecycles; from invention to production, from supply chain management to ERP systems, and from customers’ adoption to collaboration with internal business functions or external partners. - Grand Challenge 4: Dynamic discovery and negotiation of the intellectual property rights’ flow, addressing effective management, monitoring, identification and creation of IPRs and knowledge generation and handling, through the use of innovative ICT tools and platforms that will exploit the collaborative features of existing platforms and the power of analytics. As depicted in Figure 2, the proposed Grand Challenges follow the logical pattern in value creation, where one starts with creating or maximising its current intelligence operations and then, based on the material collected, he starts experimenting and simulating different alternatives, until he decides to implement a chosen pathway to innovation. In accordance, GC#1 aims to tackle research issues that will maximise the efficiency and the effectiveness of enterprises based on assets they currently possess, or that they can easily generate as they already possess the raw material (e.g. data, processes and people), while GC#2 works on the intelligence generated from the GC#1 outcomes to experiment and simulate alternative business models which can be used to drive the enterprise and an entrepreneur forward, allowing its transformation to a more sustainable, collaborative and value generating entity. GC#3 and GC#4 pick-up from that exact point, as they are formulated around research questions that will help an enterprise deploy the desirable business model innovations, offering the baseline tools and platforms for the actual establishment and management of collaborations, the introduction of new ways of working and the definition of rules for securing and managing each party’s work, such as the intellectual properties to be created (or to be used).
In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis and in light of the emergence of disruptive technological paradigms, how to conduct business in an ever-changing environment appears more challenging than ever. The surging app economy, manifested within a platform-oriented, mobile-driven and collaboration-rooted era, has already paved new paths for digital business innovation.
In the present paper, a number of research challenges to be tackled in the years to come in order for enterprises to evolve towards new forms of enterprises have been elaborated. Next, iterative steps along our approach include: (a) further elaboration of the research challenges based on case studies along the Digital Business Innovation aspects and (b) recommendations on how to maintain a “live” roadmap, with contributions by any interested stakeholder.
This work has been partly funded by the European Commission through the Project Future Enterprise: Road mapping, Research Coordination and Policy activities sup-porting Future Internet-based Enterprise Innovation (Grant Agreement No. 611948). Santucci, G., Martinez, C., Vlad-Câlcic, D. The Sensing Enterprise, 2013.
Tapscott, D., Williams, A. (2010) Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World. Portfolio Hardcover.