Perceived Risks and Benefits of Advanced Pay-Per-Use Type of Business Models Based on Industry 4.0 Enabled Technologies in Manufacturing Companies

There is a growing interest in the pay-per-outcome business models in manufacturing industries because of novel technologies provided by Industry 4.0 implementations. These business models for the software companies cannot be directly applied for manufacturing companies because of the scalability issues as well as complexity issues. The purpose of this paper is to identify perceived benefits and risks of Industry 4.0 enabled pay-per-outcome models for manufacturing companies (machine builders). We conducted qualitative interviews of machine building companies. We identified and selected companies that have been experimenting with novel Industry 4.0 enabled pay-per-outcome business models. We were able to create understanding the perceived benefits and risks of these advanced industry 4.0 enabled PPU/PPO type business models for machine builders. Since there is a limited amount of practical implications especially in case of investment heavy machine builders thus there is little understanding about related benefits and risks of implementing these novel Industry 4.0 enabled pay-per-outcome business models. This study can facilitate decision making of managers about implementing these novel business models by taking into account the expected benefits as well as bottlenecks encountered.