The Role of Digitalization, Servitization and Innovation Ecosystem Actors in Boosting Business Model Innovation – A Literature Review

The Industry 4.0 technologies and servitization are requiring manufacturers to reinvent themselves to remain competitive. In this sense, companies are putting more emphasis on the customer experience, while associating services to their products with the support of emerging technologies. At the same time, actors in the innovation ecosystem such as universities, research institutes, and service providers are involved in the value co-creation process. Thus, this study aims to systemize and present the main findings of a literature review regarding the role of digitalization, servitization, and innovation ecosystem actors in boosting innovation in business models. The study involved 585 articles in international journals and conference proceedings published till 2021. A detailed selection process led 10 articles for further analysis. As a consequence of digitalization and servitization, there has to be an alignment among ecosystem actors to capture the co-created value generated by BMI. Moreover, the combination of BMI, servitization, and digitalization may also be structured into frameworks according to the different levels of each of those factors, thus allowing for companies to assess and position themselves in such frameworks and identify the path to follow.

However, any of these articles addressed the combination of the three topics proposed: digitalization, servitization, and the contribution of the innovation ecosystem actors, even if they showed a clear interdependence between these areas, leading to common findings impacting BMI.