Toward a new era of cooperation: How industrial digital platforms transform business models in Industry 4.0

Being successfully applied in business-to-consumer industries for quite some time, digital platforms only recently have found their way into the industrial business-to-business world. However, rapid developments, particularly in the context of Industry4.0, have indicated enormous potentials from digital platforms for business models and inter-company relationships - fields of particular importance in industrial marketing. Motivated by a lack of empirical insights and calls from academia and practice, this paper sheds light on how digital platforms change industrial firms' business models and inter-company relationships. We applied an exploratory case study design and analyzed a unique sample of 11 platform cases from the United States and Germany, differentiating between platform types and roles. The study reveals recurring themes in business model innovation and inter-company relationships. The results were elicited using a quasi-statistical approach, discussed and interpreted against the backdrop of the current state of research on platforms, business models, and industrial marketing.

Automated summary

This paper examines the impact of digital platforms on industrial firms' business models and inter-company relationships. Through a case study approach, a unique sample of 11 platform cases from the United States and Germany was analyzed, revealing recurring themes in business model innovation and inter-company relationships.