Toward SME 4.0: The impact of industry 4.0 technologies on SMEs' business models

Abstract

Industry 4.0 (I4.0) transforms current production paradigms and raises an inherent need to integrate this with a firm's rational of creating, delivering, and capturing value, i.e., the business model. The resource intensive I4.0 technology implementation challenges any organization and especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To provide theoretical and practical support for this, our chapter first conducts a systematic literature review on business models and I4.0 technologies with a qualitative investigation and a quantitative contingency analysis. The chapter then analyses secondary data from 30 SMEs of an innovative Italian manufacturing cluster for which business model elements are modified while implementing specific I4.0 technologies. To guide future practice and research, 13 propositions and 4 research directions are developed on how implementing individual I4.0 technologies can modify specific business model elements for SMEs 4.0.