Pros and Cons of IoT Use: What can they tell us with respect to Business Model Change?

Abstract

Practitioners often contend that the emerging and pervasive technology of Internet of Things (IoT) has disruptive capabilities. By opening opportunities to leverage data that it makes accessible, IoT indeed allows incumbents to set up several changes of their business model (BM), and at times replacing them by wholly new approaches. In this paper, we draw on Teece’s (1986) PFI theoretical framework to emphasize the importance of complementary resources to profit from IoT and set up BM changes. Inspiring from ordinal methods, we perform an inductive meta-analysis of drivers – benefits and challenges – risks of IoT use extracted from a selection of eleven managerial studies which jointly surveyed several thousands of organizations (8042 informants). This meta-analysis procedure enables to compare through an order of preference the inductively inferred constructs from original drivers – benefits and challenges – risks items proposed in the selected studies. The method computes a consensus among those orders and brings out the paramount constructs as well as the lesser important. Standing on paramount (resp. lesser important) constructs, we discuss BM changes notably the value creation reconfiguring, and the use of dual BM configuration. Since the IoT technology uncertainties remain numerous and manifold, we also suggest a cautious approach for BM change.