Business Model Innovation within the Norwegian energy sector--A comparative case study of business model innovation applied by ABB and DNVGL to adapt to the energy change in Norway

The trend of energy change affects the Norwegian energy sector. Due to the relatively nascent and rapid advancing nature of the industry, BMI in the energy sector is a new domain that has not been explored much in the literature. This thesis explores how suppliers in the Norwegian energy sector respond and adapt to the context change by innovating their business models. Through a qualitative case study with an explorative and comparative design, the author compared the case of ABB and DNVGL and demonstrated the different BMI approaches that are applied by firms in the sector. The findings indicate that technology is both the core competence for the firm as well as the dominant factor for BMI. The success of technology commercialization is based on a good value proposition and BMI, but if the technology is unique as an outstanding offering of the business model, it may lighten the importance of BMI, and will dominate the BMI. Except the technology factor, the BMI differs based on the firm s culture and cognition. A different degree of flexibility in the extent of implementing BMI between product-based firm and service-centred firm is due to firm s value creation difference and essentially due to the firm s culture and cognition difference. The results indicate that the BMI in the product-based firm is more likely to be influenced by the end user, but the BMI in the service-centred firm is more likely to influence the end user. It would be interesting to conduct more interviews across a number of suppliers who vary in size, resources and brand popularity to determine how the BMI will be impacted by these factors, and to highlight the main difference between product-based firm and service-centred firm in applying BMI