The Concept of Digital Twins and its Impact on Organizational Performance

The world has become “digital” in many aspects and due to which witnessed a great deal of innovation in products, services, and experiences. The innovation using digital technologies has served meaningfully for many organizations. Digital Twin is an emerging concept that was introduced two decades ago which creates a virtual replica by extending the use of some of the advanced digital techniques and technologies. Limited research is available to conceptualize Digital Twins clearly, analyze the stages of maturity of Digital Twins, and articulate the novel aspects of the technology with an emphasis on similarities, differences, and connections between the Digital Twin and other existing technologies such as modeling, simulation, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things which would be the first focus of the study. The characterization can provide clarity on Digital Twin technology to the academicians, practitioners, and organizational leadership. Digital Twin has started to transition from being an idea or a prototype to a real-world implementation tied to one or more applications. Research studies, academic papers, and many case studies are available to demonstrate existing and potential applications in multiple industries and fields. There is very limited research that ties the applications to organizational performance constructs, namely financial performance, operational excellence, and customer perspective which would be the second focus of the study. The elaboration on how the Digital Twin technology impacts organizational performance aspects would benefit the audience looking for proven approaches and models to realize business value from the technology. Organizations experience a number of challenges during the planning and implementation of Digital Twins that spans across data, business processes, systems and applications, infrastructure, stakeholders, business operating model, technology adoption, business value realization, regulatory aspects, and more. The third focus of the study would explore the Digital Twin related challenges using academic literature, practice literature, and practitioner experiences. The exploration of challenges would benefit the practitioners to effectively manage issues, mitigate risks, set realistic expectations with leadership, and plan communications with stakeholders. Qualitative grounded theory research involving academic literature, practice sources, and practitioner interviews as the primary data collection techniques is used for the three focus areas of the study. The primary data analysis approaches involve coding, memo writing, and analytic induction. The study involves an iterative data collection and analysis from all three data sources. The record of the study is documented as a thesis for use by the relevant audience