It is Time to Become Data-driven, but How : Depicting a Development Process Model

Background: The business model (BM) is an essential part of firms and it needs to be innovated continuously to allow firms to stay or become competitive. The process of business model innovation (BMI) unfolds incrementally by re-designing or developing new activities in order to provide value propositions (VP). With increasing availability of data, pressure on BMI to orchestrate their activities towards putting data as a key resource and develop data-driven business models (DDBM) is growing. Problematization: The DDBM provides valuable possibilities by utilizing data to optimize current businesses and create new VPs. However, the development process of DDBMs is outlined as challenging and scarcely reviewed. Purpose: This study aims to explore how a data-driven business model development process looks. More specifically, we adopted this research question: What are the phases and activities of a DDBM development process, and what characterizes this process? Method: This is a qualitative study in which the empirical data was collected through 9 semi-structured interviews where the respondents were divided among three different initiatives. Empirical Findings: This study enriches the existing literature of BMI in general and data-driven business model innovation in particular. Concretely, this study contributes to the process perspective of DDBM development. It helps to unpack the complexity of data engagement in business model development and provides a visual process model as an artefact that shows the anatomy of the process. Additionally, this study resonates with value logics manifestation through the states of artefacts, activities, and cognitions. Conclusions: This study concludes that the DDBM development process is structured with two phases as low data-related and high data-related activities, inheriting seven sub-phases consisting of different activities. Also, this study identified four underlying characteristics of the DDBM development process comprising value co-creation, iterative experiment, ethical and regulatory risk, and adaptable strategy. Future research: Further work is needed to explain the anatomy and structure of the DDBM development process in different contexts to uncover if it captures various complexities of data and increases its generalizability. Furthermore, more research is required to differentiate between different business models and consequently customizing the development process for each type. Future research can also further explore the value co-creation in developing DDBM. In this direction, it would be interesting to consider connecting the field of open innovation to the field of DDBM and, specifically, its role in the DDBMs development process. Another promising avenue for future research would be to go beyond the focus on merely improving the VP to maximize the data monetization, and instead focus on the interplay and role that data has on sustainability.