2019, Grieder, Hermann, Schwaferts, Dino, Verkuil, Arie Hans, Hinkelmann, Knut, Aeschbacher, Marc

Companies today are still highly influenced by the management theories of the indus-trial age. To be successful in the future companies need to become part of digital eco-systems where partners and customers will be co-creators. Customers and employees’ expectations are changing, and managers need to re-evaluate traditional management methods to enable companies to successfully transition into the digital era. During the transition, we will see a change from sociotechnical systems to transitional constructs that enable co-creation and collaboration. Digital Arenas will allow companies to create value outside of their industry by collaborating with other companies through APIs; this will give rise to new business models everywhere.

2019, Loosli, Christina, Philippi, Stefan, Verkuil, Arie Hans, Hinkelmann, Knut, Aeschbacher, Marc

Wie Startup-Unternehmen mit der Digitalisierung umgehen, ob sie digitale Prozesse bereitwillig in ihr Geschäftsmodell integrieren, und insbesondere wie Startup-Unternehmen digitale Tools einsetzen und ob sie ihr Geschäftsmodell bewusst auf digitale Prozesse ausrichten, soll in diesem Artikel diskutiert werden.

2019, Fluri, Jasmin, Schwaferts, Dino, Verkuil, Arie Hans, Hinkelmann, Knut, Aeschbacher, Marc

For companies to be sustainably successful in the digital age, there are certain preconditions they must fulfill to be able to react to customer expectations and offer appropriate products or services competitively. This ability to proactively provide proper products or services within an adequate period is called Digital Maturity. To reach Dig-ital Maturity, companies must establish four preconditions: Customer Knowledge, Strategic Management, Technical Capability, and Cultural Agility. Those preconditions are called pillars of Digital Maturity. This chapter explains, why Digital Maturity concerns the whole company and requires different prerequisites on the leadership- as well as on the technical-, organizational, and cultural side of a company. The Digital Maturity assessment of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland is introduced and explains how to set up and incrementally perform a Digital Maturity assessment inside a company to continuously improve the companies’ Digital Maturity.

2019, Grüner, Peter, Schwaferts, Dino, Studer, David, Wild, Simon, Verkuil, Arie Hans, Hinkelmann, Knut, Aeschbacher, Marc

“The internet is like a wave. You either learn to swim with it or you will sink.” (Bill Gates). With this quote, Gates already pointed to the development of a digital economy, a completely new economic model based on information technology, where we now live. On the one hand, these new opportunities in information and communication technology (ICT) are changing the way companies have to operate. On the other hand, they are also changing customer expectations in a rapid and continuous manner that transforms them into fast moving targets. Therefore, legacy as well as non-legacy businesses have to rethink their business models, predict customer expectations and have to focus on customer centricity as well as on their own uniqueness on the market. In other words, organizations have to be very agile: they have to enable flexibility in their business models and diversify their risks in a well-managed way to remain competitive in such a dynamic environment. For these reasons, business model innovation is a crucial ability to manifest one’s own inimitability. Furthermore, business model innovation enables companies to search for new business logics and groundbreaking ways to create and capture value for its stakeholders. Nevertheless, such an innovative approach is risky, primarily due to its uncertainty of commercialization. Therefore, companies should not replace existing business models, but assess them with regard to the risk of a digital disruption and start with potential new business models next. This also requires changes in the organizational structure and asks for new methods to manage such a complex system of various business model development directions in a well-controlled way. One approach to cope with this challenge could be the digital business portfolio derived at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW).