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The Impact of Industry 4.0 on the Business Models of Small and Medium Enterprises: A Systematic Literature Review

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Responsible AI and Analytics for an Ethical and Inclusive Digitized Society (I3E 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12896))

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Abstract

New digital technologies, referred to as Industry 4.0, can create many opportunities, not only for larger organisations, but for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well. However, for SMEs to create value from Industry 4.0, the digital technologies must be applied in alignment with the SMEs’ business model as the SME business model is the means through which the SME creates value. This study aimed to identify the key impacts of Industry 4.0 on business models SMEs through conducting a systematic literature review and a detailed analysis of 27 papers. We identified 5 primary impact areas namely customer, financial, organisational, employee and cost structure collated from of 23 sub impact areas. In order to report our findings, we mapped it to business model components consisting of value creation, value proposition and value capture. Through considering business model impact, SMEs may be able to leverage the technology platforms in Industry 4.0 towards business value creation and economic sustainability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Abdul Qadir Soondka & Hanlie Smuts

Authors
  1. Abdul Qadir Soondka
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  2. Hanlie Smuts
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hanlie Smuts .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Denis Dennehy

  2. National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Anastasia Griva

  3. Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece

    Nancy Pouloudi

  4. Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    Yogesh K. Dwivedi

  5. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Ilias Pappas

  6. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Matti Mäntymäki

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Soondka, A.Q., Smuts, H. (2021). The Impact of Industry 4.0 on the Business Models of Small and Medium Enterprises: A Systematic Literature Review. In: Dennehy, D., Griva, A., Pouloudi, N., Dwivedi, Y.K., Pappas, I., Mäntymäki, M. (eds) Responsible AI and Analytics for an Ethical and Inclusive Digitized Society. I3E 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12896. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85447-8_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85447-8_31

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-85446-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-85447-8

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