Nizar Abdelkafi

• Politecnico di Milano

Servitization poses several challenges to supply chain managers. Existing supply chain features can facilitate or hinder servitization, which, in turn, transforms supply chain features, requiring planning and adaptation. We address this bidirectional relationship through a systematic literature review (n = 70), analysing ten supply chain features a...

Digital transformation has been employed across all industries to enhance business operations. Its potential lies in optimising existing business models and creating innovative ones based on various technologies, making them fit for the future by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fulfilling future decarbonization goals. In order to ensure a suc...

The impact COVID-19 generated on people routine linked with the rapid digitalization has led the educational approach to the need of a fundamental shift. In response to these evolving circumstances, SMILE (Smart Manufacturing Innovation, Learning-Labs, and Entrepreneurship) has undertaken a comprehensive initiative in order to move from the traditi...

Business models can be created by combining business model patterns. The use of patterns can stimulate creativity of entrepreneurs and support the design of innovative business models for sustainability. In this article, we analyze the frameworks on sustainable business model (SBM) patterns, which can be mainly classified along the three dimensions...

This paper investigates the link between servitization and sustainability. Extant literature assumes a positive effect of servitization on sustainability, while limited contributions report that, under certain conditions, servitization can also have negative effects. Through a case study on the professional printer supply chain, we show that the po...

Because the volume of food waste is increasing, actions are required to mitigate the environmental and social impact of food waste generation. This paper investigates the business models of 41 selected startups (technology and service providers) to capture how companies avoid food waste or use food waste as a resource. The case study analysis, base...

In many countries, the market for electric vehicles is not scaling up as expected despite huge public subsidies and technological progresses. One potential explanation is the absence of profitable business models that support commercialization and drive wide diffusion of electric vehicles. Business models that served conventional cars may not be ap...

Engineer-to-order (ETO) firms design and manufacture products according to customers' orders. As such, they induce a high level of variety in production, which makes the management of their operations particularly complex. This complexity, coupled with increasing competitive pressure, led many ETO firms to leverage product modularity to improve the...

Because of excessive use, resources are becoming scarcer and more expensive. This calls for a shift from our current economic model, based on the linear approach of "take, make, consume, dispose", to the paradigm of circular economy, which maintains the value of products, materials and resources in the economy while eliminating waste. Printers for...

Servitization allows manufacturing companies to enrich their value proposition with services. It enables them to differentiate their offers from competitors, while capitalizing more on digital technologies. Servitization practices such as maintenance services, training and advisory, or rental and leasing solutions are widespread among many sectors....

Geschäftsmodelle, die auf digitalen Marktplätzen basieren, haben in den letzten Jahren zahlreiche Industrien revolutioniert. Digitale Service-Marktplätze wie Airbnb, Uber oder Delivery Hero erregen große Beachtung, da sie auf stark skalierbaren Geschäftsmodellen basieren und daher rasante Wachstumsdynamiken erzielen können. Aus wissenschaftlicher S...

Digitalization is changing the way companies create value. It is an umbrella term for diverse applications of digital technologies to processes inside companies and along the value chain. This research aims at understanding how literature has addressed the impact of blockchain technology on business models (BM) and supply chains. The study is based...

In the digitization era, multi-sided platforms (MSPs) have evolved to powerful business models. Companies from the Sharing Economy (SE) use such business models to act as intermediaries between suppliers and customers through implementing specific functionalities on their platforms. This paper uses a case study methodology and analyzes the platform...

Innovationen sind unerlässlich, damit Unternehmen im Wettbewerb bestehen können. Es gibt vier Ebenen der Innovation: Produkt-, Prozess-, Positions- sowie Geschäftsmodellinnovationen (Tidd & Bessant, 2013). In den letzten Jahren sind Geschäftsmodellinnovationen besonders in den Fokus von Forschung und Praxis gerückt.

Der Sammelband führt die verschiedenen Facetten der Transferforschung der international vergleichenden Berufsbildungsforschung zusammen. Dabei werden sowohl Befunde aus Projekten und länderbasierten Studien diskutiert als auch theoretische sowie pragmatische Ansätze referiert. Das Werk bietet somit einen umfassenden Überblick über die aktuellen Erk...

Unternehmen, die Bildungsdienstleistungen exportieren wollen, stehen vor der schwierigen Aufgabe, sich an die Marktgegebenheiten in den Zielländern anzupassen und adäquate Geschäftsmodelle für den Export von Berufsbildungsdienstleistungen zu finden. Das Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, Treiber und Hemmnisse des Berufsbildungsexports zu erfassen und zen...

During the last decades, there has been increasing interest in the role of the university as a key stakeholder and agent in innovation and regional development. In the face of new technologies, especially growing digitalisation and new societal and economic challenges, this paper proposes to reconsider the role of the university in the innovation s...

Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit der Relevanz von eStandards für die digitale Transformation von Geschäftsmodellen. eStandards sind elektronische Standards zur Vereinheitlichung von Datenaustauschformaten, die Medienbrüche‎ innerhalb der Wertschöpfungskette verringern. Beispiele für eStandards sind Standards wie eCl@ss, der Produkte und Die...

Ziel des Beitrags ist die Entwicklung und Beschreibung einer strukturierten Methode für die systematische Geschäftsmodellentwicklung. Zunächst werden die Grundlagen der Geschäftsmodellinnovation und -entwicklung dargestellt. Dann wird die Methode ausführlich beschrieben. Sie besteht aus vier Phasen: Geschäftsmodellaudit, Ideengenerierung, Konkretis...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore case studies of business models (BMs) driven by supply chain innovations (SCIs) in order to investigate how SCIs can lead companies to discover new BMs. Design/methodology/approach This research is based on an in-depth literature analysis. Literature supports that SCIs drive new BMs. An exploratory i...

This paper examines ecopreneurship in established ventures that serve as early adopters of radical environmental technologies through so-called user business model innovation. Renewable e-mobility is identified as an appropriate application. The research methodology consists of two steps: a document analysis for developing a typology of ecopreneurs...

Universities have become increasingly entrepreneurial during the last several years, and research still widely ignores the existence of independent entrepreneurial actions of universities. This paper specifically deals with entrepreneurial activities that universities have recently started to embrace. In detail, it focuses on vocational education,...

Geschäftsmodelle, die auf digitalen Marktplätzen basieren, haben in den letzten Jahren zahlreiche Industrien revolutioniert. Digitale Service-Marktplätze wie Airbnb, Uber oder Delivery Hero erregen große Beachtung, da sie auf stark skalierbaren Geschäftsmodellen basieren und daher rasante Wachstumsdynamiken erzielen können. Aus wissenschaftlicher S...

Entrepreneurial ventures increasingly aim at developing viable business models for solving societal or ecological challenges. Such business models for sustainability (BMfS) build on reinforcing mechanisms of value creation and capture that allow achieving financial and sustainability objectives simultaneously. To date, we do not know much about the...

Purpose In today’s dynamic environment with shortened product lifecycles, phase-outs because of product elimination are becoming increasingly frequent. Research on the phase-out process is still scarce. The lack of formalization of the process, especially from the labor perspective, leads to disturbances in phase-out execution. Therefore, this pap...

Managers involved in business model innovation (BMI) encounter a series of cognitive challenges. Although cognition research provides important insights into how visual tools can reduce cognitive challenges, it does not address the effective design of business model tools. To advance our understanding in this area, this research applies a cognition...

Universities have become increasingly entrepreneurial during the last years, and research still widely ignores the existence of independent entrepreneurial actions of universities. This paper specifically deals with entrepreneurial activities that universities have recently started to embrace. In detail, it focuses on vocational education, an innov...

Young companies need support concerning decisions related to intellectual properties. Entrepreneurs can resort to a menu of strategies, not only patenting. First, we explore the literature on standardisation and patenting and relate it to entrepreneurship to identify the internal and external influencing factors as well as the motives and risks rel...

Growth-oriented ventures face the challenge of focusing their limited resources on a suitable growth strategy. Extant research argues that successful startups build their growth strategy around reinforcing feedback loops. The “lean startup” literature suggests that entrepreneurs should identify the dominant feedback loop driving the growth of their...

To achieve sustainability, a firm has to transform its entire business logic. A business model for sustainability (BMfS) aims at creating value for various stakeholders and the natural environment. This article advances the current understanding of the basic functioning of BMfS by applying a systems perspective. Our BMfS understanding incorporates...

Companies that intend to leverage standardization to drive innovation have to set up their organizations appropriately. Data from four German companies reveal different ways for organizing the standardization activities. Companies may allocate a high level of resources by dedicating a specialized department; they may assign the standardization task...

Service innovations are regarded as important drivers in the Europe 2020 Strategy. They are recognized to have a powerful potential to transform entire regions and sectors in Europe. The European Union (EU) and its member states are currently launching initiatives and programs that focus on leveraging service innovation to achieve so-called smart s...

Effective business models enable firms to achieve their strategic objectives. Past experiences, however, have shown that many promising business models failed because they could not appropriately deal with unexpected conditions. Several business model scholars have therefore argued that effective business models should exhibit a certain level of ro...

This paper provides insights into the key results of a research project funded by the German Institute for Standardization DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung e. V.). It investigates how German companies, in particular SMEs, can leverage committee standards to drive innovations. Whereas the impact of standardization on innovation has been acknowled...

Der Dienstleistungssektor unterliegt in vielerlei Hinsicht anderen Bedingungen als der Produktsektor. Gerade bei der Internationalisierung ihrer Geschäfte stehen Dienstleistungsunternehmen vor besonderen Herausforderungen. Dieser Beitrag fokussiert auf Geschäftsmodellmuster im Dienstleistungssektor, mit spezifischem Fokus aufdie deutschen Berufsbil...

New business models can be generated through the combination of generic business model patterns. To our knowledge, however, no approach has classified and analyzed their common logic yet. In this paper, we aim to identify the underlying structure of business model patterns, in particular of those patterns related to revenue generation. First, we de...

Nowadays, many companies are internationalizing their business. In this research, we focus on German educational services for vocational development/training. Thus, the main research issue is concerned with the business models that enable German Educational Service Providers in the field of management and technical trainings. 12 business models are...

This paper provides insights into the key results of a research project funded by the German Institute for Standardization DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung e. V.). It investigates how German companies, in particular SMEs, can leverage committee standards to drive innovations. Whereas the impact of standardization on innovation has been acknowled...

Innovation Contests are an important tool for open innovation. Providers of these platforms need successful business models to survive and boost open innovation. The paper introduces a new generic methodology for the systematic generation for innovative business models with five main steps. This methodology is based on a business model framework, w...

The paper aims to generate systematically business model innovations in the field of electric mobility. It introduces a new framework, in which a business model denotes a value-focused concept with five value dimensions: value proposition, value communication, value creation, value delivery and value capture. The framework enables the classificatio...

This chapter aims to develop a new product development supply chain management alignment framework for mass customization. A case study conducted in industry motivates this framework. Variety, modularity, and innovativeness are the product features that should be taken into account when studying alignment in a mass customization setting. From the s...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that explains how new product development and supply chain variables are related to one another and how they affect performance. Design/methodology/approach – The insights from literature and an exploratory case study are combined to develop an alignment framework, which is then tested...

This paper introduces the open school concept, which aims to strengthen the openness of the university to its students. In an open school, students do not take a passive role as service consumers; they are active members of their university. Though the open school reflects a new mindset in higher education, it uses available technologies. The web-b...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the transferability of the open source principles of product development from the realm of software to the realm of physical products. Design/methodology/approach Based on the inherent differences between software and physical products, a theoretical discussion of the challenges that face the imp...

The objective of this paper is to develop a framework explaining the determinants of alignment of new product development (NPD) and supply chain management (SCM). A preliminary framework, established on the basis of existing literature, could not be supported by an exploratory case study, conducted with industry. Therefore, using the insights gain...

Motivation of this paper is to discuss that the open source model of innovation does not only seem practical in the software industry, but also in various other industrial contexts. We develop the concept of open source innovation (OSI) as a generalisation of the open source model of software development (OSS). Our definition centres on the collabo...

This paper extends the principles of open source software development to a non-industry-specific level by introducing the Open Source Innovation (OSI) model. OSI exhibits main differences to other related models and concepts such as the private-collective model, commons-based peer production, R&D networks and is therefore an innovation model in its...

Motivation of this paper is to discuss that the open source model of innovation does not only seem practical in the software industry, but also in various other industrial contexts. We develop the concept of Open Source Innovation (OSI) as a generalisation of the open source model of software development (OSS). Our definition centres on the collabo...

In today’s business environment, many companies are striving to extend their product lines. For many of them, the transition from mass manufacturing to flexible and variety-rich production is not a voluntary but a compulsory choice.

In this paper, we review the commonality indices that have been developed thus far and demonstrate their possible limitations in evaluating component commonality for mass customization. Therefore, we develop a commonality index that considers generic bills-of-materials for mass customization instead of material-requirements-planning-like product st...

Purpose To identify and examine the origins of complexity in a mass customization system and to propose an effective application sequence of variety management strategies in order to cope with this complexity. Design/methodology/approach Through the application of Suh's complexity theory an understanding of the causes of complexity in the specific...

Mass customization refers to a business strategy that conciliates two different business practices, which are mass production and craft production. It aims to provide customers with individualized products at near mass production efficiency. In fact, there are many approaches in order to implement mass customization. In this context the customer or...

Assemble-to-order refers to a supply chain strategy in which products are not assembled until customer order arrives. It is based on the so-called form postponement that is to hold components at a generic form and to delay the point of product differentiation. The performance of an assem-ble-to-order supply chain depends on two main dimensions, whi...

Due to the multitude of customer needs, mass customisation induces extensive product variety, which is associated with high complexity in operations and manufacturing-related tasks. Variety-induced complexity is one of the most important problems that can lead mass customisation to failure. Due to several drawbacks of existing methods in coping wit...

The paper assumes a product design around modular architectures and discusses the suitability of the principle of delayed product differentiation in assemble-to-order environments. We demonstrate that this principle does not enable one to make optimal decisions concerning how variety should proliferate in the assembly process. Therefore, we propose...

In this chapter, we have discussed the scenarios, in which the implementation of the advisory system and the multi-agent based system for mass customization is appropriate. Whereas the advisory system is suitable when the external complexity is high and the internal complexity is low, the multi-agent based system is an adequate solution approach wh...

this paper. It is identified as a suitable solution approach integrating both perspectives. The mass customized products are assumed to be based on a modular architecture and each module variant is associated with an autonomous rational agent. Agents must compete with each other in order to join product variants which suit real customers requiremen...

Large product variety in mass customization involves a high internal complexity level inside a company’s operations, as well as a high external complexity level from a customer’s perspective. To cope with both complexity problems, an information system based on agent technology is able to be identified as a suitable solution approach. The mass cust...

To better understand customer requirements in mass customization, we introduce here a model distinguishing between the objective and the subjective customers’ needs. The model points out that the explicitly expressed customer requirements do not necessarily correspond to what customers really want. This model enables the explanation of the main sho...

Large product variety in mass customization involves a high internal complexity level inside a companyís operations, as well as a high external complexity level from a customerís perspective. In order to reach a competitive advantage through mass customization, it is necessary to cope with both problems. This is done within the scope of variety for...

Mass customization is a business strategy that aims at satisfying individual customer needs, nearly with mass production efficiency. It induces a high complexity level because of various customer requirements and a steadily changing environment. However, mass customization has some potential to reduce complexity. The interdependencies between mass...

Mass customization is a business strategy that aims at satisfying individual customer needs, nearly with mass production efficiency. It induces a high complexity level because of various customer requirements and a steadily changing environment. However, mass customization has some potential to reduce complexity. These interdependencies between mas...

Product configurators are considered to be among the most successful applications of artificial intelligence technology. In this paper, we determine different conceptualizations of configurators and condense them in a comprehensive morphological box, which should support configurator designers as well as decision makers in selecting the right syste...

The main goal of this paper is to provide a key metrics system for variety steering in mass customization. We distinguish between objective and subjective customer needs. The subjective needs are the individually realized and articulated requirements, whereas the objective needs are the real ones perceived by a fictive neutral perspective. We show...

In this paper we make the distinction between subjective and objective customer needs. The subjective needs are the individually realized and articulated requirements, whereas the objective needs are the real ones perceived by a fictive neutral perspective. We show that variety in mass customization has to be orientated on the objective needs. In o...

The paper assumes a product design around modular architectures and discusses the suitability of the principle of delayed product differentiation in assemble-to-order environments. We demonstrate that this principle does not enable one to make optimal decisions concerning how variety should proliferate in the assembly process. Therefore, we propose...

This paper deals with open school, a new concept in higher education. Open school describes a new form of co-creation with students who become active contributors and knowledge producers at the university. To involve students appropriately in an open school environment, innovation contests provide a suitable solution approach; they enable students...