Digitally powered solution delivery: The use of IoT and AI for transitioning towards a solution business model

Abstract

Digitalization has played a key role in enabling the delivery of service-based solutions by facilitating customer-oriented needs-finding and personalized problem-solving capabilities. Artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) are decisive technologies in this process. This study evaluates how the use AI and IoT platforms impact solution delivery business models among servitized and non-servitized businesses. By running regression models on a sample of 213 Spanish businesses for 2023, it was found that the use of IoT platforms, rather than AI platforms, significantly assist companies down the analyzed solution delivery dimensions (i.e., customer embeddedness, operational adaptiveness, offering integratedness, and organizational networkedness). Additionally, results indicate that the combined use of IoT platforms when servitizing leads to greater customer embeddedness, whereas the use of AI platforms among servitized firms significantly contributes to improving operational adaptiveness.