Digital for real: A multicase study on the digital transformation of companies in the embedded systems domain

摘要

With digitalization and with technologies such as software, data, and artificial intelligence,companies in the embedded systems domain are experiencing a rapid transformationof their conventional businesses. While the physical products andassociated product sales provide the core revenue, these are increasingly being complementedwith service offerings, new data-driven services, and digital products thatallow for continuous value creation and delivery to customers. However, althoughthere is significant research on digitalization and digital transformation, few studieshighlight the specific needs of embedded systems companies and what it takes totransform from a traditional towards a digital company within business domains characterizedby high complexity, hardware dependencies, and safety-critical systemfunctionality. In this paper, we capture the difference between what constitutes atraditional and a digital company and we detail the typical evolution path embeddedsystems companies take when transitioning towards becoming digital companies.