Digitalization as a Tool for Providing Competitive Advantages to Enterprises in the Machine-Building Industry

 In such a climate, competition becomes ever more fierce and manufacturers must seize every opportunity and competitive advantage they can find.Increasingly, such advantages—along with new threats of disruption—come from digital technologies. A critical element of manufacturing innovation will be in the form of new business models, particularly regarding services and value-added offerings. In effect, simply making a good product may no longer be enough. Increasingly, what happens after the product is sold looms ever larger. Machine builders that successfully leverage services are using them to drive disruptive new business models that, in effect, enable them to charge for business outcomes—such as plant uptime—just as they now charge for physical products sold as a capital investment.Companies that don’t harness services—by converging their service and digital journeys—will risk falling behind in a rapidly changing marketplace in which innovation and agility rule. The author considers digitalization as a basis for service-oriented business models and considers digitalization as a tool for ensuring the competitive advantages of machine-building enterprises.