Submitted by Sarah Fell on Fri, 06/11/2020 - 12:52

For B2B firms struggling to reap the rewards of digitalisation, could digital twins be the way forward? In this article, CSA's Dr Erika Pärn and colleagues from the Fraunhofer Institute and Technische Universität in Dortmund, explore the relationship between this emerging technology and business model innovation.

For many engineering and manufacturing firms, digital transformation remains elusive as they struggle to emulate the success of platform-based consumer businesses such as Uber, AirBnB and Facebook. While new technologies are undoubtedly delivering important efficiency gains, full-on digital revolution has proved more difficult to achieve in the B2B world.

Could digital twins be the way forward? As well as connecting the physical with the digital, like B2C platforms they also connect individuals and organisations. As such, they may be the enablers of disruption and business model innovation that the B2B world has been waiting for.