Building Better Business Models: Capturing the Transformative Potential of the Digital Economy

该研究项目正在探索企业如何应用和参与新的数字技术，以提高效率，盈利和活力。虽然人们对数字技术如何让企业创造价值有了相当多的了解，但对企业如何利用数字化技术来感知消费者和社会的需求，并将这种价值货币化，并将其转化为投资者、企业家和股东的财务回报却了解得少得多。这是一个更普遍的担忧的一部分，即英国经济相对擅长发明，但不太擅长生产在新的快速增长的市场中获得利益的公司。通过探索数字技术如何改变构成商业模式的三个要素-企业如何理解客户的需求，如何为客户创造价值，以及如何获取和货币化这种价值-该项目将产生关于如何更有效地将数字技术商业化的新认识。这些知识将帮助英国企业创造更多的就业机会，促进经济增长，改善对企业和公众的服务。该项目的实证部分将对（a）产生数字技术的部门，如开放源码软件（B）在数字娱乐等服务产品中使用数字技术的部门和（c）在B2 B金融服务等流程中使用DE的部门进行研究。研究结果将帮助我们理解：（a）企业如何感知和理解他们的客户（和社会）使用数字技术的需求。例如，现在有大量关于个人如何与新产品和服务互动的数据集，这些数据集可以越来越多地在真实的时间内收集，以便更快地从客户那里反馈他们的好恶。类似地，新的传感器使公司能够监控其他公司如何使用他们的产品和服务。这些信息以及数字技术所允许的与客户更紧密的接触，可以用来更好地了解客户需求，并更快、更有效地制定新商业产品设计的决策。- （B）他们如何为客户创造价值。例如，新的数字技术允许提供更大的信息内容与商品和服务，它们增强了资源配置，它们允许先发制人的维护，并允许改进金融建模等，这些变化正在增加传统部门之间的商业机会，公司可以在竞争有限的领域创造价值。(c)他们如何获取（和货币化）价值。数字技术可以从根本上改变市场。因此，人们往往不清楚他们如何捕捉他们创造的价值。这在许多公司的失败中可见一斑，但即使在今天，许多公司也未能将他们通过创新产生的价值转化为商业回报和利润。dot.com该项目还将从事有关模型性质的基础理论研究，并在经济中建模，并探讨管理人员如何能够和应该使用模型。在这项工作中，该项目借鉴了广泛学科的专门知识，包括科学哲学、社会学、工程学和自然科学。在所有这些工作中，项目团队将与英国政府和民间社会的工业家和非学术研究用户密切合作。该项目的一个关键部分涉及这一领域的能力建设，为此将投入大量时间和精力，为更广泛的学术界提供培训，并为初级研究人员提供职业发展，使他们能够跨越工业、学术界和政府之间的界限，与众多其他研究人员密切合作。

This research project is exploring how firms are applying and engaging with new digital technologies to become more efficient, profitable and dynamic. While there is considerable understanding about how digital technologies allow firms to create value, there is much less understanding of how firms can use DE to sense what consumers and society needs and monetize that value and turn it into financial returns for investors, entrepreneurs and shareholders. This is part of a more general concern that the UK economy is relatively good at invention but less good at producing firms that capture its benefits in new, fast growing markets. By exploring how digital technology is transforming the three elements that make up a business model - how firms understand customers' needs, how they create value for customers, and how they capture and monetize this value - this project will generate new understanding about how digital technology can be commercialised more effectively. This knowledge will help firms in the UK generate more jobs, more economic growth and improved services to firms and the general public. The empirical part of the project will conduct research on (a) sectors that generate digital technology such as open-source software (b) sectors that use digital technology in products of services such as digital entertainment and (c) sectors that use DE in their processes such as B2B financial services. The results will help us understand:- (a) how firms sense and understand what their customers (and society) want using digital technologies. For example, there are now large data-sets being generated about how individuals interact with new products and services, which can increasingly be collected in real time to allow much faster feedback from customers about their likes and dislikes. Similarly, new sensors are allowing firms to monitor how other firms are using their products and services. This information, and the closer engagement with customers digital technologies allow, can be used to inform better decisions about customers' needs and faster and more effective decision making about the design of new commercial offerings. - (b) how they create value for their customers. For example, new digital technologies allow a much larger information content to be provided with goods and services, they enhance the allocation of resources, they allow pre-emptive maintenance and allow improved financial modelling, etc. These changes are increasing the commercial opportunities between traditional sectors, where firms can create value in areas where there is limited competition.- (c) how they capture (and monetize) that value. Digital technologies can fundamentally change markets. As a result, it is often unclear how they capture the value that they create. This was seen in the failure of many dot.com firms, but even today many firms are failing to turn the value they generate through innovation into commercial returns and profits. The project will also engage in fundamental theoretical research about the nature of models, and modelling in the economy and explore how managers can and should use models. For this work the project draws on expertise from a wide range of academic disciplines, including philosophy of science, sociology, engineering and the natural sciences. In all this work, the project team will engage closely with industrialists and non-academic research users in the UK government and civil society. A key part of the project involves building capacity in this area, which will be achieved through a significant investment of time and effort in training for the wider academic community and career development for junior researchers able to work closely with a wide body of other researchers across the boundaries that separate industry, academia and government.