Background: As the business world faces significant changes to adapt to the rapidly increasing sustainability demand, they also face significant changes to their business core. The European Commission established a circular action plan in 2015, pressuring businesses operating in the EU area to work to implement sustainability in their operations proactively.    Purpose: The aim is to understand how companies select, develop and incorporate sustainable factors in their business model. The gap in the existing literature was identified to be within the field of illustrating the process of sustainable business model innovation. The authors aim to discuss the existing literature and provide new insights on the chosen subject.   Method: A multiple case study was designed with a qualitative research approach to align the study with the purpose. The case study built on data collection through semi-structured interviews, letting the interviewees carry the most significant part of the conversation. This was beneficial since the authors adopted an interpretive research paradigm, highlighting the importance of individuals' perceptions of the process.    Conclusion: The results show that the decisions that drive the implementation of sustainable business model innovation are often profit-driven but can also be driven by morale and ethics, governmental regulations, and stakeholder pressure. Both internal and external resistance can be expected when transforming a company towards sustainability. Therefore, broad acceptance amongst shareholders and stakeholders will enable a transformation, which can partly be achieved through a robust organizational identity that ties sustainability to it.

Problemformulering: Hur påverkas organisationer vid digitala transformationer?  Syfte: Uppsatsens primära syfte är att redogöra för hur en digital transformation har påverkat organisationers affärsmodeller samt påverkat verksamheters användande av strategier. Vi ämnar även att undersöka varför organisationer genomgick en digital transformation och vad som önskades att uppnås med förändringen.  Metod: En kvalitativ datainsamling med en deduktiv ansats. Det empiriska materialet samlades in via strukturerade intervjuer på respondenternas arbetsplatser.  Slutsats: Studien påvisar att organisationerna efter en digital transformation har kunnat skapa ett högre värde genom kostnadsminimering och effektivisering genom användning av mindre medel. Studien visar även att organisationsförändringen förändrar en verksamhet från grunden eftersom nya strukturer och system tillämpas samt delvis påverkar affärsmodeller. Det är därför av vikt att ha en digital strategi, en handlingsplan och mål för förändringsprocessen.

This thesis investigates the performance of business model innovation (BMI) by incumbent power utility and clean-tech start-up firms influenced by the German Energiewende. It emphasises the factors that impact BMI from a managers’ perspective, examines success factors for managers to overcome BMI challenges, and addresses contingencies to perform BMI in a more structured way. The research is driven by the German Energiewende. It has been chosen as Germany is considered one of the world’s leading markets for renewable energies and a transformation of the power sector is currently underway. Therefore, established power utility firms face severe changes, which have the characteristics of a potential disruption to their business model (BM). At the same time, new players are challenging these incumbents with new BMs. The research is underpinned by the extant literature on BMs and BMI. The research approach is based on two case studies; the incumbent power utility and the clean-tech start-up sector. The qualitative study comprises of 24 semi-structured interviews conducted with top tier managers, from 18 firms, responsible for BMI within these firms. Key findings: This study extends our knowledge of BMI in both a start-up and an incumbent environment that is influenced by various contingent events. It portrays barriers to BMI and depicts critical success factors for BMI that point out solutions on how to overcome these barriers. It provides a structured BMI framework for established firms and illustrates future BM archetypes in this sector. It clearly documents the German Energiewende is regarded as a disruptive threat from the perspective of incumbent power utility managers. The theoretical contribution of this thesis is a process framework including all identified drivers and challenges for BMI in both established and start-up firms. Contributions to practice include critical success factors for BMI, recommendations to overcome barriers to BMI and future BM archetypes within the newly evolving Energiewende industry based on sustainable technologies.

There is an obstacle in the process of business model operationalization due to different perspectives between strategic- and business-view and the realizing designer’s and engineer’s view. While ideation and key patterns are designed from business-view, process designers and engineers are responsible for the implementation. This transition is complex and there are often iterations needed, although the services which are designed in different companies are often quite similar. Due to a lack of methodical assistance, cross-company scaling effects cannot be used and project efforts for realization of digital service-dominant business models remain high for each company. This article provides a concept for transforming generic service-dominant digital business models into conceptual process models including the involved resources. It covers various aspects of the business model and connects value proposition with required data, processes and resources. In this manner it can enable cross-company scaling effects for the conception of service-dominant digital business models.:1 Structured Abstract 2 Keywords 3 Author Details 4 Acknowledgements 5 Article Classification 6 Contents 6a Introduction 6b Methodological approach 6c Key insights 6d Discussion and conclusions 7 References / Ein Hindernis bei der Operationalisierung von Geschäftsmodellen sind die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven zwischen der strategischen und geschäftlichen Sichtweise und der Sichtweise der realisierenden Designer und Ingenieure. Während Geschäftsideen und Muster maßgeblich aus der Unternehmenssicht entworfen werden, sind Prozessdesigner und Ingenieure für die Umsetzung verantwortlich. Dieser Übergang ist komplex und oftmals mit vielen Iterationen verbunden, obwohl sich die entworfenen Dienstleistungen in verschiedenen Unternehmen ähneln. Aufgrund mangelnder methodischer Unterstützung können unternehmensübergreifende Skalierungseffekte nicht genutzt werden und der Projektaufwand für die Realisierung digitaler dienstleistungsdominierter Geschäftsmodelle bleibt für jedes Unternehmen hoch. Dieser Beitrag liefert ein Konzept zur Transformation von generischen dienstleistungsdominierten digitalen Geschäftsmodellen in konzeptionelle Prozessmodelle unter Einbeziehung der beteiligten Ressourcen. Es deckt verschiedene Aspekte des Geschäftsmodells ab und verbindet das Wertversprechen mit den erforderlichen Daten, Prozessen und Ressourcen. Auf diese Weise können unternehmensübergreifende Skalierungseffekte bei der Konzeption von dienstleistungsdominierten digitalen Geschäftsmodellen realisiert werden.:1 Structured Abstract 2 Keywords 3 Author Details 4 Acknowledgements 5 Article Classification 6 Contents 6a Introduction 6b Methodological approach 6c Key insights 6d Discussion and conclusions 7 References

This thesis investigates the performance of business model innovation (BMI) by incumbent power utility and clean-tech start-up firms influenced by the German Energiewende. It emphasises the factors that impact BMI from a managers’ perspective, examines success factors for managers to overcome BMI challenges, and addresses contingencies to perform BMI in a more structured way. The research is driven by the German Energiewende. It has been chosen as Germany is considered one of the world’s leading markets for renewable energies and a transformation of the power sector is currently underway. Therefore, established power utility firms face severe changes, which have the characteristics of a potential disruption to their business model (BM). At the same time, new players are challenging these incumbents with new BMs. The research is underpinned by the extant literature on BMs and BMI. The research approach is based on two case studies; the incumbent power utility and the clean-tech start-up sector. The qualitative study comprises of 24 semi-structured interviews conducted with top tier managers, from 18 firms, responsible for BMI within these firms. Key findings: This study extends our knowledge of BMI in both a start-up and an incumbent environment that is influenced by various contingent events. It portrays barriers to BMI and depicts critical success factors for BMI that point out solutions on how to overcome these barriers. It provides a structured BMI framework for established firms and illustrates future BM archetypes in this sector. It clearly documents the German Energiewende is regarded as a disruptive threat from the perspective of incumbent power utility managers. The theoretical contribution of this thesis is a process framework including all identified drivers and challenges for BMI in both established and start-up firms. Contributions to practice include critical success factors for BMI, recommendations to overcome barriers to BMI and future BM archetypes within the newly evolving Energiewende industry based on sustainable technologies.