Mega and Consumer Trends – Towards Car-independent Mobile Applications

The car industry is confronted with fundamental changes in society, technology and economy and forced to rethink its concept of mobility. Through constant strategic foresight, trend management and a holistic mobility vision, car manufacturers must develop innovative strategies that reflect current and future trends, in order to meet customer needs, technological standards and economic imperatives. Therefore, car manufacturers are shifting their value chain more and more towards the aftermarket and information technology (IT). Used as a tool for image branding and innovation monitoring, a closer look reveals that car manufacturers are constantly increasing their investment activities in technology start-ups. This indicates that the car industry is in the middle of a transformation process, transforming from a car producer to a mobility provider. Based on an analysis of future driving factors in the car industry and in-depth interviews, we identified six crucial megatrends: peak oil and global warming, connectedness, safety regulations, sharing economy, urban mobility and aging society. Furthermore, four shaping consumer trends were revealed: ownerless, simplicity, eco-lifestyle and personalization. In summary, the most successful providers in the mobile market might be those who understand thoroughly the consumers’ needs and behaviour, in order to offer the mobility services they desire

Digital Transformation of Primarily Physical Industries - Exploring the Impact of Digital Trends on Business Models of Automobile Manufacturers

The phenomenon of digital transformation received some attention in previous literature concerning industries such as media, entertainment and publishing. However, there is a lack of understanding about digital transformation of primarily physical industries, whose products cannot be completely digitized, e.g., automotive industry. We conducted a rigorous content analysis of substantial secondary data from industry magazines aiming to generate insights to this phenomenon in the automotive industry. We examined the impact of major digital trends on dominant business models. Our findings indicate that trends related to social media, mobile, big data and cloud computing are driving automobile manufactures to extend, revise, terminate, and create business models. By doing so, they contribute to the constitution of a digital layer upon the physical mobility infrastructure. Despite its strong foundation in the physical world, the industry is undergoing important structural changes due to the ongoing digitalization of consumer lives and business

The Value of IS in Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Mobility Services - The Case of Carsharing

Result-oriented services that provide mobility on demand seem to be a promising means of meeting both societal trends and environmental sustainability targets. In this paper, we investigate the contribution of Information Systems (IS) to drive this substantial business model change towards sustainable mobility from a cus-tomer\u27s perspective. While doing so, we focus on the specific case of carsharing - a result-oriented mobility service that has been known for decades, which is re-cently receiving more attention due to environmental concerns. Employing a choice-based conjoint analysis (n = 221), we explore and evaluate the role of IS for the perceived attractiveness of carsharing. With our investigation, we show how IS, by their three functions of information, automation and transformation, may improve this sustainable form of individual mobility and thus contribute to the shift towards sustainable mobility

Delphi Austria - An Example of Tailoring Foresight to the Needs of a Small Country

The world-wide diffusion and recognition of Technology Foresight suggests that it is of value for quite diverse types of economies and societies. Its merit as an important tool of strategic intelligence for policy-making also in small countries and transition economies depends on a careful tailoring to specific needs. Practice of Foresight is rather diverse also among small countries, but approaches tend to be more selective in scope, have more specific goals, and put greater emphasis on demand aspects than in bigger countries. Austria’s first systematic Foresight programme (completed in 1998) is an example of an innovative approach adapted to the needs of a small country. This contribution shows how Delphi Austria was tailored to a small economy which had undergone a successful catch-up process and how the Foresight process as well as its results have been utilised.Technology Foresight, Delphi method, small country, Austria, innovation, technology policy, implementation

Cryptocurrencies in the Ludic Economies: The Case of Contemporary Game Cultures

Games have their own economic models. Today, players can not only collect digital currencies, but they can also use real currencies to buy virtual goods. Business models in games such as freemium and in-app purchases, for example, sustain this structure. Within this context, there is also the expansion of models outside the game realm like eSports, which happens in the form of tournaments. With this, there is constant exchange of value that emerges from games, which could also include the use of cryptocurrencies. In this chapter, we give an overview of the current state of the art of economic models within games and eSports. The current chapter aims to situate and analyse the application of these business models derived from games, e-sport and the future of ludic economies

Revenue requirements for mobile operators with ultra-high mobile broadband data traffic growth.

Mobile broadband data access over cellular networks has been established as a major new service in just a few years. The mobile broadband penetration has risen from almost zero to between 10 and 15 per cent in Western European leading markets from 2007 to the end of 2009. More than 75% of network traffic was broadband data in 2009, and the data volumes are growing rapidly. But the revenue generation is the reverse as the average for operators in Europe in 2009 was around 77 per cent of service revenues from voice, 10 per cent from SMS and 13 per cent from other data. Voice and broadband data service are built on two quite different business models. Voice pricing is volume based. Revenue depends linearly on the number of voice minutes. Broadband data service on the other hand is mainly flat fee based even if different levels are being introduced as well as tiers. Revenue is decoupled from traffic and therefore also from operating costs and investment requirements. This is what we define as a revenue gap. Earnings as well as internal financing will suffer from increasing traffic per user unless the flat fee can be raised or changed to volume based, other revenue can be obtained and/or operating costs and investments can be reduced accordingly. Observable trends and common forecasts indicate strong growth of mobile broadband traffic as well as declining revenue from mobile voice in the next five year period. This outlook suggests a prospective revenue gap with weak top-line growth and expanding operating costs and investment requirements. This is not only a profitability and cash flow issue. It may also severely restrict the industry's revenue and profit growth potential if it is handled mainly by cost-cutting. In sections 2 - 4 we describe related work, our contribution, the specific research questions as well as the methodology and its problems. Section 5 is an overview of mobile operators' revenue, its sources and development till today. Section 6 presents trends, developments and published forecasts that may be relevant for the future. Section 7 contains our conclusions. --Mobile broadband,mobile operator revenues,revenue requirements,voice revenues,non-voice revenues

Merger Control in the New Economy

This paper addresses the potential for conflict between antitrust authorities in the arenaof merger control in the new economy. By "new economy" we mean two relateddevelopments. First, the internationalization of the economy, i.e. the ability to sell andproduce products worldwide, and secondly, markets with certain characteristics such asnetwork effects and other aspects of natural monopoly. We focus on three types ofsubstantive issues in merger control - market definition, assessment of competitiveeffects, and the role of remedies. We argue that the scope for conflict variessignificantly across these three arenas. In particular, conflict over market definition isless likely. By contrast, the assessment of competitive effects and the role of remediesare areas where conflict between antitrust authorities may be more likely in "new economy- type" markets. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG - (Fusionskontrolle in der New Economy) Diese Arbeit identifiziert Konfliktpotentiale zwischen Wettbewerbsbehörden in der Fusionskontrolle von New Economy-Fällen. Mit "New Economy" bezeichnen wir zwei miteinander verbundene Entwicklungen: Erstens die Internalisierung der Ökonomien, womit die Möglichkeiten weltweit zu verkaufen und zu produzieren gemeint sind, und zweitens bestimmte Markteigenschaften wie Netzwerkeffekte sowie Produktionsbedingungen natürlicher Monopole. Wir fokussieren auf drei substantielle Problembereiche internationaler Fusionskontrolle: die Marktabgrenzung, die Einschätzung der Wettbewerbswirkungen und die Rolle von Abhilfemaßnahmen. Wir argumentieren, dass sich die Gefahren internationaler Konflikte sehr unterschiedlich über diese drei Bereiche verteilen. Insbesondere sind Konflikte über die Abgrenzung des relevanten Marktes weniger wahrscheinlich. Im Gegensatz hierzu sprechen eine Reihe von Gründen dafür, dass Konfliktsituationen sowohl bei der Einschätzung der Wettbewerbswirkungen von Fusionen als auch bei der Anwendung von Abhilfemaßnahmen wahrscheinlicher werden in New Economy-Märkten.Merger, New Economy, Competition Policy, International Conflict