Data Spaces Business Models: Unravelling Individual Actors' Incentives

Melanie Verstraete, Jessica Ferreira Morais, Joshua Gelhaar, Aron-Levi Herregodts and Sofie Verbrugge

33rd European Regional ITS Conference, Edinburgh, 2025: Digital innovation and transformation in uncertain times from International Telecommunications Society (ITS)

Abstract: Data spaces are gaining momentum as a reflection of the digital economy's transformation in Europe. Although research demonstrates potential for overall value creation resulting from collaborative data sharing, insights on incentives for participation, individual and collective value propositions, and ultimate business model sustainability remain limited. This paper aims to understand data spaces operating in different sectors in Europe, revealing incentives for actors' participation, potential misalignments, and actual business models therein. An exploratory multi-sourced case study analyses three data spaces in different industrial sectors: manufacturing supply chain (Smart Connected Supplier Network), mobility (Mobility Data Space), and automotive supply chain (Catena-X). Outcomes reveal that network effects and standardization can be considered as a main incentives for actors to join data spaces as these provide opportunities for cost reduction as well as increased or novel revenue streams. Service payments and use of public funding for initial operations are amongst imbalances found in the study. Due to its inherent complexity, collaborative data sharing environments impose challenges in actor orchestration and individual and collective business model alignments.

Date: 2025
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