Competences for the In-house Development of Digital Innovations in German Mechanical Engineering Companies

Steffen Kinkel, Johanna Rahn, Bernhard Rieder, Anne-Laure Mention and Marko Torkkeli

Chapter 14 in Managing Digital Open Innovation, 2020, pp 379-399 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: The German mechanical engineering sector plays a key role as provider and user of digitally integrated products, processes and business models for Industry 4.0. However, it has not yet been empirically investigated to what extent these companies are able to independently develop digital products and services and what kind of competences they need to be able to do this successfully. An online survey of 335 German mechanical engineering companies and 15 deepening expert interviews shows that they mainly regard digitized service offerings such as predictive maintenance or condition monitoring as core competences and develop them in-house. The analysis shows that agile and design-oriented development methods can significantly improve the companies’ abilities to develop digitized products themselves. An interdisciplinary approach will become more and more important in the future, as digitally integrated innovations are increasingly taking place in the intersection of different disciplines.

Keywords: Open Innovation; Digital Disruption; Industry 4.0; Data-Driven Decision; Value Networks; Organizational Agility; Digital Design; Collaboration; Innovation Policy; Social Media; Open Strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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