Digital Sourcing Case Study

As SMEs core business model is not digital, it is not self-evident for them to develop digital innovations in an agile surrounding on their own. If a company does not have the capacities or resources available, they need to integrate new forms of knowledge into their company through extern forms of innovation, e.g. Digital Labs, Factories, Company Building, Accelerator or Incubator programs, Corporate Venture or cooperations. Since there is a lack of financial and human resources, SMEs have to create a balanced innovation portfolio and to invest in more than only one innovation activity (Dömötör, 2014, p.12). Digital sourcing is a model, which is built to help companies facing this problem (Hutchins & Campanini, 2014, p.189). It ensures the
The person in the role of a Chief Digital Officer has the ultimate responsibility for the coordination of the digital transformation process. He or she has to carry out a digital strategy, to instigate new trends and to bring the change forward (Summa (Ed.), 2016, p.101). Summa claims that new job titles (C-x-O) are introduced inflationary. However, a key problem with Summa’s statement, is that when new responsibilities come, new job titles are needed, because this is an intrinsic motivation for the employees and it indicates the new digital responsibility. According to Eckert, a Chief Innovation Officer has to develop further to a Chief Digital Innovation Officer, who can handle incremental as well as disruptive improvements. Eckert also introduces the Chief Business Innovation Officer, who is responsible for the development and design of an independent business unit such as a Digital Lab or Factory, who primarily drives DI ahead (II Eckert, 2017,
The main responsibility of a Factory is to scale ideas and business models from the Digital Lab. The factory is staffed with young experienced talents, coming from inside and outside the organization. This creates the USP of a factory – the competence (Kaplan, 2012, p.134). Therefore, factories are seen as a competence center for the inflow of DI. Factories can be built in cooperation with external partners, which is known as Company Building. This model is explicitly responsible for the implementation of a new digital business model as a spin-off or subsidiary (Velten, Michel & Özdem, 2016, p.16). Figure 11 shows how both models complement each other in the context of the S-curve