Notwithstanding AI adoption has been leading to critical jumps in the productivity of platform-based firms like Amazon, Netflix, Uber, or Airbnb, traditional manufacturing firms are often not capable to fully benefit from AI adoption. One of the reasons for this failure is that those firms’ value propositions are highly based on hardware, which clashes with AI. Contrary to AI, hardware suffers from low scalability and low adaptability inertias. In this paper, we investigate strategies to mitigate those inertias by adopting a multiple-case study methodology, drawing on the instances of four companies that innovatively redesign hardware to relax the constraints that the presence of hardware imposes on AI. This analysis identifies two strategic initiatives that can be undertaken by firms, which are the Minimum Valuable Hardware and the Anticipation strategies.
When hardware matters: innovation strategies to integrate digital technologies in physical products
F. Artusi;C. Dell'Era;L. Vendraminelli;R. Verganti
2021-01-01
Abstract
Notwithstanding AI adoption has been leading to critical jumps in the productivity of platform-based firms like Amazon, Netflix, Uber, or Airbnb, traditional manufacturing firms are often not capable to fully benefit from AI adoption. One of the reasons for this failure is that those firms’ value propositions are highly based on hardware, which clashes with AI. Contrary to AI, hardware suffers from low scalability and low adaptability inertias. In this paper, we investigate strategies to mitigate those inertias by adopting a multiple-case study methodology, drawing on the instances of four companies that innovatively redesign hardware to relax the constraints that the presence of hardware imposes on AI. This analysis identifies two strategic initiatives that can be undertaken by firms, which are the Minimum Valuable Hardware and the Anticipation strategies.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
