This article provides theoretically and practically grounded assistance to companies that are today engaged primarily in non‐digital industries in the development and implementation of business models that use the Internet of Things. To that end, Bosch investigates the role of the Internet in business models in general in the first section. It concluded that the significance of the Internet in business model innovation has increased steadily since the 1990s, that each new Internet wave has given rise to new digital business model patterns, and that the biggest breakthroughs to date have been made in digital industries.
In the second section, the company shows that digital business model patterns have now become relevant in physical industries as well. The separation between physical and digital industries is now consigned to the past. The key to this transformation is the Internet of Things which makes possible hybrid solutions that merge physical products and digital services. From this, the company derived a very general business model logic for the Internet of Things and some specific components and patterns for business models. Finally they sketched out the central challenges faced in implementing such hybrid business models and point to possible solutions.
Business Models and the Internet of Things
