Creating a Research Laboratory on Big Data and Internet of Things for the Study and Development of Digital Transformation

Introduction

As shown by Wasser et al. (2014), the spectacular increase of the Web over the last twenty years should be overshadowed by the fact that the “things” that surround us are beginning to flow to us via the Internet. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term that was invented 20 years ago by Kevin Ashton of Procter & Gamble. This term today are paradigms which examines the objects around us connected to the network, giving anyone access to information “at any time and in any place” (ITU, 2005, Gomez et al., 2013). IoT makes it possible to show the interrelation of objects (“things”) for various purposes, including identification, communication, reading and data collection (Oriwoh et al., 2013). In this case objects (“things”) can vary from mobile devices to common home objects embedded in systems for detection or communication using various technologies (Oriwoh et al., 2013; Gomez et al., 2013). IoT presents great opportunities for computations and communications. At the same time, the development of these opportunities is largely due to the development of dynamic technical innovations, sensory technologies, intellectual things, nanotechnology and miniaturization (ITU, 2005).

In the well-known strategic research program of the “Cluster of European Projects on the Internet of Things” (CERP-IoT, 2009), it is expected that IoT will change business, information and social processes and provide many unforeseen opportunities, in particular to create a research laboratory for studying and improving digital transformations. This will be facilitated by the observations of Kyriazis and Varvarigou (2013), that the dynamic, fast-changing and technology-rich digital environment of IoT allows the provision of value-added applications that use a variety of devices that facilitate services and information, which is very necessary to create a research laboratory for studying and improving digital transformations. Moreover, they add that, as technologies for IoT mature and become ubiquitous; the focus will be on approaches that make it possible to become smarter, more reliable and more autonomous, which coincides with the main goal of this chapter, creating a research laboratory for studying and improving digital transformations. However, there was practically no research on IoT and related business models from the ecosystem point of view, as limited research in IoT focused on the technological platform and business models of one firm (Uckelmann et al., 2011, Leminen et al., 2012). Therefore, in this chapter, we consider the design of a business model for creating a research laboratory for studying and improving digital transformations, as a technological and research process in the transition from business models of an individual company to networked and more complex ecosystem business models. In particular, the study focuses on problems that prevent the emergence of business models IoT.