How Digital Technologies Enable Business Model Innovation in the Energy Sector: An Empirical Study of Italian Energy Service Companies

The evolution of digital technologies has been expanding the business opportunities that firms can tap by leveraging such technologies. Business model innovation triggered by digital technologies allows firms to extend the scope of products and services they offer and create new markets. This trend is particularly relevant in the energy sector. However, little is known about how actually energy firms’ business models evolve because of the adoption of digital technologies. Therefore, this article aims at shedding light on the business model innovation process enabled by digital technologies in the energy sector. To this aim, eight Italian energy service companies that innovated their business model by adopting digital technologies are analyzed. The empirical analysis allows to spot an archetypal business models innovation process enabled by digital technologies in the energy sector. The study contributes to the literature on business model and business model innovation by highlighting how digital technologies may promote the evolution of business models and by spotting an archetypal business models innovation process that can be implemented accordingly. It also contributes to the emerging literature on digital transformation, by showing how digital technologies can be exploited by energy firms to improve their value creation, delivery, and appropriation mechanisms.