The rocky road from the hard­ware light to the world of IoT

It’s not just the light­ing indus­try that needs to reinvent itself. The deve­lo­p­ment of disrup­tive busi­ness models and the gene­ra­tion of tech­­no­­logy-based radi­cal inno­va­tions pose major chal­lenges, espe­ci­ally for estab­lished compa­nies, as they are accom­pa­nied by far-reaching chan­ges in the orga­niza­tion. One solu­tion for compa­nies to main­tain their pionee­ring role in this inten­si­fied market and compe­ti­tive land­scape is the so-called “Corpo­rate Lab”. Within the frame­work of this inter­nal orga­niza­tio­nal green­house, start-ups can be founded/financed and success-rele­­vant busi­ness models can be driven forward to new success via shared services and stage-gate processes.

Like many other indus­tries, the light­ing sector is in a state of uphe­aval: sales of conven­tio­nal light­ing solu­ti­ons are falling and radi­cal tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments such as LED tech­no­logy or the Inter­net of Things (IoT) are enab­ling the deve­lo­p­ment of enti­rely new busi­ness models with great poten­tial. The future is called “service trans­for­ma­tion” and “digi­tal and data-driven busi­ness models”. Compa­nies from outside the indus­try and start­ups have reco­gni­zed this oppor­tu­nity and are pushing vehe­men­tly with their ecosys­tems into the hitherto rather static and clearly struc­tu­red market. As a result, the hitherto domi­nant market play­ers are under great pres­sure to act.