The effect of the Internet of Things on the customer relations aspect of business model innovation: a multiple case study of startups

The Internet of Things or “IoT” is a technology that has been increasing in use in recent years. The main use case of IoT has been in B2B applications, particularly production. Even though the IoT promises to bring about big changes its effects have mainly been analyzed on B2B firms, only little is known about its effects from the B2C perspective. Therefore, this research investigates IoT and its effects within the B2C sphere. This research created a framework based on academic literature through which the customer relationship of IoT based firms can be analyzed. This framework was developed by operationalizing the most important elements of these factors and their interrelation to each other. Following this, the framework was applied to the cases. From this analysis became clear that a variety of confounding factors that play a role in the IIoT literature impact the B2C IoT sphere to varying degrees. As a result, the interviewees conducted their businesses in surprising ways deviating from the literature. In total 7 elements were found. Additionally, 13 confounding factors were founding in these elements.