Monthly Archives: October 2015

Digital innovation easier with research

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Everyone at the department of informatics would like to congratulate Jesper Lund who, at September 25, successfully defended his PhD thesis in Informatics, receiving his doctoral degree.

In his research, Jesper Lund has studied digital innovation, which is the innovation process for digitalisation of products and services.

– Digital innovation is challenging. It is mainly characterised by the need of different actors to come together in innovation networks in order to create new digital products and services. Collaboration in innovation networks will result in more complex processes, since actors from different areas – with different backgrounds, knowledge and goals – are working together, says Jesper Lund.

The thesis includes two studies, where the first one is about digitalisation of the traditional newspaper.

– In this case, the newspaper or media companies can continue to produce the content, but they have to collaborate with a range of different hardware, network and service suppliers when developing digital news services. In addition to this, groups of consumers have to be involved to create digital products and services of value for the readers, says Jesper Lund.

The other case study is about digitalisation of door locks that makes it possible for development of digital products and services for an increased sense of safety for elderly people that live alone. These digital services have been designed in an innovation network of companies, care givers, researchers and a user group of elderly people and their families.

Through the two studies, Jesper Lund has identified around 20 network activities that are important to organise. The activities form the base in a model that suggests how network activities can be organised in digital innovation. The model also defines the need to be both proactive and reactive in order to successfully meet digital innovation challenges.

– With an increased understanding about essential activities in digital innovation, and how these can be organised, innovation actors can better orchestrate digital innovation processes in the future, says Jesper Lund.

To read the full article about Jespers work click here.

Digitalisation of products requires new service innovation strategies

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We would like to congratulate Soumitra Chowdhury who, at September 28, successfully defended his PhD thesis in Informatics, receiving his doctoral degree.

Soumitra Chowdhury has in his research studied digital service innovation in the transportation sector. Today, vehicle manufacturers provide digital services related to safety and security, such as remote monitoring, roadside assistance in case of emergency and stolen vehicle identification. But in order to have effective, efficient and safe transportation, digitalised product platforms need to develop and include a larger range of services, for example remote diagnostics services (RDS). By using technologies for remote vehicle monitoring, diagnosis and prediction of faults, RDS can be designed for better vehicle maintenance and operation. This can benefit the transportation business as well as our society as a whole.

– One interesting and crucial finding in my research is the strategic value of data generated from the usage of digitalised vehicles. As the data is remotely transferred to vehicle manufacturing firms, the firms can use the data to design and offer services related to vehicle maintenance. In this way, manufacturing firms can become more customer-oriented which is an aim for the firms to sustain in business, explains Soumitra Chowdhury.

Click here to read the full article.

To read more about Soumitras work you can also check out the blogpost called Present your work. Part 1: Soumitra Chowdhury, in which Soumitra present his studies.