Open Innovation Strategies for IoT Platforms : How can IoT Platforms Build and Offer Solutions using Open Innovation

Abstract

IoT platform market growth has exceeded expectations since 2015 and has a steady growth projected until 2026. Functionality has expanded, leading to a crowded space and intensely competitive market to operate. Most of the successful proprietary IoT platforms focus on vertical, purpose-built applications/solutions rather than universal products which leads to the lack of suitable products that fit the needs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The proprietary IoT platforms have a high cost and have limitations such as vendor lock-in, late responses to innovations, and customizability. This thesis aims to investigate the open innovation approaches of successful commercial open IoT platforms to devise a suitable open innovation strategy for IoT platforms to build solutions that can solve the issues present today. The thesis is conducted using a multiple case study design. The cases are chosen from open IoT platforms that are commercially successful and are accepted as being open or use an open innovation approach in their business logic. The study also analyses the ‘opensource toolbox’ presented in the open platform design theory to explore how it can be used to design openness for IoT platforms. The study concluded that open innovation in IoT platforms can solve the issues of vendor lock-in, and interoperability and enable faster innovation in the domain. A community-based or stakeholder-based open-source approach is likely to be a better solution to solve the issues, given the complex software-heavy technology underpinning the product. Although the study is not exhaustive, it presents the characteristics that need to be considered for building a commercial IoT platform using an open-source approach. An adapted version of the open-source toolbox is presented.