Digital Business Engineering: Methodological Foundations and First Experiences from the Field

Digitization is affecting almost all areas of business and society. It brings about opportunities for enterprises to design a digital business model. While a significant amount of research exist examining the conceptual foundation of business models in general, no comprehensive approach is available that helps enterprises in designing a digital business model. This paper addresses this gap and proposes Digital Business Engineering as a method for digital business model design. The activities are structured into six phases, namely End-to-End Customer Design, Business Ecosystem Design, Digital Product/Service Design, Digital Capability Design, Data Mapping, and Digital Technology Architecture Design. The method development follows principles of designoriented research. Five case studies are used to analyse method requirements and evaluate it within is natural context.