Digital Technologies, Business Model Innovation & Innovation Ecosystem Management in Institutionalized Industries
Wim Vanhaverbeke, FBE, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Technological Adoption in the Era of Generative AI
Loic Bachelart, Microsoft, France
A Brief Journey Through History: From Distributed Objects Over SOA to Microservices
Philipp Leitner, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Digital Technologies, Business Model Innovation & Innovation Ecosystem Management in Institutionalized Industries
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Brief Bio
Wim Vanhaverbeke is Professor of Digital Strategy and Innovation at the University of Antwerp. His research focuses on digital transformation, innovation ecosystems, and open innovation, with publications in leading journals such as Organization Science, Journal of Management, Research Policy, and California Management Review. He has co-edited four books on open innovation and authored a seminal work on managing open innovation in SMEs.
He is Editor-in-Chief of Technovation and a prominent academic voice in digital transformation and innovation ecosystem research. He co-founded the European Innovation Forum with Henry Chesbrough in 2012 and co-organized the World Open Innovation Conference in 2016. A sought-after speaker at international conferences, he also advises large corporations and technology start-ups on innovation strategies. He serves on the Advisory Committee of the Research Center for Technological Innovation at Tsinghua University.
Abstract
The need for the formation of new ecosystems when introducing digital technologies is a relatively unexplored research field. Digital technologies are powerful sources for new business models, but they can only be successfully launched and adopted through a genuine ecosystem strategy and management. I apply this in highly institutionalized industries: I’ll focus on precision agriculture, digital healthcare and digitalization of the energy industry. I show why the co-creation of digital solution is hampered by a variety of factors. I discuss two major problems: how can digital solutions get co-created with B2B customers and how must an innovation ecosystem be developed and managed to be successful in making digital solutions mainstream.
The phenomenon based analysis of digitally enabled ecosystems in precision agriculture, healthcare and energy leads to unexplored insights about how to set up complex ecosystems in highly institutionalized industries. In contrast with the results of Adner and other B2C ecosystem researchers, my research shows that the ecosystem management is not unipolar, supplier driven or top-down. It is rather multipolar, necessitating a high-powered coalition approach, customer- or demand-driven (co-creation with suppliers) and bottom-up besides the top-down decision making.
Technological Adoption in the Era of Generative AI
Loic Bachelart
Microsoft
France
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Brief Bio
Loïc Bachelart is the General Manager of the Customer Success organization at Microsoft France and a member of its Executive Committee. He is dedicated to helping Microsoft’s customers unlock lasting value from their technological investments. Leveraging a deep understanding of customer needs, Loïc and his teams design and orchestrate tailored journeys, combining technological expertise with a focus on adoption and impact.
With a career rooted in technology and transformation, Loïc began at Accenture, where he honed his skills in driving organizational change and managing complex technology programs. Since joining Microsoft, he has been instrumental in shaping its approach to digital transformation, business operations, and customer success. He has built and led teams that empower clients to harness innovation, whether through consulting on large-scale technology initiatives, orchestrating organizational change, or driving the adoption of cutting-edge solutions such as Copilot, Azure Infra, Data & AI, and Application Innovation.
Loïc is a visionary leader with a passion for innovation and a unique ability to bridge the gap between technology and business outcomes. His expertise spans architectural design, strategic planning, and change management. In the era of generative AI, he leads with a forward-looking mindset, applying this transformative technology to improve processes, enhance customer experiences, and deliver tangible business value.
Abstract
Since ChatGPT became publicly available, each month brings another announcement of the stunning capabilities of generative AI technologies. Now capable of vision, full-duplex conversation, and autonomy with agents, generative AI promises to boost individual productivity, enhance processes, foster innovation in products and services, and therefore transform organizations and industries. However, the gap between the potential of the technology and the value realized by users and organizations has never been so big. And it looks like this gap will continue to grow given the specific challenges of generative AI adoption. By comparing the adoption of generative AI with past disruptive technologies and sharing learnings from real-life adoption engagements, this keynote will focus on the strategies European organizations can implement to harness the power of generative AI to drive innovation, productivity, and growth.
A Brief Journey Through History: From Distributed Objects Over SOA to Microservices
Philipp Leitner
Chalmers University of Technology
Sweden
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Brief Bio
Philipp Leitner holds a bachelor, master, and PhD degree in business informatics from TU Vienna. After appointments in Vienna and Zurich, he is currently an associate professor of cloud-based software engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, a private research university in Gothenburg, Sweden. He also leads the research unit Software Engineering 2 at Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg. His primary research interest is in performance measurement, prediction, and optimization, particularly for scaled, distributed systems. Philipp is particularly known for this work on benchmarking public cloud systems, as well as for contributions in performance microbenchmarking and benchmark optimization. Philipp has published close to 200 peer-reviewed papers. He regularly serves on the PC of conferences such as ICSE, FSE, or ASE, and is in the Editorial Board of Empirical Software Engineering. More information about Philipp's research can be found on the website of his lab: http://www.icet-lab.eu
Abstract
Microservices are currently "en vogue" as the hip way to build distributed systems - but of course this is not the first time that practitioners, students, and academics got hooked on a new and improved software architecture that will surely trivialize building infinitely scalable and resilient systems. In this talk, we will take a trip down the memory lane, reflecting on architectural trends going from Distributed Objects via Service-Oriented Architecture and the advent of REST all the way to Microservices. We will look at what innovations each model brought, and what we left on the wayside with each evolutionary step. This way, we will attempt to capture some of the architectural principles for scalable systems engineering that have truly stood the test of time, as well as look forward to what could come next.