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Recent studies advocate that digital technologies are key enabling factors for the introduction of servitized business models. At the same time, these technologies support the implementation of the circular economy (CE) paradigm into businesses. Despite this general agreement, the literature still overlooks how digital technologies enable such a CE transition. To fill the gap, this paper develops a conceptual framework, based on the literature and a case study of a company implementing a usage-focused servitized business model in the household appliance industry. This study focuses on the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and analytics, and identifies eight specific functionalities enabled by such technologies (improving product design, attracting target customers, monitoring and tracking product activity, providing technical support, providing preventive and predictive maintenance, optimizing the product usage, upgrading the product, enhancing renovation and end-of-life activities). By investigating how these functionalities affect three CE value drivers (increasing resource efficiency, extending lifespan, and closing the loop), the conceptual framework developed in this paper advances knowledge about the role of digital technologies as an enabler of the CE within usage-focused business models. Finally, this study shows how digital technologies help overcome the drawback of usage-focused business models for the adoption of CE pointed out by previous literature.

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This study comprehensively reviews the literature on the service transformation of industrial firms, applying the business model (BM) perspective. Despite the wide use of the BM terminology, a true BM approach to this phenomenon is an emergent trend. We provide a threefold contribution to the research debate. First, we identify the reasons of relevance of such a BM approach to the service transformation phenomenon. Second, based on a reference model, we provide a characterization of the service transformation literature according to the BM perspective, both from the structural and the content standpoints. Third, we outline four future research directions: (i) the comprehensive and detailed structural description of BMs; (ii) the adoption of a differentiated approach to BMs; (iii) the internal and external factors affecting the choice of BMs; (iv) the transition paths. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group