Business model innovation paths and success in the machine tool industry

Service-oriented business models are regarded as one of the main competitve priority for European machine builders willing to keep their global leadership, menaced by the growth of asiatic competitors and by the financial crisis. Despite the efforts of the research community and if industrial companies in the direction of servization, there is empirical evidence that only few companies succesfully innovated their business model. In this paper, the results of an European case study research are reported, aimed at the understanding of business model innovation mechanisms and succes in the machine tool sector. Companies resulted distributed in different clusters, each of them characterized by different business model innovation levels, strategic consciousness and achieved performance. Thh culsters suggest the existence of three alternative paths of business model innovation, which are described in paper, showing specific innvoation mechanisms that can be followed.