Business Models for Smart Cities

Nisha Shetty, Suresh Renukappa, Ph. D., and Subashini Suresh, PhD.
University of Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton, England, UK

Cities are the engines of growth for a nation. Smart technologies can help address the urban challenges and improve quality of life, economic opportunity, and liveability for citizens. Cities benefit from a transparent overview of best practice solutions to become smarter and from identifying best-suited solution providers. Companies that make cities smarter benefit from becoming more visible to cities around the globe with their newly developed or proven solutions. Innovative business models help accelerate the adoption of smart technologies.

The main objective of this research is to develop an innovative business model for smart cities. The research follows a structured literature review. A database search on Scopus was conducted, followed by cross-referencing snowballing procedure to identify the relevant studies.

An initial framework designed and adopted with reference from the business model canvas along with four major components (planning, management, operations and citizen) augmented from literature provides an insight into the innovative business models for smart cities. This research provides a comprehensive review of the innovative business model for smart cities. The literature provides raw data and together with interpretation of this data and the definition of the key concept of innovative business model and a well-defined research gap. Innovative business model is at a very niche stage of research, it addresses the research gap in innovative business models for smart cities. It further investigates the management and organisational problems. A city encounters challenges in the planning, managing and operations phase. Overcoming these challenges with a developed business model provides an outcome with better interactions with citizens. Sensing, Information managing, observing and influencing are the challenges structured through the literature review. The research provides answers to the research question on the challenges faced by smart cities to develop innovative business models. The research question aims to generate descriptive knowledge about the process organisations/governments undergo to move into new innovative business models for smart cities development. Decision makers, academy, business and citizens provide the augmented process for a business model operation. Innovation in the key elements of a business model provide a further research topic on smart city

The paper addresses the research gap in innovative business models for smart cities. It further analyses the literature and provides a working definition of innovative business model. It investigates the management and organisational problems and advances with the basic elements of an innovative business model for the development of smart cities. The research provides answers to the research question: What are the challenges faced by organisations and smart cities to develop a successful innovative business model?

Keywords: Innovative business models, Smart cities, Smart solution Challenges, Economy