In this section, the selected DBE-related case for the case study is introduced. Consequently, the first part of this section covers the employed case selection process. After that, the participants involved in the case study are introduced and described. Lastly, a description of the selected case is provided.
6.2.1
Case Selection
As mentioned in Section 3.5.3, a large number of DBE cases and experts have already been involved in the semi-structured interviews conducted as part of this research’s data collection
phase. From the set of the available cases for the interviews, one case was on purpose excluded for involvement in the validation phase. As such, the case selected for the validation has not been involved in earlier phases. One of the interviewed experts had in fact been involved in a project related to this case (R3), but as the interviews were focussed around one case specifically, the expert was requested to exclude his involvement with the validation case so that minimal bias would occur.
As such, an existing mobility-related digital business ecosystem currently active within several Dutch organisations has been selected as case. Not only does this case perfectly match this
research’s definition for DBEs, but it has also gone through most of its design process. The ecosystem currently consists of almost five participants. The ecosystem participants are furthermore competitors. However, for each of the organisations, the collaboration with competitors proved more valuable than the opposite.
6.2.2
Case Study Participants
For the case study, in total, four experts of three different companies involved in the selected DBE mobility case have been selected. Not only do these experts originate from different organisations participating in the DBE, also, they comprise four different expert roles. These roles were also interviewed as part of the interview phase of this research.
Participant
No. Role Ecosystem Participant
Experience with EA
Experience with DBE Participant 1 Senior Architect Mobility Partner (National) 20+ years 10+ years Participant 2 Business
Consultant Mobility Partner (National) 8 years 5 years
Participant 3 EA Consultant Vendor 5+ years 4 years Participant 4 Senior Project
Manager Mobility Partner (Regional) 0 years 3+ years
Through the interviews, three main participant types of the selected validation case could be identified, as is illustrated in Figure 35. The case studies showed that, primarily, there exist two distinctly different types of participants. On the one hand, there are mobility partners. This notion comprises the organisations, active in the ecosystem, that physically possess and use (public) transport vehicles. On the other hand, there are mobility service partners, who do not actually own these vehicles, but instead own a platform for clients to rent these vehicles (for example, peer-to- peer ridesharing platforms).
Figure 35: DBE Mobility Platform Participant Types
6.2.3
Case Description
Both public transportation companies interviewed as part of the case study acknowledge that the demands and needs of their customers are changing rapidly. An increasing number of clients no
longer desires ‘standalone’ products or subscriptions, but instead look towards complete mobility
service packages. In addition, one of the experts mentions that it was found that travellers increasingly inclined to make use of the public transport offering once the public transportation companies support them in travelling from departure to arrival location, instead of from station
to bus stop. Consequently, one of the interviewed public transportation companies has introduced a new corporate strategy, stating that the control over their mobility offering must be enhanced. In line with this strategy, the organisations aim to serve their customers a door to door service to the best of their ability. Similarly, another expert pointed out that the public transport company the expert worked for aimed to actively deal with the current pace of change in its market. Both companies acknowledge having observed that currently, numerous parties are in active development of similar propositions. Moreover, they find themselves insufficiently capable of exploiting each available shared mobility initiative and therefore have decided to outsource such initiative to specialised third parties. The intended DBE mobility platform should, in that context, serve as a gateway for the transportation companies to link with these third parties and form
partnerships. Furthermore, the interviewed public transportation companies’ experts highlighted
that they found that individually they were insufficiently capable of producing that DBE platform. As such, they connected and decided to bundle forces and, albeit their competitive relationships, work towards developing a new mobility platform, integrating each of the existing initiatives. It was pointed out that the vision of this novel platform included a principle stating that, initially, the platform was only developed to serve the founding participants. Nevertheless, in a later stadium it should also provide support to other mobility and / or service partners wishing to cooperate.
For the nationally active public transport organisation, the adaptive capabilities of its existing mobility offering were deemed insufficient. Also, each of the interviewed experts acknowledged the growing importance of incorporating adaptability in the design of digital business ecosystems. Subsequently, the national public transport operator had initiated the search towards something more flexible and changeable. To that extent, the new mobility platform should offer its clients the possibility to arrange all necessary steps for a complete journey through merely one application or platform. In addition, the ecosystem participants have decided, after careful internal analysis, that they could not develop this ecosystem themselves. Consequently, the decision was made to search for an external vendor, specialised and proven effective in developing these types of platforms, for the white-label development of the DBE mobility platform.