Master’s Degree Project in Innovation and Industrial Management

The impact of Big Data on the business performance of

Swedish-based companies

Alexandros Kouseras

Supervisor: Evangelos Bourelos

Master of Science in Innovation and Industrial Management

Graduate School
Table of Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 5
1.1 Background and Problem Statement .................................................................................................. 5
1.2 Purpose of the Study and Research Questions ................................................................................... 5
1.3 Empirical Setting ................................................................................................................................. 6
1.4 Thesis structure................................................................................................................................... 7
2. Literature Review ..................................................................................................................................... 8
2.1 Big Data Understanding ...................................................................................................................... 8
2.1.1 Big Data Definition ....................................................................................................................... 8
2.1.2 Dimensions of Big Data ................................................................................................................ 9
2.1.3 Big Data Processes ....................................................................................................................... 9
2.1.4 Benefits of Big Data.................................................................................................................... 10
2.1.5 Challenges in handling big data ................................................................................................. 11
2.2 Big Data and Business Performance ................................................................................................. 12
2.2.1 Data-driven Decision-Making..................................................................................................... 13
2.2.2 Measures of Firm Performance ................................................................................................. 14
2.3 Big Data and New Product and Service Development ...................................................................... 16
2.3.1 Overview of New Product Development, New Service Development and Servitization........... 16
3. Methodology .......................................................................................................................................... 19
3.1 Research Strategy ............................................................................................................................. 19
3.2 Research Design ................................................................................................................................ 19
3.3 Research Method .............................................................................................................................. 20
3.3.1 Secondary Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 20
3.3.2 Primary Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 20
3.4 Research Quality ............................................................................................................................... 21
3.4.1 Trustworthiness ......................................................................................................................... 21
3.4.2 Authenticity................................................................................................................................ 22
3.5 Data Sample Method (or Research Process) .................................................................................... 22
3.6 Participants’ Profile ........................................................................................................................... 23
3.7 The Interview Questions ................................................................................................................... 24
3.8 Ethical Considerations....................................................................................................................... 24
4. Summary of Empirical Findings.............................................................................................................. 25

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5. Analysis ................................................................................................................................................... 39
5.1 Big Data Definition ............................................................................................................................ 39
5.2 Big Data and Business Performance ................................................................................................. 40
5.3 Big Data and New Product and Service Development ...................................................................... 43
6. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................. 46
6.1 Limitations......................................................................................................................................... 48
6.2 Future Research ................................................................................................................................ 48
References .................................................................................................................................................. 50
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 56
Appendix 1: Interview Guide .................................................................................................................. 56
Appendix 2: Communication e-mail to the companies .......................................................................... 58

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Abstract

Big Data has the power to transform entire business processes and improve current business activities.
Many organizations seem to understand the benefits that Big Data can offer to their business, especially its
meaningful potential business value but they find several difficulties in adopting it, mainly because they
are struggling in finding ways of exploiting the derived insights to improve their business. New Product
and Service Development are two very important business processes that have been proven to hold a
considerable role on the viability of an organization and if these insights are capitalized, they can offer
additional business opportunities. New data-driven and customer centered products as well as services can
be developed offering a sustainable competitive advantage and new revenues streams to organizations
aiming for an improved lifestyle to the society.
This paper attempts to conceptualize and explore the impacts of Big Data in the business performance, due
to its high strategic potential and it also explores if and how Big Data and its related technologies are
leveraged in the processes of New Product and Service Development. A qualitative study acts on combining
prior Big Data studies with diverse Swedish-based firms from various industries that utilize Big Data aiming
to explore and compare key essential features of Big Data especially with regards to its effect on business
performance and its utilization in the New Product and Service Development. Furthermore, this research
uses the grounded theory.
Empirical findings show that the companies which have implemented a data-driven strategy in their
operations, are able to see a positive dependence of Big Data to their business performance, while the
companies that have not established a data-driven mindset yet in the whole organization, try to tackle the
challenge of lack of understanding of how to utilize Big Data technologies to create potential value and
accomplish their business goals. Other crucial factors that affect the implementation of a data-driven
strategy is the quality of collected data, availability of data, legal aspects of the data privacy and security
and highly skilled personnel working with Big Data. Therefore, companies ought to think and make
strategic decisions using a holistic view about Big Data integrating their employees, processes and
technologies into their operations to achieve effectiveness and efficiency.

Keywords: Big Data, Big Data Analytics, Business Development, Data-driven innovation, Data-driven
culture, Business Performance, New Product Development, New Service Development

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Acknowledgments

In this part, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the people that contributed into making this
master thesis project real and come to an end. First and foremost, to the professor of the School of
Economics, Business and Law and also my supervisor and advisor Evangelos Bourelos for his continuous
support, guidance and motivation throughout my research process. His immense knowledge on the area of
Big Data and his valuable input helped me significantly during the master thesis writing.
I would also like to express my appreciation to the five executives of Vattenfall, Volvo Group, Fujitsu
Sweden AB, Scania and Ericsson that expressed their interest in participating in this project. Without their
help, excellent cooperation, and the share of their knowledge and experience around the topic of this
project, I would not be able to conduct this research.
Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to my partner in life, Konstantina Kemou, who was
significantly assisting, supporting and encouraging me the whole last semester and during this master
thesis journey. Besides, she contributed to this study with her useful input, advice and knowledge as a
researcher.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family: my parents and my sister who were motivating me and
giving me their positive energy to complete this master thesis writing and supporting my lifechanging
decision and challenge to follow my master’s studies in Sweden.

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1. Introduction

1.1 Background and Problem Statement

During the last decade, society has witnessed a severe digital revolution which has transformed our lives.
Every day we use several emerging technologies in this increasingly digitized world, such as social media,
mobile phones, analytics software, cloud, 3D printing, nanotechnology, sensors, wearable and biomedical
devices, generate a vast amount of structured and unstructured data. A touch on our mobile phone or tablet
touchscreen, a click on our computer mouse or touchpad or a button press on our computer keyboard gives
an immediate notification to organizations that we looked or used their services. In turn, these companies
gather information about our behavior and preferences. Collection of all this data has taken on the name
“Big Data”, mainly because their massive, exploding and unprecedented quantity rules out the capability
for traditional data-processing software tools to capture, store, manage and analyze it as a result of the
aforementioned technologies as many researchers refer to (Gartner IT Glossary, n.d.; Manyika, 2012;
TechAmerica Foundation, 2012).
Data-driven innovation is flourishing day by day having brought up several disruptive changes in the way
companies create value (Xie et al., 2016). Big data can offer new business opportunities to firms and provide
them with business value independent of the industry they belong to, as it has proven to have a strong effect
on the sectors of health care, transportation, online advertising, energy management and financial services
(Ragupathi et al., 2014, Al-Jarrah et al., 2015). If it is to be leveraged, they can provide significant
competitive advantages to organizations, since they always strive to survive, differentiate and thrive in a
highly competitive and fierce business global environment. The ability to analyze and examine Big Data
through specialized technologies and tools and with whom firms can gain information and insights of what
actions need to be implemented, and to make better and faster decisions and predictions in the short-and-
long-term future is called and depends on Big data analytics, which is a strategic asset for many firms today.
These insights can help them to better understand their customer needs and preferences, tap into new
markets, and thus, generate new sources of profits, and improve firm performance (McAfee et al., 2012).
New product development (NPD), new service development (NSD) and servitization were chosen to be
examined by this research, because they are business activities that are part of business development, which
can affect the overall business performance. The concepts of NPD, NSD and servitization have allowed
firms to maintain their competitive advantage by creating value for their customers and new revenue
streams for themselves. Data can provide companies with creative initiatives and disruptive ideas and
especially Big Data analytics is a valuable tool for this purpose, since it provides a pluralism of real-time
information, insights and inspiration regarding value-added customer experience and several business
opportunities. There is great potential for the deployment of information systems and statistical software to
be combined with NPD, NSD and servitization, but there is limited research into the role of Big Data in this
field from a management perspective. Since the trend of the implementation of Big Data analytics has
already been grown, particularly in large corporations, the researcher finds it very interesting to examine
and understand the worth of Big Data and Big Data analytics in the aforementioned fields.
1.2 Purpose of the Study and Research Questions

This paper will mainly combine the existing literature on Big Data, Big Data analytics, new product and
new service development, and servitization with practitioners’ points of view about these issues
implementing a field study, in order to 1) identify the benefits and challenges that several Swedish-based
companies face when attempting to leverage Big Data for creating new business opportunities and the ways
they exploit insights from Big Data to improve their business performance, 2) examine the reasons behind

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the difficulties a lot of companies face with Big Data analytics and new product and service development
3) whether Big Data analytics provide them with insights regarding new product and new service
development, servitization, or other innovation processes, or not.
The objective of this research is to explore the role of Big Data from the perspective of business
performance and New Product and Service Development regarding Swedish-based companies and how it
is managed and being applied for improving business and operational activities, which is strongly
influenced by New Product and Service Development. By having an overall image of the processes and the
usage of Big Data in the New Product and Service Development process of the companies via the empirical
findings and the related literature, the researcher aims to provide a basis on where Swedish-based
companies (incumbent, small and medium sized, and start-up companies) should focus their efforts to tackle
the challenges they face in handling and analyzing the massive and diverse data in order to become more
data-driven and gain competitive advantage in their sector through their offerings. In addition, this research
concerns not only the strengthening of the existing literature regarding Big Data and business performance,
but also it can provide international companies that want to bestir themselves to the Swedish corporate
scenery and specialize in Big Data with valuable information about the Swedish data-driven corporate
culture.
Although the evolution of the Big Data concept has led the researcher to get engaged with this, the existing
literature regarding the usage of Big Data in the New Product and Service Development was found out to
be limited, while the one regarding the usage of Big Data in the enhancement of business performance was
more than adequate. Moreover, most of the case studies that are presented within the literature regard US
or US-based companies and it has not been given a sufficient attention to European and more specifically
Scandinavian or Swedish-based companies. Therefore, the researcher’s goal is to fill the gap in the literature
trying to find out the managerial implications of an effective usage of Big Data by Swedish-based firms in
the New Product and Service Development for a successful business performance and growth. Thus, by
combining the exploratory research on the role of Big Data in business performance and specifically in the
NPD and NSD processes with empirical findings from varied corporations, the researcher intends to address
and answer the main research question:
➢ What is the impact of Big Data on the business performance of Swedish-based companies?
There is another sub-question which will be a valuable aid to the researcher in answering the primary
research question:
➢ What is the impact of Big Data in the New Product and Service Development of Swedish-based
companies that affect their overall business performance?
1.3 Empirical Setting

Sweden has a significantly strong position from an international perspective regarding organizations that
are engaged with the Big Data initiative, Big Data analytics and their related areas. Their effective
exploitation is rendered as extremely important and both Swedish private and public, international and
local, incumbent and small and medium sized organizations within traditional industries, the increasingly
advancing digital services sector and in other emerging businesses have it as a driver for creating
competitive advantage and potential value. This group of organizations together with well-known
universities and institutes form a group of interest about Big Data. In addition, Sweden appears to have a
lot of strong private companies in data intensive sectors with an international interface, such as Ericsson,
Volvo, Spotify, SKF, etc., and together with the country’s extremely intensive GDP expenditures on
innovation and entrepreneurship globally that can lead to a Swedish data-driven innovation, form the reason
of selecting this setting for this research to be conducted.

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1.4 Thesis structure

The paper will begin with a review of the different definitions, concepts and perceptions about big data and
big data analytics, new product and service development, and their merits and challenges. In the second
part, the analysis of interviews with expert managers from the companies of Vattenfall, Volvo Group,
Fujitsu Sweden AB, Scania and Ericsson will be presented. The paper closes with the discussion of the
interviews’ findings combined with the theoretical contributions, some concluding notes and it provides
guidelines for future research.

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2. Literature Review

This part of the study will engage mainly with three different themes that were divided according to the
interview guide that was used for conducting interviews with experts that work with Big Data inside their
companies that are Swedish-based.
2.1 Big Data Understanding

2.1.1 Big Data Definition

Although Big Data is a widely used concept for improving business and operational performance, as it is
evolving rapidly the last two decades, it remains confusing and unclear with regards to its universal accepted
definition (Mayer-Schönberger & Cukier, 2013). However, Big Data is originated back to mid-1990s,
according to a thorough bibliographic study of Big Data from 2011 to 2015 conducted by Mishra et al.
(2017). Definitions of Big Data and its each feature may vary because they depend on how it is perceived
and what technologies are being used by every industry or every organization. Every company or
organization gives its own meaning on Big Data based on its size, complexity to analyze it and available
technologies to manage and process massive data sets or face any other challenges may arise (Blackburn et
al., 2017). Shi (2014, p.6) divides big data definition into two parts: one for academics, “Big Data is a
collection of data with complexity, diversity, heterogeneity, and high potential value that are difficult to
process and analyze in reasonable time” and one for businesses, “Big Data is a new type of strategic
resource in the digital era and the key factor to drive innovation, which is changing the way of humans’
current production and living”.
Diebold (2012) mentioned that Big Data are probably originated from conversations among the Silicon
Graphics Inc. (SGI) community in the mid-1990s, but it became pervasive in 2011 (Gandomi & Haider,
2015; Mishra et al., 2015). Gartner, Inc. (n.d.) was the first that gave a solid and the most widely accepted
definition so far to the concept of Big Data characterizing it as “high volume, high velocity, and/or high
variety data that require new processing paradigms to enable insight discovery, improved decision making,
and process optimization”, a term that the author of this paper also agrees with (Gartner IT Glossary, n.d.).
TechAmerica Foundation gives its own definition: “Big data is a term that describes large volumes of high
velocity, complex and variable data that require advanced techniques and technologies to enable the
capture, storage, distribution, management, and analysis of the information” (TechAmerica Foundation’s
Federal Big Data Commission, 2012, p.10). Manyika et al. (2011, p.1) mentioned that “Big data refers to
datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage and
analyze” without focusing on the data size, which is already increasing over time. Mayer-Schoenberger and
Cukier (2013, p.11) state that “Big Data refers to things one can do at large scale that cannot be done at a
smaller one, extract new insights or create new forms of value, in ways that change markets, organizations,
the relationship between citizens and governments, and more”. Another interesting definition given by
Ohlhorst (2013, p.18) is: “Big Data defines a situation in which data sets have grown to such enormous
sizes that conventional information technologies can no longer effectively handle either the size of the data
set or the scale and growth of the data set”.
Gobble (2013) referred to Big Data as the “next big thing in innovation”, while Manyika et al. (2011)
characterized it as “the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity”. Chen and co-authors
(2012, p.1166), gave the definition below for Big Data: “Analytical techniques in applications that are so
large (from terabytes to exabytes) and complex (from sensor to social media data) that they require
advanced and unique data storage, management, analysis, and visualization techniques”. Dubey et al. (2015,
p.632) drawing upon the ideas of Sun et al. (2015) remarked Big Data as the “data whose sources are

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heterogeneous and autonomous; whose dimensions are diverse; whose size is beyond the capacity of
conventional processes or tools to effectively and affordably capture, store, manage, analyze, and exploit;
and whose relationships are complex, dynamic and evolving”. Most of the definitions presented in this
section focus mostly on the characteristics of Big Data, which will be discussed further in the next part of
the paper.

2.1.2 Dimensions of Big Data

Big data characteristics, which are also its challenges at the same time, remain also ambiguous. First, Laney
(2001) suggested Volume, Variety and Velocity as three of the main challenges in data management. These
three Vs were used as a common framework by many authors in the literature (Laney, 2011; Chen, 2012).
Mishra et al. (2015) is based upon the work of Russom (2011) and presents several definitions of the three
features. Volume, which is the most defining attribute of Big Data, represents the magnitude of data that is
multiplied every year and is presented by Mishra et al. (2015, p.559) as the “large amount of data that either
consume huge storage or entail of large number of records data”. Variety reflects to varied data in type and
source (structured, semi-structured or unstructured types of data from multiple sources, such as sensors,
social media, digital devices, online stores, etc.). Mishra et al. (2015, p.559) defined it as “data generated
from great variety of sources and formats contain multidimensional data fields”. Velocity refers to the “rate
at which data are generated and the speed at which it should be analyzed and acted upon” (Gandomi &
Haider, 2015, p.138). Due to rapid technological advancements, quick accessibility of data requires most
probably real time data and planning based on facts and evidence. Three more Vs were conceived as data’s
features: Value (introduced by Oracle), Veracity (introduced by IBM), Variability (added by SAS). The
first one refers to the “economic value of different data” (Oracle, 2012, p.4), the second one, reflects the
“unreliability inherent in some sources of data” (Gandomi & Haider, 2015, p.139) and a questioning data
trustworthy or unreliability, as an evidence of the potential value of big data in information and the necessity
of its integrity insurance. The third one represents the variance in the composition of data (Gandomi &
Haider, 2015). Complexity was introduced by SAS as another dimension of big data revealing the
difficulties of collecting, cleansing, storing and processing of heterogeneous and of huge quantity data. To
sum up, organizations having a clear and overall image over these features and challenges can take
advantage of Big Data and leverage it to acquire competitive advantage (Mishra et al., 2017).

2.1.3 Big Data Processes

Data processes vary among different companies and industries. However, according to Labrinidis &
Jagadish (2012), as it is shown in the figure below and constructed by Gandomi & Haider (2015, p.141),
data processes can be managed more easily for extracting insights after being divided into two categories:
data management and analytics. The first group includes processes and related technologies for collecting
and storing data in order to be retrieved for analysis, while the second one incorporates various techniques
that can be used for analyzing and obtaining information from Big Data (Labrinidis & Jagadish, 2012 as
cited on Gandomi & Haider, 2015).

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Figure 1. Illustration of Big Data Processes

“The increased volume and velocity of data in production means that organizations will need to develop
continuous processes for gathering, analyzing and interpreting data. The insights from these efforts can be
linked with production applications and processes to enable continuous processing” (Davenport et al.,
2012). Therefore, companies by leveraging these processes will be able to achieve higher Big Data
capabilities and optimize their functions.
2.1.4 Benefits of Big Data

Big data is changing the typical nature of business as we know it making it more digital and having a major
role in every industry from “manufacturing to healthcare to retail to agriculture and beyond” (Marr, 2015,
p.12). Big data can contribute to higher value through data discovery, generation, collection and
exploitation methods. As we speak, Big Data is playing a major role in quick and effective decision-making
and forecasting processes, such as business analysis, product development and other internal procedures
(Wang et al., 2016). For example, in Manyika et al. (2011), McKinsey Global Institute reports that over
half of the 560 examined US enterprises state that Big Data was a helpful aid for increasing their operational
efficiency, choosing an appropriate information management strategy direction, and providing better
customer service.
Davenport (2014), as cited on Lee (2017, p.299, 300), explicitly claims that “Big Data provides great
potential for firms in creating new businesses, developing new products and services, and improving
business operations, while the use of Big Data analytics can create benefits, such as cost savings, better
decision making, and higher product and service quality”. Big Data analytics can be described as a
capability that “provides business insights using data management, infrastructure (technology) and talent
(personnel) to transform business into a competitive force” (Kiron et al., 2014 as cited in Akter et al., 2016,
p.2). LaValle et al. (2011) points out that Big Data analytics competence can create sustainable business
value basing the decision-making on it. Wong (2012) admits that data gives the opportunity to firms to
develop innovative products and services, such as innovative applications.
Empirical studies show that organizations that used data-driven decision making observed a 5-6%
improvement in productivity, while those that employed business analytics and insights to provide
differentiated products and services to their customers were among the top performers on their sector, since
top performers approach Big Data analytics more actively and use insights in their daily operations,
strategies and decisions (Brynjolfsson et al., 2012; LaValle et al., 2011). Moreover, Chen et al. (2012) point
out that the implementation of Big Data in enterprises can result in superior production efficiency and
competitiveness in many business aspects, such as on marketing, where companies can more accurately

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make predictions about consumers’ or customers’ behaviors, on sales planning, where they can change their
prices, on operation, where they can enhance their efficiency, allocate resources and reduce costs and waste,
and on supply chain, where they can decrease the gap between supply and demand and offer better products
and services.
Furthermore, according to Woerner & Wixom (2015) as cited in Günther et al., (2017, p.201),
“organizations now have access to essential data needed to solve problems or gain insights that was not
possible to collect before”. Günther et al. (2017) also introduce the terms “portability” (the ability to
remotely access and use digital data for not only one context of application but also for other contexts) and
“interconnectivity” (“the ability to integrate data from various data sources) to explain how organizations
can obtain value from Big Data. In the first case, data analysts and strategy makers across different
organizations can have remote access of data and integrate them into their company’s platforms or tasks,
thus enabling an open-system sharing of data, which though can empower the challenge of data privacy and
security, since data ownership is at stake and personal data can be leaked. In the second case, decision
makers by extracting new useful insights from the combination of data from alternative sources, can
upgrade their existing operational models and find new patterns. These features can influence potential
data-driven organizational changes and a more unbiased decision-making, and their establishment can assist
a transformation into a data-driven culture (ibid.).

2.1.5 Challenges in handling big data

Although there are many benefits and opportunities that Big Data application can bring to organizations,
several challenges have been observed within the literature mainly related to its appropriate implementation
into the business operations of organizations. For facilitating the reading of this study, challenges will be
divided into three categories: data, process and managerial challenges. The first category is related to the
data features that were described above (volume, variety, velocity, veracity, volatility and quality), the
second one will highlight the techniques and procedures of collecting, integrating, editing and analyzing,
and providing results which are an obstacle for several firms, and the third one will cover the business’
struggle in implementing Big Data within its operations.

2.1.5.1 Data Challenges

Mishra (2015) mentions as technical challenges the management of different data types (structured and
unstructured ones, variety), on-time response requirements (velocity), quick identification between reliable
and unreliable data (veracity) and lack of sufficient sources for collection, storage and analysis of Big Data
within a specific time frame. Volume was not regarded as a challenge for the authors due to the already
existing and highly efficient IT infrastructure. Lee (2017) argues that finding the right people with advanced
skills for forecasting needed to understand correlations and implement new models and techniques to
transform structured to unstructured data is another difficult task for companies. In addition, data quality is
required for an effective decision-making due to the high quantity of unstructured data and its collection
from a wide bunch of sources (Gandomi & Haider, 2015). In addition, data quality is crucial, because if
data are unreliable, imprecise or incomplete derived from many different sources, then false information
will be generated, and this can have a negative impact on the quality of data-driven products and services
for both organizations and society (Günther et al., 2017).

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2.1.5.2 Process Challenges

Wang et al. (2016) argues and analyzes the challenges of data capturing, storage and security, data analysis
and visualization due to data complexity and huge data sets, and design of system architecture or platforms
for data processing. Therefore, data management is challenging for companies, since they engage with huge
and semi-structured or unstructured data sets found in too many data warehouses and a company’s
capability to extract useful information out of data is affected negatively (Chen & Zhang, 2014). Morabito
(2015) claims that companies find it difficult to tackle challenges in identifying the right data and address
the potential advantages that the data can offer to them. In several companies, new methods, activities and
tools are needed to be exploited to resolve the challenges of “data acquisition and warehousing”, “data
mining and cleansing”, “data aggregation and integration”, “data analysis and modelling” and “data
interpretation” (Sivarajah et al., 2017, p.273, 274). These can deliver except for an efficient Big Data
management and achieving an optimum impact and business value creation but also providing with
technical solutions regarding Big Data processes.

2.1.5.3 Managerial Challenges

Businesses should have a specific type of data governance that gives access to relevant data to certain
employees and staff depending on the reasons they want to use it (Sivarajah et al., 2017). In addition, several
enterprises are not always able to find the appropriate analytics tools and data analysts with statistics,
computer science and management knowledge, expertise that is required for Big Data analytics in order to
understand and interpret data in ways that it can give meaningful business insights back to them (Lee, 2017).
LaValle et al. (2011, p.24) pointed out that the biggest obstacle for most of the examined organizations was
“the lack of understanding of how to use analytics to improve their business”. Due to the evolving nature
of Big Data technologies, companies should invest more in these and introduce innovative services to their
operations in order to have the right IT infrastructure for Big Data analytics. This is a result of having
unclear goal objectives in several Big Data projects (Lee, 2017). Furthermore, digital businesses need to
respect evolving legal frameworks around data privacy and intellectual property (IP) protecting personal
data, but data’s privacy and security rendered as difficult due to the massive data volume and data
complexity making it vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Maturity of Big Data technologies can lead to extensive
collection of sensitive personal data, but lack of consent from individuals raises serious concerns about data
privacy from the companies (Lee, 2017). The GDPR initiative, which highlights the human interference
and consent on how several companies use their data putting some limitations on their practices, can be a
potential solution to this challenge. Further, data security can lead to resistance of Big Data adoption and
to financial losses and damage to a firm’s reputation (Lee, 2017). Another challenge that is presented in the
literature is the inadequate understanding of Big Data’s potential value in the business processes by many
executives inside companies (Morabito, 2015) and its sharing within different departments of a company
or with other business partners due to lack of control over its usage and ownership (Sivarajah et al., 2017).

2.2 Big Data and Business Performance

Several research studies focused on the business implications of Big Data. Manyika et al. (2011) in
McKinsey report underlined that Big Data can enhance productivity, efficiency, quality and
competitiveness of both public and private enterprises’ operations creating value for their customers.
McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) indicated that Big Data can provide organizations with improved business
opportunities, decision-making and firm performance by enhancing several internal activities and

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processes, such as customer relationship management, and managers would be able to take decisions based
on facts rather than their instincts, while Davenport et al. (2012) propose that Big Data is the basis for
developing a wide variety of innovative services, which can lead to the creation of new corporate intangible
assets thus enhancing the competitive strategy of a firm by exploiting combined information from several
data sources and applications. Davenport (2014) claims that organizations may combine external data (data
generated from external sources, such as purchased data, open data, sensor or IoT data) with internal ones
(data collected from ERP and transaction systems, and sales, financial or other departments) to extract value
out of it becoming a valuable tool available for decision makers inside organizations. In this context, Big
Data is closely connected on how organizations form their strategies using specific measures and indicators
that provide input to the strategic decision-making (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006) and how they assess and act
upon the behaviors of their internal and external environment. By utilizing these strategies effectively,
modern firms can improve their inspection of insights for different attributes and their accuracy of
predictions for future events (Constantiou & Kallinikos, 2015), but Big Data models and tools should be
also improved continuously and significantly to support the decision-making and the business objectives in
order for the challenges that were described above to be resolved.
According to Brown et al. (2011, p.2), competencies in Big Data can challenge competition by
“transforming processes, altering corporate ecosystems, and facilitating innovation”, not only for private
companies, but also industry-wide and nation-wide since effective improvements in productivity,
innovation and competitiveness can be observed out of its effective exploitation (Mishra et al., 2017).
Recent studies on business implications of Big Data claim that it is a valuable tool for perceiving better the
business environment (Davenport, 2014), however, Constantiou & Kallinikos (2015) underline that the
competence of having the right strategy tools is not sufficient for interpreting Big Data trends with regards
to new business opportunities. Data’s potential value can be optimized if organizations introduce effective
IT tools and technological procedures to convert this highly diverse data into meaningful insights (Gandomi
& Haider, 2015).
Furthermore, several studies have highlighted the crucial impact of Big Data analytics to firm performance.
Their relation together with their alignment to the business strategies tends to improve sales, profitability
and market share (Manyika et al., 2011) and return on investment (ROI) (McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012),
which are important indicators of measuring firm performance and in addition, can bring high sales and
market share growth (Akter et al., 2016). Data mining and Big Data analytics technologies can provide
hidden patterns and valuable recommendations of business performance elements (Campos et al., 2017).
Wixom et al. (2013) indicate that leveraging insights from Big Data analytics can improve business
performance by enhancing the productivity of both tangible (e.g. usage of more digital reports than paper
ones) and intangible (e.g. company reputation) assets. As LaValle et al. (2011) indicates one of the greatest
opportunities but also challenges is the adoption of Big Data analytics into daily operations to attain
business goals, which should be defined before extracting insights.

2.2.1 Data-driven Decision-Making

However, a prerequisite for these actions to be established inside companies is the corporate top
management to strongly agree and support a data-driven culture and decision-making, as they can drive
growth, increase the strategic value of a firm and enhance its business performance (Wong, 2012).
Organizations have the opportunity to leverage data and analytics to become data-centric regarding to
various strategies and decision-making, but this requires sacrifices, such as changes in a firm’s mindset and
culture (ibid.). Business Intelligence (BI) is a valuable tool for decision makers. In Frolick & Ariyachandra
(2006, p.42) is defined as “a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing,
analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions”. However,
although it provides companies with the right methods and technologies to draw Big Data insights and

13
optimize their decisions, its drawback is that it is not systematically aligned with the implementation of the
strategic business goals (Frolick & Ariyachandra, 2006). Further, a firm needs to introduce and exploit
some organizational capabilities (KPMG report, 2015). For example and according to some worth
mentioning points of the report, it is important for a company to be able to distinguish between structured
and unstructured data and then apply this knowledge to improve the business structure, the decision making
based on market predictions and their financial/investment insights. If companies understand the knowledge
that Big Data offers, they can gain insights which capability gaps are needed to be filled and on the
competitive advantage that products and services can be offered, and thus leverage that information in
enhancing the production. Big Data can also play a significant role in recognizing fast developing and
financial opportunities, thus making the decision-making process more effective. Finally, it is important to
pinpoint that the developed understanding of Big Data in combination with the more effective decisions,
can help a company yield more efficient metrics and indicators in order to measure profit and success
compared to other companies in the market. Brynjolfsson et al. (2011) examined 179 large enterprises and
found out through an econometric analysis that adopting a data-driven decision-making has resulted in 5-
6% higher output, productivity, market value and profitability metrics, such as Return on Equity (ROE). If
we take into consideration the ideas that Barton et al. (2012) propose, we can find out that with the
appropriate handling of empirical data, several organizations can convert information to actions. In this
way, the decision-making processes become more efficient and faster, and at the same time, they are able
to augment the precision of predictions and formulate plans for different situations. However, in order to
take advantage of the full potential that this data can offer, they propose several requirements needed to be
established mainly from the top management that will help that effectivization. Firstly, introduce and
support a structured planning of how data scientists can collaborate with employees from other departments
to use in practice Big data, its analysis and apply the extracted insights in real-life cases, secondly, educate
the employees to understand how to utilize and manage the Big Data technologies and capabilities in order
to manage better different projects and optimize various processes, and thirdly have the appropriate IT
infrastructure (Barton et al., 2012).
2.2.2 Measures of Firm Performance

“Performance measurement focuses on the insights, inferences, and analysis of the processes or events that
have taken place to measure corporate performance” (Appelbaum et al., 2017, p.35). According to Simons
(2002), performance measurement systems help managers to track whether the implementation of business
strategic goals by comparing real-time results is achieved or not (Sharda et al., 2013). A performance
measurement system typically comprises of setting business goals together with periodic feedback reports
that signifies any progress that occurs (ibid.). In this section, there will be presented in summary the most
important performance metrics found in the literature.
The term Business Performance Management (BPM) is a model that firms usually use for measuring,
monitoring and managing business performance through several business processes, methodologies,
metrics and technologies (Sharda et al., 2013). It encompasses three key components (Colbert, 2009 as cited
in Sharda et al., 2013): 1) A specific group of integrated and analytic processes that focuses on financial
and operational activities. By incorporating these processes firms can achieve an optimum performance by
setting certain goals and objectives (strategize), implementing different drivers to meet these objectives
(plan), monitor how actual performance is accomplished periodically (monitor) and take corrective action
(act and adjust). 2) Tools for defining strategic goals and then measuring and manage performance to attain
these goals, 3) A set of processes, from operational planning to continuous reporting, modelling and
monitoring of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), all linked to organizational strategy that provide value
to the business. Through KPIs, firm executives are able to measure and extract the most important
performance insights that enable executives to understand the performance status of their businesses. In
addition, they can monitor internal business activities and take the best possible decisions and actions to
enhance their business performance, closely aligned with the general business goals (Tedeschi & Spann,

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2013). They measure diverse operational areas, such as customer performance (metrics for customer
satisfaction, speed and accuracy of issue resolution, and customer retention), service performance (metrics
for service-call resolution rates, delivery performance, defects rates and return rates), sales operations (new
sales channels), and sales plan or forecast (metrics for price-to-purchase accuracy, forecast-to-plan ratio)
(Sharda et al., 2013).
Business analytics is a pervasive tool in many companies’ strategic analysis and employed for assessing
the firm performance. It is defined as “the use of data, information technology, statistical analysis,
quantitative methods, and mathematical or computer-based models to help managers gain improved insights
about their operations, and make better, fact-based decisions” (Davenport & Harris, 2007, p.7). These
include a wide range of approaches, technologies and tools, such as data mining, machine learning,
unstructured text analysis, artificial intelligence, business intelligence, data visualization and other tools
that can provide organizations with insights from huge, complex, internal and external data sets (Davenport,
2013). Wang et al. (2016) defines data mining as “the collection of artificial intelligent techniques that mine
hiding knowledge and patterns from given data and includes classification, regression and clustering”.
Machine Learning is another part of artificial intelligence, which has the ability to “understand” patterns of
behavior from the collected data. Once the algorithm understands how these behavior patterns function, it
can produce valuable conclusions that can help in many business aspects. These tools can help them also
to make more accurate, smarter and faster decisions in every Big Data procedure, such as data acquisition
and storage, data cleaning, data analysis, data visualization and those insights can be used for creating
predictive models that can be applied and facilitate business and other processes or accomplishing several
business objectives (Blackburn et al., 2017). It can also improve decision-making and increase
organizational gains (Sivarajah et al., 2017). Saggi and Jain (2018) summarize three types of analytics:

• Descriptive analytics use raw data to find out what has happened in the past to define the state of
a business situation that can be developed further, and its tools are descriptive statistics, Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs), dashboards or other kinds of visualization
• Predictive analytics use raw data to find out what might happen in the future (forecasting and
estimation of future events). Predictive and probability models, forecasts, statistical analysis are
tools that are commonly used.
• Prescriptive analytics use data to identify the actions that are likely to result in the best and most
effective outcomes under predetermined conditions with limited costs and business risk. Social
media can be used for projecting changes in market or customer behaviors or in business,
economic and governmental level.

The last category of analytics should be prioritized in strategic analysis in order for companies to
accomplish a higher rate of operational benefits, but they require high-quality planning and resources,
effective execution, a data-driven culture inside the company and monitoring of the employees’ actions
(Davenport, 2013). Predictive analytics combining machine learning algorithms with insights from
descriptive analytics can predict how the future performance would look like (Appelbaum et al., 2017).
Several literature sources mention the “Balanced Scorecard” (BSC) as the most widely utilized and popular
tool for monitoring and measuring different corporate performance objectives, which uses financial,
customer, internal process, and learning and growth metrics to help managers reach to a decision whether
the business activities require changes for achieving the objectives, strategies, mission and vision of an
organization or not (Kaplan & Norton, 1992, 1996, Campos et al., 2017, Appelbaum et al., 2017, Sharda et
al., 2013, Frolick & Ariyachandra, 2006).
The financial metrics that are included on the BSC are related to cost efficiency, revenue growth and risk
mitigation, thus aim to increase the shareholder value (Kaplan & Norton, 2001, Appelbaum et al., 2017)
such as cash flows, sales growth, gross margin, market shares, return on equity (ROE), risk assessment or
cost-benefit data (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). If this kind of output is timely and accurate and accessible

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towards the whole organization through a centralized corporate database, an efficient financial reporting
can be achieved (Sharda et al., 2013).
From the customer perspective, several metrics are focused mainly on the customer satisfaction and
feedback, and how companies can create value for them, where indicators are formed in terms of the variety
among customers and the processes that are used for providing products or services to these diverse
customer clusters.
The internal business process perspective focuses specifically on the different reasons and ways business
processes are important for a firm and the enhancement of their efficiency. Managers with these metrics
have the opportunity to monitor how well their internal business procedures and functions are running, and
whether the outputs of these processes (i.e. products and services) are aligned with their customer
expectations.
The learning and growth perspective aims to provide metrics to guide managers for training employees,
acquiring new knowledge and facilitating internal communication among employees for driving innovation
and organizational shift. These actions adjust human and IT resources with the strategic demands of an
organization to achieve its mission and vision. Examples of these metrics may be employees financial
upgrade if they meet their assigned targets or market share of new products (Kaplan & Norton, 2001).
Six Sigma is another widespread adopted tool by several organizations, but most of them do not use it as a
performance measurement system, but mostly as a process improvement methodology that enables them to
examine closely their processes related to a company’s profitability, pinpoint problems, and apply remedy
strategies. Should it is used as performance measurement system, its logic is the reduction of defects in a
business process as much as possible and the acceleration of improvement in overall business performance.

2.3 Big Data and New Product and Service Development

2.3.1 Overview of New Product Development, New Service Development and Servitization

Many firms have acknowledged product development as an important source of increasing their
competitiveness and gain a sustainable competitive advantage (Cooper, 1990), since the evolving diversity
of products, deterioration of product life cycles and globalization of markets (Salgado et al., 2017). New
Product Development (NPD) is described mainly as a business process by several literature sources
(Salgado et al., 2017; Ulrich et al. 2003; Coughlan, 2014) following a set of steps and activities and it is
considered as a critical one, because it illustrates the success of a company (Salgado et al., 2017). NPD is
defined as “the stages, activities, tasks, steps and decisions involving the development of a new product or
service, or an improvement to an existing one, from initial idea to product discontinuation” (Salgado et al.,
2017, p.141). It is vital for firms to define and understand their strategic business objectives and directions
contributing to new product success before they initiate the process.
Empirical studies focusing on Big Data from a management perspective have pointed out the effect of Big
Data on firms’ NPD and on improving their innovation processes (Davenport, 2012; Manyika et al. 2011;
Gobble, 2013; Tan et al., 2015), which can lead to potential competitive advantages. Wong (2012)
highlights the fact that with massive amounts of data companies can have an enhanced product
development, while Tan et al. (2017) relate NPD mostly with customer satisfaction and mention quick
problem-solving, shortening of the cycle time, close interactions with customers and reducing costs as the
most fundamental propositions for a successful overall NPD process. Zhan et al. (2016) analyze three ways
that Big Data can support NPD: a) “generation of ideas and concepts” (collection of information out of
various Big Data sources to create new business opportunities and generate novel ideas for products), b)

16
“design and engineering” (a digital product co-creation with customers) and c) “test and launch”
(individuals have the role of end customers providing their feedback for the product). George et al. (2014)
indicates that the data volume and the value of “outliers” are extremely important, whereas “outliers”, a
term borrowed from statisticians, refer to divergent individual behaviors that are exciding the limits of a
normal distribution in the population of Big Data. These outliers can represent a rather important and
potential source of a social or economic modification with long-term consequences on the business
environment and thus they may be the premise for identifying new business opportunities in fields such as
product and service innovation or new product and service development (Constantiou and Kallinikos,
2015).
Generation of new insights by firms or understanding about their products, customers and markets, can lead
to positive impacts on business process innovation on firm and supply chain level, allowing them to attain
competitive advantage (Zhan et al., 2017). In addition, the same authors (p.522) point out the vital role of
Big Data as a supporting tool for companies to accomplish three key success factors in product innovation
management: a) “accelerating product innovation processes” by increasing the velocity in product
innovation projects, b) “customer connection”, and c) “building a stable and diverse innovation ecosystem”.
These actions can result in the quick launch of new products to market, visibility of a product’s weaknesses’
during its development cycle, additional functionalities to a product that customers are willing to pay a
premium amount of money for eliminating unwanted features and the identification and prioritization of
customer needs and preferences for specific markets. Davenport (2013) underlines in his article that an
effective use of generated data and extraction of information has several benefits in new product innovation
and service offerings. LaValle et al. (2011) recommended the application of Big Data and its analytics to
firm strategy practices in order to extend their typical information channels regarding the business
environment enabling companies to remain competitive by proceeding to disruptive innovation or other
changes to their products or services offering them continuously to the market.
New Service Development (NSD) is “the development of new service products with intangible core
attributes which customers purchase” (Johne and Storey, 1998 as cited in Qiang, 2013, p.4). A new service
is defined as “an offering not previously available to the firm’s customers that results from either an addition
to the current mix of services or from changes made to the service delivery process” (Menor & Roth, 2007
as cited in Qiang, 2013, p.4). Goldstein et al. (2002) (as cited in Qiang, 2013, p.4) defines NSD as “the
overall process of developing new service offerings and is concerned with the complete set of stages from
idea to launch (Cooper et al., 1994). Service innovation refers to innovation in services, which focuses on
how firms design or improve service concepts to satisfy the unmet customer needs. It may not yield into a
sustainable competitive advantage, since they are not patentable and can be imitated by other individuals
or organizations. As Qiang (2013) claims, the differences between NSD and service innovation are slight
and are based on the meaning and the used processes.
Servitization is another differentiation strategy of sustaining competitiveness for organizations. It refers to
“the process where firms set out to create greater value by increasing the services they offer” (Vandermerwe
& Rada, 1988). More and more companies today seem to have included servitization in their products to
retain their customers and keep them satisfied adopting service business models. Opresnik and Taisch
(2015, p.182) claim that “Big Data exploitation strategies can be the next step of the value creation after a
manufacturing enterprise has servitized its products”, as the more servitization is used, the more customers
can be retained, thus more data can be collected and new information can be used effectively, which can
give competitive advantage, as data’s analysis can provide valuable insights on taping into new markets
that competitors have not discovered yet or the possibility to create new or customer-centered products or
services. In their article, they propose several ways of how manufacturing companies can use the four Big
Data characteristics (Volume, Velocity, Variety and Veracity) to connect with and leverage the fifth one,
Value. Finally, Barton and Court (2012) and Wamba et al., (2015) claim that extracted knowledge from
Big Data can become a useful beginning for modern companies.

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2.3.1.1 New Product Development models

There are different NPD models that exist in the literature, but in this section the focus is only on two
models, which are found to be fairly widespread across organizations. Ulrich and Eppinger (2003) propose
a six-stage model, which consists of the following phases: 1) Planning phase (Idea generation and
evaluation of business opportunities), 2) Concept development (transformation of ideas into concepts with
more analytical information), 3) System-level design (specifications about the functionality and
components of the product), 4) Detail design (necessary processes, tools and business actions for the
product development) 5) Testing and refinement (construction of prototypes) and 6) Production ramp-up
(gradual initiation of production).
Stage-gate system is another widespread model that is utilized by many corporations for managing,
directing and controlling their product-innovation efforts with effectiveness and efficiency (Cooper, 1990).
This system/process is divided into a predetermined set of stages or work stations, where specific actions
are employed by managers from different departments of an organization, and between each of them there
is a quality control checkpoint or gate. These gates have different structure. A specific amount of criteria is
defined that the product has to pass to move to the next work station (“go or kill” decisions regarding the
possibility of the project continuation or its elimination). These criteria tend to mitigate the risks and
uncertainties of the projects (Cooper, 2008). The exact design of the Stage-Gate system is illustrated in
Figure 2 below (ibid.).

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3. Methodology

3.1 Research Strategy

The overall purpose of this study is to highlight in what ways Big Data influence the improvement of
business performance of several Swedish-based firms and in particular their New Product and Service
Development. Thus, the research is focusing more on understanding how these firms apply Big Data in
their operations, what challenges they face and their key success factors in business aspects. Therefore, a
qualitative strategy is the selected method for this research and it is more relevant than a quantitative one.
Whiting et al. (2012, p.22) mention that “qualitative research seeks to understand the subject being
investigated and provide explanations of the behaviors or experiences of individuals or groups”. Hence, by
implementing a qualitative strategy, a deeper understanding of the studied organizations can be achieved
through their executives’ shared opinions and experiences regarding Big Data and Big Data analytics.

An inductive approach in qualitative research is a concept-and theory generating one from the extracted
data that needs to be identified, examined and discussed further by the researcher (Bryman & Bell, 2011),
while the deductive one relates theory and research in which relationship the latter is conducted with
references to hypotheses and ideas yielded by the former (ibid.). Thus, the latter approach is used mostly in
quantitative strategies, where these phenomena are observed. An empirical study that uses the inductive
approach base the findings on tools, such as observation and interviews. These tools are important in the
qualitative research as they care more humanistic i.e. the researcher comes in contact with the phenomenon
or the people directly and looks for ways to produce meaning. These methods distinguish themselves from
the “cold”, number-based method of deductive approach that does not take into consideration the human
insights, values and understanding of a phenomenon. In this case, an inductive approach is considered more
applicable, not only because the research is aiming to gain knowledge on Big Data’s influence on business
operations and on the data management and analytic capabilities of a specific number of business
organizations, but also due to the fact that it will yield practical recommendations in this end of this paper
without testing any hypotheses or validate any existing variables or theories. Except for an inductive
approach, there will be used a grounded theory approach in this paper for analyzing the collected data
aiming to the generation of theory (ibid.).

The theoretical background that was chosen for this study is grounded theory. According to the originators
of this theory (Glaser et al., 1968), grounded theory is a theory mostly found in qualitative research that has
as goal to generate and formulate a new explanatory theory out of the gathering and analysis of empirical
data. Research processes when using ground theory may involve collection, coding and sorting the data and
then try to construct a theory that is a product of the researcher’s interaction with the participants (Strauss
& Corbin, 1997). In this study, grounded theory it is used from the researcher in order to conceptualize the
usage of big data in Swedish based companies by using data from people working inside those companies
and it is an effort to deeply understand and explain this phenomenon.1

3.2 Research Design

In this section, a robust research design is going to be presented that fits with the aforementioned research
questions and logic behind Big Data and business performance. The research design that will be used in
this study is the comparative design and it will take the form of a multiple case study, since the number of
examined cases is more than one. In this case, there are five different cases-interviews from five different
enterprises, whose representatives were asked targeted questions about the role of Big Data in their

1
More on grounded theory on Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (2017). Discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for
qualitative research. Routledge.

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companies’ business performance and New Product and Service Development. This design is being
followed by acquiring relevant input and knowledge from a variety of sources and comparing the findings
with the final goal to comprehend in detail if, why and for what reasons Big Data are employed and included
in the operations of these five firms. Generally, this model is adopted for comprehending social phenomena
better when two or more meaningful and contrasting cases are compared, and it is a valuable tool for the
researcher to come up with relevant findings and recommendations.

3.3 Research Method

According to Dubois and Gadde (2002), researchers have at their disposal multiple ways of exploring
hidden insights and meanings. Yin (1994) claims that exploring and studying multiple cases that their agents
are not directly connected to each other (serve as different sources of information), may strengthen the
powers of argumentation of the findings/conclusions. For this reason, both primary and secondary sources
are used by gathering different perspectives in order to formulate a holistic understanding of the research
topic.

3.3.1 Secondary Data Collection

Secondary data is collected initially in the form of existing literature related to the area of study. Relevant
literature was found on several academic electronic databases of GUNDA, the library of University of
Gothenburg, Scopus, Google Scholar, SAGE Research Methods and Science Direct. Some of the most
important keywords that are used to explore the existing and most influential literature and condense the
volume of the search results are Big Data, Big Data analytics, Business Performance, Business Strategy,
New Product Development, New Service Development, Benefits of Big Data, Challenges of Big Data. This
literature had the form of journal articles, magazine articles, books, master theses, reports and textbooks.
Their citation frequency, the reputation of the authors, date of publication and content relevance are taken
into account when deciding whether they are useful as data sources. However, the literature that was
selected in this study was in the English language and articles on the topic that was written in other
languages were not taken into consideration due to practical difficulties. Moreover, the researcher managed
to find other relevant literatures in the secondary data collection process through the reference list in the
initial literature. This method is proved to be an effective way of having a wider view of the research areas
and have more literature sources for a study.

3.3.2 Primary Data Collection

Apart from the secondary data that was retrieved from the existing literature, the researcher focuses in
collecting primary data in the form of interviews. A basic process when using grounded theory is the
gathering of data that is derived from the direct communication of the researcher with the participants.
Although observations, field notes and video recordings are important and popular tools in qualitative
research, due to practical reason, it was decided that the researcher would conduct interviews with the
participants in order to have a deeper understanding of the discussed problem.

3.3.2.1 Semi-structured interviews

According to Fylan (2005), the interview approach is one of the most important, enjoyable and interesting
ways of collecting data when conducting qualitative research. A specific design of the interview process is
conducting conversations in a semi-structured way. The semi-structured way of interviewing is described
by Fylan (2005) as simple conversations that the researcher has an idea of what he/she wants to explore,
but at the same time the conversation is flexible and free, whereas the responses from the participants can

20
vary significantly between each other. In contrast with structured and unstructured interviews, the semi-
structured ones do not have a strict structure like a verbal questionnaire and the same time they are not so
free regarding the order of the questions and the topic explored.
In this specific study, the interviews were conducted using the semi-structured way because it allows a
certain flexibility to the questions and the participant answers, but at the same time, they are focused on the
topic of the effect of Big Data in business performance, and in New Product Development and New Service
Development. An interview guide was generated (see Appendix A) as a coordination tool with open
questions related to the topic discussed. If, during the interview process, any participant did not understand
the question or requested more information, then the researcher had the flexibility to provide supplementary
questions in order to ease the process. It was deemed that the semi-structured way, was the most suitable in
this study as the participants had the opportunity to express and elaborate their opinions on the topic. For
the researcher, it was the most appropriate tool for understanding “Why” and “How” questions in a deeper
and meaningful way. At the same time, it gives the researcher the opportunity to ask further questions if
he/she deems that a question was not elaborated enough and/or if they want to learn more about an
interesting view that is expressed. Furthermore, the researcher had the flexibility to not ask some of the
questions listed in the guide if he thinks that they were answered in previous questions.
According to Baxter & Jack (2008), the way we analyze data in a case study can be very different as it is
dependent on the specific characteristics of the case. This study is focused on profound understanding of
how the Swedish-based organizations use Big Data and try to find a meaning in order to answer the research
questions that were proposed. Therefore, the goal of the study is not to generalize or propose a universal
model on how Big Data should be used, rather than exploring and elaborating on the current techniques.

3.4 Research Quality

One of the main challenges that the researcher has to deal with in qualitative studies is establishing
confidence and trust on the theoretical explanations that are proposed by the researcher in order for the
reader to understand the examined concept. In this context, according to Bryman and Bell (2011), reliability,
validity and replication are the most distinguished criteria that are used for the assessment of a management
or business research. However, there is a disarray among scholars in their use in quantitative or qualitative
research, especially for the former two concepts. Some of them believe that they can be applied to
qualitative research while others argue that they are relevant only to quantitative research (Bryman & Bell,
2011). This paper will follow the second trend and propose the alternative concepts of trustworthiness and
authenticity for evaluating qualitative research, as they were introduced by Lincoln and Guba (1985) and
Guba and Lincoln (1994). It was decided to follow these patterns because advocators of the first trend apply
some slight alterations to the concepts of reliability and validity for conducting qualitative studies into their
papers (Bryman & Bell, 2011). The reason why Guba and Lincoln differentiate themselves from other
scholars is that reliability and validity reveal only one social truth with regards to management or business
research, while via trustworthiness and authenticity a researcher can identify more than one, namely
researchers can suggest several concluding points or theories (ibid.).

3.4.1 Trustworthiness

As it is reported in Xerri (2018), the trustworthiness of the research is highly relevant to evidence that based
on the participation of the researcher on the field research. Each research’s trustworthiness is based on four
aspects, according to Lincoln and Guba (1985): credibility, transferability, dependability and
confirmability, which each one of them parallel a corresponding aspect of quantitative research (Bryman &
Bell, 2015). Authors mention that credibility, which is a substitute for internal validity, consists of two
main tasks: conducting research in a credible way, namely an accurate and richly describing way of
explaining the phenomenon in question, and describing thoroughly the collected data (Given, 2008). Having

21
semi-structured interviews with five executives from five different Swedish-based companies helped the
researcher to form a more thorough understanding of the topic and comprehend managerial details around
it. Moreover, face-to-face interviews were beneficial in building trust not only with them but also with their
answers on several questions concerning the study’s research questions that were shared with the researcher.
Transferability is a parallel concept with generalizability (Given, 2008) and entails “the extent to which
findings from a qualitative study are useful in understanding how people experience the target phenomenon
in other settings or under other conditions” (Monsen & Van Horn, 2008, p. 74 as cited in Xerri, 2018, p.39).
That can be accomplished via a detailed narration of the research participants’ views and experiences which
can be transferred and applied in different contexts by other researchers (Bryman & Bell, 2011).
Dependability parallels reliability and it entails the consistency of a research process (problem statement,
selection of study participants, interview transcripts, data analysis, deriving findings, etc.) in an appropriate
way. Thus, other scholars can be reassured if the consistency of this study is valid and all steps of a research
process have been followed in order for a similar process to be implemented in a future research.
Confirmability, which is a parallel concept of objectivity, is used to assure readers or other academics that
the researcher has not been biased by any personal values, opinions or other influences during the research
process and that “the interpretations and findings match the data” (Given, 2008).

3.4.2 Authenticity

Another important element of qualitative research is authenticity. The researchers’ aim in applying
authenticity to their studies is to ensure that both the conduct and the assessment of their research are
plausible and have an impact regarding both the research participants’ experiences and views, and the
various societal issues. It entails five aspects, according to Guba and Lincoln (1985): Fairness, Ontological
authenticity, Educative authenticity, Catalytic authenticity and Tactical authenticity. The first aspect
shows the fair representation of all different points of view, concerns and perspectives about social matters
during the research process. The second aspect helps a study’s participants to better understand the social
environment and the social aspects of the topic in question, while the third one helps them to appreciate
better the different perspectives of other members of the society, such as cultural, social or organizational
ones. The fourth feature refers to the degree to which the research has been an influence for a research’s
participants to take actions and change the status of their society, while the fifth aspect tends to engage the
participants with taking the appropriate steps to act upon that change as members of the society trying to
have a positive impact on that shift.

3.5 Data Sample Method (or Research Process)

As it was mentioned above, in addition to the literature review, this study relies on semi-structured
interviews with five practitioners from Swedish-based firms (further information about the profile of each
interviewee are provided on the below table) of a range of sectors. All of the interviews were recorded. The
choice of collecting data through semi-structured interviews is based on the fact that they facilitate a strong
element of discovery, while its structured focus allows an analysis in terms of commonalities (Ayres, 2012).
According to the semi-structured way of conducting interviews (Ayres, 2012), questions were the same for
every participant and the interviewees were helped by supplementary questions if they needed more
elaboration on the questions. Every participant could express freely their own opinion without restrictions
throughout each interview. The researcher could keep track of the discussion and constrain the respondent
in the subject and not let the discussion get out of the limits of the topic. Moreover, if the researcher felt
that any interviewee presents a difficulty in understanding the question, then additional explanations and
elaboration were provided to him for facilitating the whole process. Furthermore, if the participants felt
they needed to add more information that are not along with the context of asked questions, then they had
the freedom to do so. These interviews included open-ended questions to have the opportunity exploring
emerging big data trends and issues in depth, as it commonly happens in quite new to research areas. The

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interviews focused on how the examined companies leverage Big Data inside their companies and
specifically in the New Product and New Service Development processes, what effect has a Big Data
implementation to their business performance, and in NPD and NSD, what kind of challenges they face in
collecting, analyzing, getting insights and using effectively Big Data and what skills or resources are needed
for tackling these challenges. The companies were selected meticulously on the basis of size, geography
and their core business. It was examined thoroughly through extensive research on companies’ reports and
website information that work with Big Data, ensuring also that the study participants represent a diverse
variety of occupations and organizational positions and have experience in working with Big Data
technologies. The case companies are also incumbents on their respective sector and have introduced
digitalization and digital services to their operations.

3.6 Participants’ Profile

The researcher initiated contact with several companies based in Sweden by seeking contact information
with Big Data practitioners through the Internet, the LinkedIn platform or e-mail, having sent a small
informative text about the topic of the project and its purpose. However, only five of them showed interest
about the research project. Interviewees were invited to participate in the interviews through e-mail or a
direct approach (message) through LinkedIn, which is a social networking business-and-employment
oriented service, having made the access for business professionals and experts more efficient. Three of the
interviews with the experts were conducted face-to-face, one via a regular phone call, and one via a Skype
call between February and March 2018. Each interview lasted between 30 to 60 minutes and they were
conducted orally in the English language. The recording and the transcription of the interviews were
accomplished through two different mobile applications that were also used for the analysis and
interpretation of the findings. All the participants were male, being employed in private organizations of a
wide range of sectors including automotive, energy, telecommunications and retail industry. The details of
the conducted interviews and the profile of the interviewees can be seen in table 1 below.

Company Respondent’s Full Respondent’s Respondent’s Location Date Type of Durat

Name Job Position Job Position Interview ion
Duration
Vattenfall Yasith Director of 4 months in Stockhol 16/02 Skype 30
Wickramasinghe Customer this position, m /2018 min
Insights for the 7 years
Consumer employed in
Sales Nordic Vattenfall
Volvo Staffan Viden Vice president 2 years in Gothenb 21/02 Face to 60
Group for this position, urg /2018 Face min
manufacturing 30 years
technologies employed in
Volvo Group
Fujitsu Kjell Munther Sales CTO of 1 year in this Gothenb 01/03 Face to 36
Sweden Scandinavia position, 7 urg /2018 Face min
AB years
employed in
the company
Scania Gunnar Löfgren Digital Officer 9 months in Stockhol 12/03 Phone 30
of Commercial this position, m /2018 min
Operations almost 20
years

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 employed at
Scania
Ericsson Henrik Stenhoff R&D Line 1 year in this Gothenb 16/03 Face to 37 +
Manager for position, 15 urg /2018 Face and 16 =
Data Analytics years and Phone 53
Innovation employed at 23/03 min
Ericsson and /2018
working with
R&D

Table 1. Overview of Study Participants

3.7 The Interview Questions

It is worth mentioning that all interviewees in the beginning of each interview were asked if they agree to
share their full names or if they wanted an anonymity to be kept, but they had no problem of having their
names into the paper, unless the study would be published out of the academia. The questions constructed
and asked by the researcher were divided before each interview in order for the study participants to have
an overall image of what kind of questions they were supposed to answer, and they concern how they
perceive Big Data, what challenges or benefits they have using them, how they use them to improve the
performance of their businesses and what their impact is on the New Product and/or Service Development.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that during the interviews and in accordance with the participants’
answers, not all questions of the interview guide were asked, since some of them were answered in another
question. The researcher did not intend to tire the participants by making them repeat their answers.
Therefore, some questions of the interview guide were skipped or joined with others. Before the contact
initiation with several companies, the researcher, after deciding on conducting a qualitative research,
proceeded with the writing of an interview guide (it is available in the Appendix A) with several questions
concerning the research questions and it was clearly divided into three large thematic categories, in order
to be able to conduct a more efficient analysis of the results and for the participants to understand better the
dynamics of the project.
3.8 Ethical Considerations

Since the data collection was accomplished in an empirical way, ethical issues have arisen with regards to
the research participants. Following data analysis, the participants will be informed about the results of this
study and the whole paper or summary of it will be created and distributed to them after the completion of
the project.

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4. Summary of Empirical Findings
In this section, the findings from the conducted semi-structured interviews will be presented in the
following tables and will be divided into 21 categories: 1) Related role of the interviewee to Big Data, 2)
Big Data definition, 3) Ways of collecting data, 4) Data Management and Quality Verification, 5) Big Data
objectives, 6) Data-driven culture, 7) Data-driven influence on daily business operations, 8) Ways of
measuring business performance, 9) Creating business opportunities through Big Data, 10) Improving
Business Performance through Big Data, 11) Insights form Big Data analytics, 12) Data-driven decision-
making impact in business change, 13) Machine Learning usage, 14) New Product and Service
Development process, 15) Impact of Big Data in improving value offerings 16) Implementation of Big Data
in the NPD/NSD processes, 17) Benefits and Challenges of Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes, 18) Rating
of company’s utilization of Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes, 19) Usage of Big Data Analytics tools in
the NPD & NSD processes, 20) Actions for improvement of the management support towards Big Data
implementation in the NPD/NSD processes, 21) Key Success Factors.

1) Related role of the interviewee to Big Data

The interview guide began with this question, as it is highly relevant to the topic, because it reveals the
relation of each participating executive to this study through their work positions inside the respective
organizations.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ I’m responsible for looking into data to find customer and consumption
behaviors and give them advice on how to save electricity and be more
sustainable.
➢ When it comes to business development, looking at the consumption
patterns and their behaviors, can also help understanding the demand and
supply process better
Volvo Group ➢ Looking for and preparing for implementing new business opportunities.
➢ There are positive opportunities in the area of Big Data and its
technologies, such as Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence
(AI) or Big Data Analytics (BDA), and especially on production
scheduling, possibility for further enhancement of prediction processes
or working with maintenance in a more predictive way by forecasting
possible issues before they occur.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ I am a link to the Japanese and European IPs (Intellectual Property) and
solutions and between our sales organization, the innovation and delivery
units that support the business to work with new areas, such AI, IoT or
industry 4.0 and automation in different aspects.
➢ My role is not specifically related to Big data and BI, but everything is
connected nowadays, and the value of connection is the data that is
created, and we take decisions based on that.
Scania ➢ I am supporting digitalization and business development in all aspects
trying to make enablers for digital solutions, like robotics, advanced
analytics, data management and other services that are used inside our
organization.
Ericsson ➢ I am part of Ericsson Garage where we work with new innovations.
There are different parts that work with building businesses within
Ericsson and I am taking part of the analytics part there.
➢ Also, we are exploring new areas, so we continuously identify unknown
and valuable things by getting insights from products that provide to our

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 customers, and then we can sell these products to our customers in a new
way or sell insights to them. Working in that way, we are able to find
new insights that bring us all the way to the customer and to new
businesses.

2) Big Data definition

In the beginning of the first part of the interview guide (Big Data understanding), participants were asked
how they perceive, understand and define generally the Big Data concept. The following answers are the
result of their thoughts about defining Big Data.

Interview participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ Big data is a couple of components
➢ It can be unstructured data and it has to do with volume, velocity
➢ How you define it is based on your business need
Volvo Group ➢ A huge amount of data that is used in many of our processes and from
AI, Machine Learning to traditional analytics.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ Large amount of collected unstructured data that are not necessarily used
but stored normally in a customer environment.
Scania ➢ Huge amounts of data that a normal user cannot handle it within Excel
or Word, etc. and special tools are needed for it.
Ericsson ➢ Big Data is a huge amount of networks, customer data and performance
measurements where you can see big trends or correlation or clusters that
you could not have seen when you actually have a small fraction of data.

3) Ways of collecting data

This section will present in which ways the five organizations collect data according to their executives.

Interview participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) clause in mind,
which is a European legal compliance initiative, we collect data together
with external companies or from our own channels, meaning our web
pages, telemarketing, customer service, media agencies.
➢ Buying customer data to a certain extent.
➢ Collection of operational data about how our customers have payed their
invoices, what products they purchased and how much electricity they
consumed.
Volvo Group ➢ Access to data from 700,000 vehicles that are connected through fleet
management systems.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems collect data, but we
collect data internally in the operations and ERP (Enterprise Resource
Planning) systems.
➢ Tailor-made systems that are built for providing solutions to our
customers, which can either be found in our data centers or in our
customers’ environment depending on what they choose to do.
➢ Sell servers and provide infrastructure services to our customers where
they store data.
➢ For our own purposes we have databases for different aspects where we
collect data supporting normal business processes inside the company.
Scania ➢ Collecting data from both customers and our products, namely connected
vehicles, trucks, buses and industrial marine engines.

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 ➢ In R&D data are related with our products and their quality, with our
customers’ purchases and preferences, and HR-related data.
➢ For production purposes. For example, how the tightening and screwing
of all the bolts is achieved during the production so every worker can
follow up.
Ericsson ➢ From our mobile operators around the world and that is data of how our
networks are performing.

4) Data Management and Quality Verification

In this section, several methods and tools of data management as well as ways of assessing Big Data quality
are discussed by the five participating executives to the interview.

Interview participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ As for the Nordics’ part of Vattenfall, there is a centralized data
warehouse and
➢ Cloud-based solutions that we are building even more.
Volvo Group ➢ There is a certain process, which starts with setting up an objective. If
data elements are above a certain percentage, we can verify data’s quality
manually, but when sometimes the data are not so good as we want, the
algorithms have to manage it.
➢ There are different approaches for different types of errors or problems
with data, but there are a lot of projects where we try to clean up the data
because we have traditional databases today with many rows and
columns and then we try to populate these where data is missing but that
is not necessary for every kind of data. It depends on the data and how
we use it. Then we make sure that when we introduce a follow-up on new
data, it is correct from the beginning. One way with BDA is to find this
abnormality, because we want to predict that.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ For infrastructure services, I do not think we look particularly into the
quality of the data because it is not our assignment.
➢ We look at big data at ERP systems where we have databases. Our
customers take responsibility about the quality of the data, and not
Fujitsu.
➢ There was a transition from Microsoft CRM to Salesforce and a cleaning
activity moving all the data to the new system and an attempt to have
some data quality parameters but that depends on the software we use.
Scania ➢ Most of the data today and IT systems are developed for a specific
process where you have someone responsible for the process.
➢ There is a need to change that data are not collected for a specific purpose
but to be used properly and overall within Scania.
➢ There should be someone responsible for collecting the right
information, not just for the quality of a specific process but the overall
quality inside Scania.
Ericsson ➢ Together with the usage of tools for data collection and storage, we can
also see if data are correct and have good quality.
➢ Security and automatization of data are very important.
➢ Performance data that is collected has quite sensitive information as
different operators can be compared with each other, so there is a need
for anonymizing the data.

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5) Big Data Objectives
In this section, the interview participants share their respective organizations’ objectives of using and
utilizing Big Data and what purposes fulfill with generated insights from BDA.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ To observe customer experience and be relevant to our customers when
it comes to our communication touchpoint and also on time to them when
they need us because we don’t want to disturb the customer with messy
data or information.
➢ To find out how we perform on the market, meaning how are the profit
margins going, how much wide our customer base is, etc.
Volvo Group ➢ Collecting data from our connected vehicles is utilized in a good way to
offer our customers advantages or business opportunities, such as self-
driving vehicles, autonomous cruise controls or automatic breaking of
vehicles or other more advanced functions.
➢ Based on our experience, there are attempts to make a vehicle to behave
in a certain way and to indicate computers and machines to take all this
input and make rational decisions based on that, a process which is
closely related to Big Data.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ Regarding our customers, the purpose for gathering data is helping them
make right decisions. So, by collecting and analyzing this data we give
them the ability to make business decisions, to change market direction,
to do the right purchases, to do the right interactions, etc.
➢ From our side, our only purpose is to run our business in the most
efficient way as possible, to minimize the duplication of data, and to
minimize the number of different systems and therefore the number of
internal databases.
Scania ➢ There is a need to follow the GDPR rule and other laws regarding data.
➢ Our top management decided all data should be shared for analytical
purposes minding legal aspects, but there is still room for improvement.
Ericsson ➢ Having insights derived from data about how our products are used but
also being sure they are working properly, we can maximize their
performance and security in order to have better functionality,
automatization and intelligence.
➢ Automate our operations in a much higher extend to provide us insights
of how things are and what problems we face regarding our mobile
networks, so we can help our customers to actually have better mobile
networks with better performance, less maintenance and less operation
costs.

6) Data-driven culture inside the company

The participants in this section were asked whether their company has established a data-driven culture
throughout the organizational scheme or not and in what ways that has impacted each company.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ The concepts of data-driven decision-making and data-decision culture
are on an initial stage now because we had a different focus before.
Volvo Group ➢ Some departments are more data-driven than others but now we have
started getting the proper infrastructure and becoming more organized
around data.

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 ➢ In the next five years we would be able to do plenty more things.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ We have not done it in Sweden yet.
➢ We are looking definitely at many Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),
especially financial ones, but data are not monitored every day and we
are not such a data-driven business, so we are not using the data in other
aspects.
Scania ➢ Talking a lot about implementing a data-driven culture. A digital
awareness day for the management team of commercial operations and a
similar workshop for the whole R&D department about the need of
sharing data, which is our main target, have been organized.
Ericsson ➢ We have just started. My type of organization is very valuable for
spreading and helping the rest of Ericsson to become a more data-driven
company and have that culture because it is valuable for us.
➢ We need to add on data science competence to be transformed into a
data-driven company, which is our target.

7) Data-driven influence on daily business operations

The executives in this question answered whether Big Data influence the daily operations of their respected
company and in what extent.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ From a customer perspective, the most relevant we are to our customers,
the most trust and appreciation they will have for our company.
Volvo Group ➢ It’s being used mainly in different pilots in order to learn more and be
sure how we should implement it on a wider scale.
➢ Through using the data collected from 700.000 connected vehicles on a
daily basis in the sales or service department, messages are sent out to
different dealers if there is a problem with these vehicles, we contact the
owners and recommend them coming in for a service.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ A data-driven approach can lead to predict many things in a much better
way, it is the key for analytics, but also the basis for customer
communication in the future.
Scania ➢ Great influence in the market, and our customers have more access to our
data in a good way, so they want us to develop even more.
➢ More descriptive analytics and development of our competences and
skills in doing advanced analytics, to do more predictive analytics and
analyzing advanced analytics cases.
Ericsson ➢ No data to that question

8) Ways of measuring business performance inside the company

The second part of the interview guide (Big Data and Business Performance) begins by questioning the
participants about what kind of different ways, methods and tools they use to measure business
performance.

Interview participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ By gross margins,
➢ Customer base and
➢ MPS (Master Production Schedule), which measures the emotional
connection with the product and the brand after the market.

29
 Volvo Group ➢ Every division and unit have certain KPIs, but they focus mostly on
customer satisfaction.
➢ In the top level there is profit, cash flows and other financial
measurements.
➢ On a team level there are KPIs related to your task or role inside the
company and these measurements are trying to guide employees if they
are performing on an acceptable level or if they need to improve.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ Through different KPIs.
➢ Financial performance is measured in different aspects, like revenue
streams, profitability, cash flows, etc.
➢ Quality indicators for projects and regular customer services.
➢ Customer performance is measured by the regular activities, like
employees’ surveys, and by a tool called “team barometer”, with whom
it can be analyzed how the employees realize the daily situation and the
employee environment.
Scania ➢ Phase, phase of hours, workshop hours, phase of trucks, phase of cars,
and financial things like ROI.
Ericsson ➢ There are people putting requirements in what we should focus on, which
type of products we should bring to the market according to different
business cases.

9) Creating business opportunities through Big Data

In this section, participants answer how Big Data supports their organizations to create new business
opportunities in many areas they focused upon.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ No data for this question
Volvo Group ➢ Use of data-related technologies based on our vehicles and customer
experience, to offer new services to our customers that will generate
revenues for us.
➢ On manufacturing, our goal is to have higher output with the same input
in order to increase profit levels by reducing cost levels.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ Extensive work on the areas of IoT, AI and since these areas are
connected with Big Data, we collect a lot of information about business
processes within our customers’ companies.
Scania ➢ The sense of Big Data is about collecting the status of the vehicles, which
is remote diagnostics connected to the vehicle. Then either there is
contact with the customer or an already maintenance plan.
Ericsson ➢ Discovery of new things and innovations.
➢ Through Big Data, getting new insights about new product development
and new business models that we weren’t aware before is possible as well
as earning money in a totally new way that we were used to before.

10) Improving Business Performance through Big Data

In this section the participants present their views on how Big Data is applied, managed and used in order
for their companies to improve their business performance.

Interview Participant Answer

30
 Vattenfall ➢ By getting more insights or behavior patterns, trends can be monitored
quite accurately because of the data volume, pattern recognition, and
predictive and proactive analytics, which have been quite important.
➢ It helps us understand what to anticipate and improve.
Volvo Group ➢ There are already many pilot programs, but on an exploration phase.
Financial performance looks the most promising.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ Big Data being used within the financial performance helps us monitor
how we are doing on a regular basis, but is not used neither in HR nor in
the employee productivity nor in the customer satisfaction.
Scania ➢ In the Rich Communication Services (RCS) there is a clear change of our
business model.
Ericsson ➢ Intelligence in our products comes from feedback from data and our
operations.
➢ Automate processes much more and reduce the amount of people needed
for the work.

11) Insights from Big Data Analytics (BDA)

Interviewees present in what ways their companies apply and exploit the different insights that they collect
from Big Data analytics and what their usage is in business operations.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ In BA (Business Area) markets, an area which is engaged with electricity
trading and is the heart of commercial and wholesale activities,
➢ BA wind from wind farms,
➢ BA customer and solutions,
➢ BA in R&D and
➢ Partial BA in offerings related to heat.
Volvo Group ➢ Benefits on the finance department, where the forecast for the next
quarters is done much more precisely and
➢ In HR, BDA is used to foresee who is the best person to employ.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ BDA is used in improving our product development for our customers.
➢ In the field of AI, the availability of big amounts of data is critical for us
to develop this kind of services.
Scania ➢ Within R&D especially for the quality of the vehicle
➢ It has also started to be used within the market insights.
Ericsson ➢ Within R&D to make our products more intelligent,
➢ In the financial sector
➢ In HR
➢ The main purpose and the most prioritized activity is within our product
development where our effort is targeted on delivering value-added and
more intelligent products and by selling them in a higher price to increase
our revenues
➢ In our operations, where a lot of people working for becoming more
efficient, our goal is to reduce the amount of people working there and
save money.

12) Data-driven decision-making impact in business change

In this section executives share their opinions of how data-driven decision-making can affect business
change.

31
 Interview Participant Answer
Vattenfall ➢ It is interesting to define how decision-making based on data can be
applied in different business scenarios. For example, how we can
increase profitability or how we can reduce our internal costs or how we
can reduce the waste towards the customers or how we can increase
customer engagement is different.
➢ It is very dependent on every case.
Volvo Group ➢ We are experimenting a lot and very interested in.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ I am sure it can result in business change in the future both for us and our
customers.
➢ If a proper infrastructure and availability of information are used for
taking new decisions or changing our customers’ direction or offer to the
market, it can lead to a quality improvement of our customer delivery
and of our production processes, and a quick reaction on data in earlier
stages, for example, before a defect occurs.
Scania ➢ Instead of just base our decision upon assumption that people have a lot
of experience and then build from data, we will also be able to question
the decision in a good way and therefore we can have more people
involved into decisions, with different competences and skills who
would be able to make better decisions.
Ericsson ➢ There are many things that changed our business, but I’m not aware of
the different business models out there at Ericsson.

13) Machine Learning (ML) Usage

Participants in this question shared their views and describe about how their companies make use of
Machine Learning to facilitate their everyday operations.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ Detect maintenance wind measures and creation of digital twins on wind
turbines to find out if maintenance operations can be done faster so there
is no loss of generation capacity.
➢ Maintenance process is more cost effective as we can find out as much
accurately as possible how to reduce some maintenance trips and costs.
➢ Detect chain preventer to understand based on certain events or triggers
or sequence how the customer behaves to see if we can trigger chain
preventer activities.
Volvo Group ➢ For predictive analytics and we want the computer to help us.
➢ For making better decisions as a complement to our current decision-
making. When it comes to self-driving vehicles, it will be a combination
of utilizing ML and human capabilities.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ AI has ML and we are building applications together with our customers
in different aspects, but they are not used yet.
➢ It is an improving process and it is for simple things, like chat boxes
where we have more supervised learning.
➢ For a specific case, we trained the system to judge what kind of defects
would occur in a much better and faster way that would be done
manually.
➢ It is a key component and is based on the availability of Big Data.
Scania ➢ We have just started using ML in some of our projects, but we are
looking into ways of improving its usage.

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 ➢ Within quality reports, there are a lot of reports in different languages
and there we will try some ML using Watson.
Ericsson ➢ It is used more and more in BDA.
➢ For automating and making predictions of different things
➢ In operations to automate our processes in a smarter way,
➢ In our mobile networks and Radio Access Networks (RAN) where we
could build better and more intelligent products,
➢ In the IoT, where we try to connect and move a lot of intelligence into
the cloud and to produce cloud products,
➢ For predicting the capacity (how much capacity we want by using the
cloud- that is called “capacity prediction”).
➢ In energy efficiency to save and reduce energy and build products that
use less energy and to reduce our energy consumption.
➢ Ericsson Siri, a digital personal assistant by having filmed the bay station
and knowing there is a problem shows several solutions about fixing it
and advice the people exactly what to do.

14) New Product or Service Development Process

Here it starts the third part of the interviews with the five executives with questions concerning the relation
of Big Data with the New Product and Service Development processes of the five companies. The
participants in this particular question describe the procedures their companies have established with
regards to New Product and Service Development, how these are managed and what departments are
responsible for them.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ R&D is working mainly with it.
➢ In our business, a new product is like geothermal heating or wave energy
generation, so there are different processes there. However, an electricity
contract is also a product so there are different processes to create these.
Thus, it depends on the product.
Volvo Group ➢ There is a very structured process. A normal product development starts
having an innovation period where we have idea generation that we can
implement in our products, then the product development phase starts
putting a target that should meet all these objectives by this date and with
that cost, etc., and finally comes testing before launch on the market.
➢ We are looking for new opportunities around the world, see what others
are doing outside of our industry, and then we can use emerging
technologies to do that.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ A very structured Japanese way, which is called Monozukuri (Japanese
word), which entails very detailed processes, but they take place in Japan
where the production and R&D is.
➢ It is more about IT collection of information about the performance and
status of our different factories all over the world.
Scania ➢ There is a product development process that is used for new products,
which includes a decision process. It is divided in different stages and
then decisions should be made before going to the next stage.
➢ In the beginning, there is brainstorming and trying to define what is all
about, but if it is a quality issue, then it is red error and it has to be taken
care of directly. The same process is followed for new service
development.

33
 Ericsson ➢ Our research area with 800 employees working 3 to 5 years ahead are
trying to find and build new products and services, such as 5G. They
continuously foresee things that will come in the future and be prepared
for them securing the Ericsson’s main goal which is to have the
technology leadership.
➢ We start from idea generation, then we do some initial proof of concepts
to build some sort of minimal viable product. We find out in the process
if this is something to build a business or not or just we learn from it, so
we don’t continue with this project.
➢ Different organizations inside the company are focusing to develop their
products as best as possible and a new phase has started where we see
which technology is usable in every industry, so we find new ideas and
areas, like IoT, where everything can be connected within the
automotive, healthcare, utilities and other types of sectors. We work with
them and thereby evolve with them, combining our knowledge and
having the mobile networks as the business core which provides value.

15) Impact of Big Data in improving value offerings

In this part, it is illustrated how each company makes efficient and effective usage of Big Data to enhance
their value offerings.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ No data were retrieved
Volvo Group ➢ Some small-scale service offerings and many ongoing ideas and
initiatives.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ It is a valuable tool for developing new products and services in the areas
of IoT, AI, ML, supervised or unsupervised depending on the availability
of Big Data.
➢ This availability helps us to draw conclusions and take decisions out of
data.
Scania ➢ Driving Coaching is an initiative that coaches the drivers how to use the
vehicle. That would be impossible if we did not have Big Data.
Ericsson ➢ Providing insights to our customer units and thus more value for the
customer.
➢ Useful to make new businesses.

16) Implementation of Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes

The following part tries to examine in what ways the case companies make use of Big Data or BDA in their
NPD/NSD processes and whether their processes are data-driven or not.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ Leverage of Big Data especially in hardware intense projects, like putting
requirements to a new wind turbine box or putting up a grid for
geothermal.
Volvo Group ➢ It is an area we are still exploring.
➢ We would like find ways to predict things earlier and faster to take
correct actions before it has to drop out.
➢ We try to utilize Big Data in all fields.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ We are not doing that so much here in Sweden. The R&D and innovation
is much more developed in Japan and outside of Sweden, but I think

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 we’re trying together with our partners to develop new applications for
AI.
➢ It is the availability of data that makes us be able to provide and create
applications helping our partners to do judgments and make decisions.
Scania ➢ Acquired knowledge about how the vehicle is being used, and thereby
identifying ways of how to develop products and services and what
conditions the product should be able to stand for.
Ericsson ➢ Feedback from BDA from our customers’ networks can enable the
creation of value-added products for them, the earlier identification of
several things, securing our products behave in a way that we want them
to behave and the takeover of more services by using the collected data
and thus expanding to the service sector.
➢ Providing analytics as a service which is called “Ericsson Expert
Analytics” and is a platform analytics tool that is sold to operators and
they can build upon that.
➢ Exploration of more new businesses in areas we have not identified
today, expansion of deliveries, built of more intelligent products and
automation of operations that are made by humans.

17) Benefits and Challenges of using Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes
The following section attempts to grasp the benefits or challenges the interview participants have thought,
expected or experienced from the usage of BD and BDA in the NPD/NSD processes.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ We can understand, predict the trend and therefore know how we can act
for that.
➢ There are many facts that pinpoint one investment and it depends on a
campaign’s customer behaviors and their feedback.
Volvo Group ➢ Misunderstanding of how we could use data and sometimes lack of
imagination of how to use it.
➢ Even if there are people to come up with an idea, collect data about it in
a practical way, put it in a database and process it with Hadoop or other
tools in an efficient and effective way inside Volvo Group, they are often
and already busy with other tasks.
➢ IT engineers can be easily trained to use these tools, so it is possible for
them to use data to predict certain things.
➢ If it is not possible, we should ask another company to help us. We are
on a deciding phase about finding a partner or not.
➢ When vehicles will become very autonomous, additional software
development is required, but its management may be difficult for doing
it alone.
➢ Collaboration with other companies and having control over the product
will be a big question, because we are not used to work in partnerships,
like sharing the revenues, etc.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ Gain a quicker product life cycle or product development life cycle due
to having the right data and the right amount of it, thus shortening the
way to the market from innovation and idea generation to product market
launch.
➢ Legal aspects of not connecting the data to the person.

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 ➢ Collecting customer data in a very quick way requires some development
or additional actions from many companies all over the world.
Scania ➢ Better analytics helps to fix any quality problem arises.
➢ The whole maintenance problem nowadays is based on how vehicles are
being used.
Ericsson ➢ In the service development, data is used to automate things and decrease
feedback loops.
➢ Identify problems in real time analyzing the PowerPoint presentations
that our customers create for us. Thus, solution of these problems and
making new deliveries before the customer realizes that there is a
problem, is our vision.
➢ Big Data has helped us to increase our efficiency, save money, remove a
lot of manual work and easily identify these problems by just having the
right data.
➢ More efficiency in our product development and service delivery, but
also, better products with high quality and better intelligence.
➢ Based on the data we build insights and we can have new businesses.

18) Rating of company’s utilization of Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes

In this section, participants give their answers about how they rate the utilization (successful or
unsuccessful) of making use of Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ Sometimes it has been fruitful but sometimes it is bogus.
➢ Having access to data, monitor a trend or predict or implement a
preemptive analysis has been very informative in our decision-making
process. The process is the same with services as well.
Volvo Group ➢ If we talk about self-driving vehicles, we are very successful, and we are
among the leaders in the world.
➢ We are not very advanced in utilizing Big Data in our NPD process,
because people who work with autonomous vehicles, are not so aware of
that area, namely they are not Big Data or Machine Learning specialists.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ My Japanese colleagues with experience of over 30 years in Big Data
utilization use data in a decent and relevant way.
➢ We can always improve but I am sure we have it as a key component in
NPD processes.
Scania ➢ We are successful, but we can always improve. We are just in the
beginning.
➢ It’s impossible to quantify results now.
Ericsson ➢ It is successful, but we have just started it.
➢ I am not aware of any specific metric used inside Ericsson.

19) Usage of Big Data Analytics tools in the NPD & NSD processes
Here the interviewees share what types of BDA tools they make use of generally inside their companies,
and especially in the NPD/NSD processes.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ Main use of Microsoft Stack, Hadoop and Google Analytics, from whom
collection and leverage of insights is accomplished.

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 Volvo Group ➢ Data generated from our connected vehicles are used for providing better
services to our customers and to improve our products for the future.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ Use of many tools except for Cognos and SAP
➢ Cognos is used in Sweden too.
Scania ➢ Use of R, Python, and other coding languages, and Hadoop.
➢ Our goal is to extend our usage of tools in the future using the latest
technology in order to stay competitive.
Ericsson ➢ Spark to work with data and do more complicated analysis if it is needed.
➢ Tableau is used as data visualization tool.
➢ Storage of data in Hadoop clusters that is used as an infrastructure tool.

20) Actions taken for improvement of the management support towards Big Data implementation in
the NPD/NSD processes
This question is highly related to whether there is support from the top management towards a data-driven
culture inside the case companies and BD implementation in NPD/NSD processes or not.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ Data-driven decision-making process and
➢ Treating data as an enterprise asset have been set and supported from the
top managers.
Volvo Group ➢ In the manufacturing area, Big Data is utilized for generating benefits,
but no precise actions yet on how to implement it.
➢ Exploration of different alternatives and recommendations to the top
management on how we should do this in the next years.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ It is a question outside my competence or knowledge, because we do not
have any product development here.
Scania ➢ I am not aware of that.
Ericsson ➢ A roadmap for increasing our efforts and use data in a wider context in
product development to increase efficiency much more.

21) Key Success Factors (KSF) of using Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes
The executives in this part share their experiences and views about what key success factors Big Data can
provide their companies with both in general and regarding NPD/NSD processes.

Interview Participant Answer

Vattenfall ➢ Data quality, understanding your data, cataloguing it, getting all the
information in one place.
➢ Understanding how to use it is the trickiest factor otherwise you go into
different interpretations all the time.
➢ Having a common governance, a data-driven culture and mindset, and
understanding of working with data is very important.
Volvo Group ➢ First, you should have relevant data and you can understand how to
combine different data in order to predict certain things.
➢ It doesn’t matter if you have data or not, you can buy a lot of data today,
like weather data. But why should you buy that if you do not know how
to use it?
➢ We are learning every day and improving our ways for using them,
because generally that will distinguish several companies from others.
Fujitsu Sweden AB ➢ Co-creation of products and services together with our customers or
finding new ways of collaborating with them.

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 ➢ The availability of Big Data is the foundation, because with that, the
creation of new services based on the performance or on analytics, or
on patterns that you can draw out of the data is easier.
Scania ➢ Lack of sufficiency of Big Data quality.
➢ Good awareness about data analytics cases and description of data
effectively to make it possible to use it.
Ericsson ➢ Improvement of our products in intelligence, quality
➢ Built of smarter networks and products,
➢ Insights for exploring unknown business areas
➢ Continuous improvement and advancement in order to increase
efficiency in product development and leverage more insights for
improving our products.

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5. Analysis
In this section of the study, the findings from empirical data (interviews with study participants) will be
compared among each other. Afterwards, the same procedure will follow with the comparison of these data
with the theoretical findings from the literature review. All this data will be coded into three different
categories according to the interview guide that is available on Appendix A and the most important points
of each category will be cross-analyzed and discussed.

5.1 Big Data Definition

This study has compiled a series of quite modern definitions within the current decade that were given for
Big Data from multiple literature sources (Manyika, 2012; Gartner, 2012; Shi, 2014; TechAmerica
Foundation, 2012; Mayer- Schoenberger, 2013; Ohlhorst, 2013; Chen et al., 2012; Dubey, 2015). The
retrieved results from the literature do not show any coherence among them, because some of them focus
on the size of Big Data (data volume) justifying the reason of being called “Big”, and there are some other
views that support the rest of Big Data features to justify the term “Big” and the methods that come with
them, such as collecting, processing, analyzing and acquiring insights out of them, perhaps because the
challenge of handling the vast amount of data has been overcome by several corporations.

As it was mentioned before, the term “Big Data” is quite abstract and there are quite a few generally
accepted definitions for Big Data. Interview participants express different meanings of what Big Data and
its dimensions are, depending on each one’s experience from working with Big Data, but their views seem
to converge in the perspective that Big Data is closely related to its volume and variety admitting that “Big
Data is huge amount of collected unstructured data”. Moreover, they acknowledged that there is a need of
more advanced tools to effectively utilize Big Data and apply their insights on their operations.

A presentation of the perceptions of each company representative about Big Data and a comparison with
the presented literature with these empirical findings will follow. It is worth mentioning that all participants
found it difficult to establish a proper definition for Big Data. Specifically, the interviewees from Vattenfall
and Fujitsu Sweden AB refer to Big Data as unstructured data that have to do with volume and velocity,
but the first claims that their definition is based on every company’s business need, while the second
mentions that they can store and use the information whenever it is necessary. Their views seem to
correspond with that of Shi (2014), that distinguishes the Big Data definition into one for academics and
one for business purposes. Scania’s representative refers to Big Data as huge amounts of data that special
tools are needed to handle it and traditional software, like Word or Excel cannot, while Volvo Group’s
interviewee claims that Big Data is a huge amount of data that is utilized in many of the company’s
processes and tries to contrast it with the trend technologies of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine
Learning (ML) and traditional analytics, which are hugely affected by Big Data. Scania’s participant seems
to agree with the majority of definitions presented in this paper and given by Gartner (2012), TechAmerica
Foundation (2012), Manyika (2012), Ohlohorst (2013), Dubey (2015) and Chen et al. (2012), all referring
to Big Data’s massive volume, velocity, complexity and variability that require advanced technological
techniques and tools to capture, store, manage and analyze this data and draw new information. Ericsson’s
participant refers to Big Data as a huge amount of data derived from networks, customers and performance
measurements whose collected insights can be utilized from companies to foresee several big trends,
correlations or clusters, while with a small portion of data that would be impossible. His view seems to
agree mostly with that of Mayer-Schoenberger (2013), who believes that people working with large-scale
data can extract new insights or create new value channels for organizations, markets, individuals and
governments.

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In the organizations of every interviewee, Big Data is utilized mostly for making several internal processes
more efficient, for business purposes, for facilitating and accelerating decision-making and for commercial
purposes, meaning that through their analysis they can collect valuable insights in order to provide better
and in accordance with their customer preferences, products and services. Thus, the information provided
by tapping into Big Data is utilized in several functions of their corporations, from financial and marketing
to Research & Development and Business Development departments. Therefore, this presupposes that most
of the interviewed enterprises have high technological capabilities and have invested in acquiring advanced
tools to edit and analyze Big Data, in storing a huge variety of data sets and in using the generated insights
to different functions for various business applications, like NPD and NSD.

5.2 Big Data and Business Performance

Business Performance Metrics

There are several ways, methods and tools, with whom businesses can measure and thus improve their
performance. Vattenfall measures its performance by gross margins, customer base and Master Production
Schedule (MPS). Volvo Group’s interviewee distinguishes three levels of business performance: on a
divisional level where every division has its certain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) focusing on
customer satisfaction, on a top management level where profit, cash flows and other financial measurements
are important, while on a team level, task or role-related measurements are implemented for realizing every
employee’s performance. Fujitsu measures its performance through financial KPIs, such as revenue
streams, profitability and cash flows, quality KPIs for projects and customer-related services, and
employees’ performance is measured by employees’ surveys or via their own tool called “team barometer”.
Scania’s performance measurement is accomplished through different phases, which are periods or stages
of change or development, such as phase of hours, workshop hours, phase of trucks, phase of cars, and
financial metrics, such as Return on Investment (ROI). Ericsson’s representative claims that the top
management put requirements on what they should focus on and which types of products they should bring
to the market, but he is not aware of any specific business-related performance metrics.

According to the practitioners’ views, all companies use different metrics for different purposes for
measuring their operations, but the results show that every company makes a partial use of the Balanced
Scorecard that was mentioned in the literature and uses metrics for some of the perspectives. Vattenfall,
Volvo Group, Fujitsu Sweden AB and Scania converge in using financial KPIs to measure their financial
performance, Vattenfall, Volvo Group, Fujitsu Sweden AB in using customer-related KPIs, while Volvo
Group and Fujitsu Sweden AB in using KPIs for employees’ performance. Only Scania is using KPIs for
internal processes. Therefore, the more utilized KPIs are for financial and customer-related purposes and
also these two indicate the high importance and value of a good financial situation and stability, and
customer satisfaction by the respected companies. Furthermore, business analytics may be used in some
extent from the companies to take advantage of their collected data and implement its visualization.

Impact of Big Data in improving Business Performance

Vattenfall can monitor trends quite accurately by generating more insights or behavior patterns from the
high data volume, pattern recognition, and predictive and proactive analytics. This helps them to respond
to any market pressures and optimize their business processes. These views are in accordance with the ones
of Davenport (2012) mentioning that insights’ extraction from BDA can offer new business development
opportunities to companies and with these of Constantiou & Kallinikos (2015) pointing out that
implementing BDA strategies enhance the visibility of insights and prediction of future events. Moreover,
Appelbaum et al. (2017) claim that combining data derived from internal and external sources, analyzing
and interpreting it, can lead to the formation of historical patterns or future trends by several companies,

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namely applying business analytics, which can provide them with additional value (Davenport, 2014).
Volvo Group are still on an exploration mode executing some pilot programs and focusing mostly on the
financial performance. Big Data seem to have the same impact for Fujitsu, which are able to monitor only
their financial performance by utilizing Big Data, and not in other business functions. Scania sees potential
changes in their business model through utilizing Big Data in their Rich Communication Services (RCS),
while Ericsson is able to include more intelligence to their products which is derived from analyzing
customer and operations feedback, to automate their processes more and reduce the amount of employees
needed. The last two views reveal that Big Data capabilities can have positive impact in facilitating
innovation, productivity, competitiveness and several internal activities and operations, and in identifying
new business opportunities as it is mentioned in several literature outcomes (LaValle et al., 2011; Brown et
al., 2011; McAfee & Brynjolfsson, 2012; Constantiou & Kallinikos, 2015).

Firm’s Data-driven culture

Data-driven culture inside a company can improve not only its overall business performance but also its
different functions’ performance (Constantiou & Kallinikos, 2015). Some interview participants of the
studied companies in this paper admit that the data-driven transformation has not begun yet, while others
mention that it is on an initial stage. In the first category, Fujitsu Sweden AB and Scania are included, while
Volvo Group, Ericsson and Vattenfall are pertained to the second group. Fujitsu have not established a data-
driven culture in Sweden yet, but their representative insists that a data-driven approach can lead them to
more efficient predictions and communication with customers. Scania want to become more data-driven in
the near future through several awareness workshops that are organized inside the organization for all
employees to understand better the value of data and the need of sharing it across the company’s functions.
According to their representative, it is a necessity not only to be the first player in the information ecosystem
for sharing data in order to retain their customers and not just being a hardware supplier, but also to develop
even more their descriptive and advanced analytics competencies and skills. On the other side, in Volvo
Group, some departments are more data-driven than others having been supported by the appropriate data-
driven infrastructure. For instance, they generate data from many pilot programs, thus being able to learn
how to use it on a wider scale, and from their 700,000 connected vehicles on a daily basis, which helps the
sales or service departments to note any possible problems with the vehicles. The whole company aims to
become more data-driven in the following five years, according to their representative. Vattenfall’s
executive claims that they have recently initiated an introduction to the concepts of data-driven decision-
making and data-decision culture. Ericsson has just started becoming more data-driven and the department
of the company’s interviewee (Software Analytics Innovation) helps the whole organization towards this
goal, but he claims they need to improve their data science competencies to attain this target. Therefore,
some studied firms have just started becoming data-driven and others are planning on being based on data
in the near future. Thus, the transition of their business towards a more data-driven landscape and mindset
has been continuous but gradual at the moment. This initiative is rendered as a challenge for establishing a
data-driven culture inside a company within the literature, due to the lack of understanding of how to utilize
Big Data technologies (LaValle et al., 2011), or what is the data’s potential business value (Morabito, 2015)
or the unclear Big Data goal objectives (Lee, 2017).

Data-driven decision-making’s effect on business change

According to the literature, data-driven culture can affect positively a faster, improved and based on facts
decision-making and thus its business performance (McAfee & Brynjolfsson, 2012). Vattenfall’s executive
claims that data-driven decision-making depends on different financial-and-customer related cases, for
example, decisions on how they can increase profitability or reduce internal costs or increase customer
engagement. Volvo Group is still experimenting on this issue, while Fujitsu’s representative mentions that
with the right infrastructure and information availability, they can improve their customer delivery and
production quality while avoiding potential product defects as a result of their fast reaction to their data.

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Scania’s interviewee points out that by implementing a data-driven decision-making approach, they can
base their decisions on data, involve more employees with different competencies and skills to decisions
and improve their quality. Ericsson’s participant is not aware of any business changes that have occurred
inside the company due to data-driven decision-making, because he is engaged mostly with the technical
part of Big Data and Big Data analytics. The results indicate that some of the examined companies have
targeted in what areas they aim to utilize data-driven decision-making (Vattenfall, Fujitsu Sweden AB,
Scania), but it seems its overall establishment is still a challenge for them. However, as suggested by the
literature, the studied companies can utilize specific measures and indicators they are already using, like
the Balanced Scorecard (BSc) or KPIs, to form more effective data-driven strategies and provide input to
strategic data-driven decision-making (Pfeffer et al., 2006), and combine internal with external data to
extract value for making decisions (Davenport, 2014) or the implementation of decision-making based on
data.

Creating New Business Opportunities via Big Data

Finding new business opportunities to the marketplace is another aspect of how a firm can improve its
business performance (Constantiou & Kallinikos, 2015). Volvo Group use data-related technologies based
on their vehicles, thus, producing new services benefitting the customer while tapping into new revenue
streams. On the manufacturing department, which is the area of the study participant, Big Data help them
having higher output with the same input to increase the profits by reducing their costs. Fujitsu Sweden AB
collect a lot of insights about their customers’ business processes by utilizing IoT and AI, which are related
to Big Data. Scania leverages Big Data by collecting data from their remote diagnostics related to vehicles
for realizing their status, so they are closer to their customers and can offer customer-customized services,
such as service or maintenance plans. Ericsson is getting new insights about NPD and new business models
through Big Data that they were not aware of in the past, so they can develop new revenue streams.
Therefore, from the above results it can be observed that Big Data has played a major role for each company
to develop new business opportunities by leveraging insights from various data, and thus developing new
or more customer-centered products and services aiming to higher revenues, cost deterioration, and tapping
into new markets. This comes in accordance with the benefits that Big Data and BDA offer and described
more extensively in the literature review part, such as in new product or service development (Tan et al.,
2017), in improving business operations and in cost savings with high output quality (Davenport, 2014),
and in customer service (Manyika et al., 2011).

Utilization of Machine Learning (ML)

Vattenfall utilizes ML to realize if maintenance operations can be accomplished faster, which maintenance
processes are more cost effective and how the customers behave. Volvo Group uses ML for predictive
analytics, making better decisions complementing their decisions made by individuals. In the near future,
a combination of ML with human capabilities will be used in self-driving vehicles. ML is a component of
Fujitsu’s AI and they are building applications together and in accordance with their customer needs. It’s
used also in communicating with customers faster and digitally and in detecting defects before they occur
based on the availability of Big Data. Scania does not use ML, but they want to initiate using it in the near
future within quality reports in different language, according to their executive. Ericsson leverages ML in
BDA, in automating processes, in making predictions, in their mobile networks and Radio Access Networks
(RAN) for producing more intelligent products, in IoT where they produce several cloud products, in energy
efficiency for their operations and for their products and in offering solutions to problems that are occurred
and advising people what to do. As we can see, firms leverage ML for different purposes, such as improving
decision-making being based on facts and having less human interference, developing applications,
products and services for creating customer value, interacting with customers faster to prevent any possible
product defects, automating internal operations and in making predictions, which are all ML benefits.

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However, there is also an adoption challenge for some companies, but they have the advantage of being
aware of how to utilize this technology.

5.3 Big Data and New Product and Service Development

Process for New Product or Service Development

R&D department in Vattenfall is working mostly with the NPD and NSD and these procedures vary
depending on the nature of the product or service. Several parts inside the firm are running agile, so product
implementation tooling is not necessary. In Volvo Group, the NPD/NSD process is very structured and
iterative. A normal product development starts with an innovation period where generating ideas for
potential products begins, then the product development phase starts setting a target that should meet several
objectives (such as dates and costs), and finally comes the product testing before its launch on the market.
They are also looking for opportunities around the world and outside of their industry to utilize technologies
in developing new products or services. For instance, they use the Delivery Versus Payment (DVP) process,
which is based on different gates and development loops to make sure that progress is made all the time
using their own tools or bought tools from their suppliers. Fujitsu is also using a very structured
manufacturing Japanese method, called Monozukuri, but is based in Japan where the production and R&D
functions are located. Monozukuri literally means “craftmanship” in the English language and is roughly
translated as “the act of making”. It is the overall production process and it includes not only the machines,
tools or methods that are used during the production, but also the different feelings that are created
throughout the procedure, such as satisfaction and pleasure with a tangible outcome (Wallenius, 2018). It
is also related to the continuous improvement of the production system and processes that will yield
excellent products. Moreover, according to Ito et al. (2017), Fujitsu is planning to revolutionize its Fujitsu
Production System (FJPS) by introducing a “smart Monozukuri” which will be based on several innovations
(“Production Process Innovation”, “Supply Chain Process Innovation”, “Development Process
Innovation”) focusing on its customers, its development and production sites and society. Hence, the “smart
Monozukuri” aims to “interconnects departments and plants as well as suppliers, partners, and customers
via a virtual environment” (Ito et al., 2017, p.10). Scania’s NPD and NSD process is divided in certain
stages, where decisions are taken before going on the next stage, and which starts with brainstorming.
Ericsson has different organizations inside the company that use NPD and NSD processes to develop their
products or services as best as possible, which initiates from idea generation and then a proof of concepts
is followed for producing viable products and services. During the process, there are stages in order to find
out whether they should continue with a particular project or not or learn a lesson from it. The company’s
technological competencies, capabilities or tools can be usable in every industry, so they collaborated with
companies from several fields to combine their knowledge and accomplish a mutual evolvement. Therefore,
the NPD and NSD processes of Volvo Group, Scania and Ericsson are similar and mainly based on the
Stage-Gate model. Moreover, they seem to use this seven-stage new product development process
introduced by Cooper that divides the innovation process into a set of parallel activities. “A stage-gate
system is both a conceptual and an operational model for moving a new product from idea to launch”
(Cooper, 1990). The “gates” operate as quality control checkpoints that require specific criteria to be
fulfilled before the project is allowed to proceed further. This development process is iterative and highly
structured and is usually adopted by several companies for mitigating risk and increasing efficiency
(Veryzer, 1998).

Implementation of Big Data in the NPD & NSD processes

Vattenfall leverages Big Data in hardware intense projects, while Volvo Group is on an exploration stage,
preferring to exploit Big Data for predicting things earlier and faster and making correct actions before
defects occur. Fujitsu’s R&D department in Japan utilizes Big Data trying to develop new applications

43
about AI for their partners to make correct judgments and decisions. Scania collects insights from Big Data
analytics about the usage of a vehicle and thereby they can identify ways of how to develop their products
and services in the best possible way and what conditions of them they should fulfill and enhance. Ericsson
is utilizing feedback from BDA from their customers’ network, which enables them developing value-
added products, identifying several things earlier, their products following a specific behavior and takeover
of more services helps them to expand in the service sector. They also provide a platform analytics as a
service (Ericsson Expert) to their clients and they are able to explore newer unidentified businesses, expand
their deliveries, build more intelligent products and find the right methods and tools to automate their
operations. Therefore, in this section, participants are in accordance with the benefits of Big Data related to
the creation of new products, services and applications, based on their customers’ preferences.

Benefits of using Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes

Vattenfall’s participant pinpoints that via the utilization of Big Data in the NPD/NSD process they are able
to understand and predict trends though a preemptive analysis, and therefore, plan and make actions of how
to act upon them. Volvo Group’s interviewee does not see any advancement of his company in utilizing
Big Data in the NPD process, because employees working with them are not specialists in that field and
they use it only for self-driving vehicles. Fujitsu’s interviewee mentions that Big Data is a key component
of NPD processes so that they can gain a quicker product life cycle or product development life cycle due
to having the right and right amount of data, thus shortening the way to the market, meaning from innovation
and idea generation to product market launch. Scania’s interviewee thinks that if they develop better BDA,
they could tackle any quality problem before it arises. Ericsson utilizes data in the NSD to automate
processes and decrease feedback loops. They are also able to identify problems in real time by analyzing
the PowerPoint presentations provided by their customers and they want in the near future to solve these
problems and make new deliveries to their customers, before they realize the problem. Participants seem to
agree among each other and also with the benefits that were reviewed on the literature review session
claiming that through Big Data and their technologies, they can predict trends for NPD/NSD, take faster
and more effective decisions and actions about their NPD/NSD processes, they can identify quality issues
on their products/services before they occur and finally they can co-create products taking as an advantage
their customers’ involvement (Zhan et al., 2016; Tan et al., 2015).

Challenges of using Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes

Vattenfall’s representative mentions that there are different aspects that one investment depends on and the
main one is customers’ behavior and their feedback, so investing in the development of a product or service
depends mainly on the customer. Volvo Group’s participant claims that there is a misunderstanding or
sometimes a lack of imagination inside the firm of how to utilize data. Moreover, there are only a few
competent people that can leverage Big Data and the management of the additional software that is
necessary for autonomous vehicles would be difficult, so the solution that the participant proposes is
collaboration with other companies to help them in that part, but their partnership will be in question, since
the control of a product or service will be at stake. Fujitsu’s representative thinks that potential legal aspects
may be incurred from not connecting data to every individual and also some kind of development or actions
are required from every company for solving the massive data volume. Scania’s representative mentions
that they face a maintenance problem which is based on the usage of vehicles. Thus, legal aspects, lack of
understanding of utilizing Big Data, customer behavior and maintenance issues are mentioned as the
challenges that firms have to tackle to optimize Big Data usage, which are also highlighted by several
literature sources (LaValle et al., 2011; Lee, 2017; Sivarajah et. al, 2017; Morabito, 2015).

Actions for improvement of management support towards big data implementation in the NPD/NSD
processes

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Vattenfall’s representative mentions that treating data as an enterprise data is supported by the top
management, as well as a data-driven decision-making. Volvo Group’s executive mentions that in the
manufacturing field, Big Data utilization will help them gain benefits, but its implementation is still in
question and the top management still explores different alternatives and recommendations. Ericsson is
having some kind of roadmap for increasing their efforts of using data in a wider context in NPD to increase
their efficiency. This part is highly related to the data-driven culture that whether has been developed inside
an organization or not and its implementation is highly dependent on the top management. The results show
that Vattenfall and Ericsson leverage their Big Data capabilities to assist NPD and NSD processes, while
in Volvo Group is still on an exploration mode, because they probably have not implemented data-driven
culture and decision-making processes, which affects positively NPD and NSD.

Key Success Factors (KSF) of using Big Data in the NPD/NSD processes

In this part of the analysis, participants were asked to identify which are the key success factors for
successfully establishing Big Data and its related analytics and technologies. A data-driven mindset and a
fact-based decision-making process are more effective, according to McAfee & Brynjolfsson (2012).
Vattenfall’s participant sees as important KSFs of using Big Data in the NPD/NSD process the data quality
and the understanding of using it and cataloguing it in one place. Having a common governance, a data-
driven culture and mindset, and understanding of working with data and analyzing it is very important.
Fujitsu’s executive mentions that the availability of data is the foundation of utilizing Big Data in the
NPD/NSD processes, because the creation of new services based on the performance or on analytics, or on
patterns that you can draw out of the data is easier. Moreover, the co-creation of products and services
together with their customers or finding new ways of collaborating with them is crucial factor of utilizing
Big Data. Ericsson’s executive indicates that improvement of products in intelligence and quality, built of
smarter networks and products, leverage insights for exploring new areas and for improving their products,
and continuous advancement for increasing efficiency in NPD are crucial KSFs for his company. Therefore,
these three views stress out that data quality and availability are essential for Big Data employment. If data
is imprecise, then inaccurate information will be generated, and this can have a negative impact on the
quality of data-driven products and services for both organizations and society (Günther et al., 2017).

Volvo Group’s interviewee mentions by having relevant data you can understand how to combine different
data in order to predict certain things. Continuous learning and improvement of using it will distinguish
them from other companies, offering them a competitive advantage. Scania’s representative claims that
they should focus more on having sufficient Big Data quality. Good awareness about data analytics cases
and an effective description of data can make it possible to use it in the NPD/NSD processes. Manyika et
al. (2011) mentions the requirement of highly skilled personnel that will utilize successfully Big Data
technologies and also argues that organizations need to change, perceive and adapt to the Big Data trend
and employ data-driven strategies to their business processes.

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6. Conclusions
A total overview of the empirical findings (interviews with the executives) shows that all of the examined
Swedish-based companies have identified the appropriate Big Data technologies that are needed to manage
the huge volume, velocity and variety of data, and drawing valuable insights and information from its
analytics, are familiar with the idea of implementing them in a wide spectrum of their operations, which
will yield a huge amount of business opportunities and create high potential business value for both them
and their customers. However, those that utilize Big Data seem to apply it at a slow and cautious pace and
those that have not utilized it yet, face problems perhaps due to the lack of a clear strategy around it or the
struggle in establishing an organizational change, which indicates that firms in Sweden have great room for
improvement in effectively implement and integrate Big Data.
Regarding the impact of Big Data on business performance, empirical findings conclude that the chosen
case companies use a wide variety of methods, tools and metrics to measure the different aspects of business
performance, but they focus mainly on the financial performance and they give a secondary role to the
employee, quality and customer satisfaction performance using mainly Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
as measurements. Insights from Big Data can assist them in improving their overall business performance
by boosting their NPD and NSD and other business processes, discovering new business models and
innovations, anticipating possible product defects and monitoring potential trends. Furthermore, data-
driven decision-making together with a proper data infrastructure and data availability can drive them in
product and process quality enhancement.
In this study, a list of different definitions of big data that are encountered in the literature is also presented.
However, the researcher selected the ones that he deemed appropriate within the business perspective in
order to provide a basis for analysis. Exploring these definitions together with the empirical findings leaded
the author to meet his goal of answering the main research question of this research, which is “What is the
impact of Big Data on the business performance of Swedish-based companies?” and to understand how the
case companies perceive Big Data and its functions. The definitions that were presented in the literature
and the interviews’ findings demonstrate a divergent meaning which reveals that the definition shifts
accordingly for every industry, company, department or any other business activity and according to data’s
size, the complexity to analyze it and the available technologies that determine these actions. However,
these different points of view about Big Data seem to be bridged on its huge volume, variety and velocity
that is a benefit and a challenge at the same time, on the existing technical or managerial challenges that
large corporations face and on the boundless business opportunities that can offer in many different sectors
and organizations. Moreover, both literature sources and empirical findings show that data availability,
quality and security are deemed as very important aspects of Big Data. These features can bring a more
effective extraction of valuable insights, which in turn can lead to an enhancement of decisions based on
statistics, dashboards and facts, more efficient operations and to yield new trends, concepts or ideas about
business development and more customer-centered products and services. Thus by motivating a data-driven
decision-making strategy and a data-drive culture, an organization can reach its strategic goals. These
actions can generate a sustainable competitive advantage for organizations that are utilizing Big Data
effectively and in addition, they can unlock and compete in new markets.
As mentioned above, Big Data can affect positively the business performance and thus business
development. Therefore, exploring the research sub-question of this study, which is “What is the impact of
Big Data in the New Product and Service Development of Swedish-based companies that affect their overall
business performance?” the combination and analysis of several literature sources and interview results
regarding New Product and Service Development show that Big Data, its related areas and Artificial
Intelligence can bring several benefits to companies. Big Data has an influence on the NPD and NSD
processes of the examined companies, but some of them have just started utilizing it and try to improve
their utilization, while others have it already as a key component. The two models of NPD that were

46
discussed further in the literature review as well as the performance metrics, the Business Performance
Management (BPM) model and the Stage-Gate model, and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), appear
to be mostly employed by the case companies, a conclusion derived from their executives’ description of
the procedures they follow on the NPD and NSD processes.
The analysis showed that although the Big Data definition is quite abstract yet even among the five
practitioners, they seem to share the view that Big Data is characterized by huge amount of unstructured
data for which more advanced tools and mechanisms are needed. The five case companies seem to use
some components of the Balanced Scorecard to measure their overall business performance and different
KPIs to measure the performance of each department being focused on the financial one. Collecting and
analyzing Big Data has a positive impact on their business performance, since it helps them to generate
insights, with which they can recognize different patterns, predict future trends, improve and automate their
internal processes and can become more competitive by identifying new business opportunities and focus
their business development on new or more customer-centered offerings. Practitioners acknowledge a
plethora of exciting opportunities in their respected industry together with an increasing capacity of several
tools and technologies (BDA, ML, AI, Business analytics) to collect, store and analyze data, but they admit
that they are just in the beginning of this journey. A data-driven culture can also improve the firm
performance, but the empirical findings showed that three out of five firms have just implemented a data-
driven transformation being supported by the top management, while the other two will proceed
implementing it in the near future. Data-driven decision making, which is a part of a data-driven culture,
has not clearly applied by any company, thus it is still a challenge for them, but they seem to be aware of
practical ways to leverage it in the future. The same situation applies with Machine Learning. Companies
seem to know how to reap its benefits, but its adoption is rendered as a challenge. In addition, all the
examined have very structured NPD and NSD processes and most of them utilize the Stage-Gate model,
which is consisted of different checkpoints and criteria that allow a project development to proceed. The
case companies apply Big Data in the NPD and NSD processes for predicting problems before they actually
occur, make faster and more efficient decisions and actions, identifying ways of optimizing their products
and services by exploiting their customers’ feedback and tapping into new businesses. The benefits and key
success factors they see in NPD/NSD process after using Big Data is having their products a quicker life
cycle or product development life cycle deciding faster a market launch, they can understand and predict
trends based on products or services, can realize product quality issues, such as product problems or errors,
before they occur. These benefits are described also as the key success factors of successfully employing
Big Data, BDA and its technologies. The challenges they face derive from the fact that an investment in a
product or service development requires customer feedback, so they should be fast in identifying the
different kinds of feedback, misunderstanding of how to utilize data efficiently, data huge volume, variety,
privacy and security and maintenance issues. The reasons behind those challenges are the lack of a clear
strategy around a Big Data implementation, including planning, investment in resources, coordination of
different people and functions inside a company and control, the difficulties of finding highly skilled data
scientists with the appropriate knowledge that can understand the data features (challenges) and its high
potential value it can offer from a business perspective and, finally, the complexity of complying with
several legal aspects and frameworks, such as GDP regulations, which may grow in the future, in order for
corporations to keep data privacy and security without breaking any law.

In order to create or enhance value throughout their value chain through value-adding products and services,
companies should collect data according to their business needs and incorporate clear data strategies and
targets to develop new business models or make adjustments to existing ones. Moreover, Big Data
objectives should align with the overall business ones to ensure an effective firm performance. The top
management can facilitate this procedure by establishing a data-driven mindset inside the organization and
by continuously providing clear guidelines about Big Data implementation to every department of the
organization. Further value-adding actions of corporate managers can be hiring highly educated and skilled
experts who are savvy around Big Data or training employees who cannot understand how to utilize Big

47
Data, its theories and its potential value in order for them to use it effectively, and regularly showing to
them through solid business cases the vital role of data in retaining competitiveness in a highly fluctuated
business environment. All the above actions can lead to successfully solving not only the technical
challenges, but also the managerial dimensions of Big Data by securing and using effectively the necessary
human and financial resources for the transformation into a data-driven organization.

Overall, the combination of the drawing conclusions from both the empirical studies and the theory
pinpoints that the integrated corporate culture, governance and strategies around Big Data can influence the
role of the latter within the NPD and NSD processes and contribute to improved results in the general firm
performance.

6.1 Limitations

The presented topic is aiming to provide a solid basis for the reader to thoroughly understand the
relationship and the managerial implications of Big Data on business performance and its utilization in New
Product and Service Development of Swedish-based companies. The latter’s representatives are trying to
explain how their firms leverage their Big Data capabilities and are organized around these. The study is
not focusing on the technical parts of Big Data processes that most people think when they hear the term
“Big Data”, such as explaining IT infrastructures (hardware and software), forecasting or statistical tools
and methods (algorithm architecture) appropriate for Big Data or other programming-related issues, but it
will be a supplement on the existing literature from a business, managerial and innovative aspect.
Furthermore, the examined companies are only a certain sample of companies in Sweden and because this
study is a multiple case study, the results may not be generalizable across certain industries or for different
kinds of organizations. Besides, this study focuses only on Swedish-based companies, and it is not known
if its results can be applicable and generalized to organizations beyond the Swedish context. Another
remarkable limitation is the fact that there was found no existing literature on how Big Data can support
NSD, and little research respectively on the support of Big Data of the NPD concept. Hence, the author of
this paper introduced the concepts of servitization and service innovation and together with the empirical
observations from the case companies’ practice, was able to support arguments that functioned as assistance
to answer the research sub-question about the impact of Big Data on the NPD and NSD processes.
The research has been analyzed using qualitative methods. One limitation that should be taken into
consideration is the certain bias that the research imputes when the analysis of data occurs. The study is
based on subjectivism; thus, the researchers axiological, epistemological and ontological ideas influence
the way these results are interpreted.

6.2 Future Research

Examining and analyzing the empirical findings of the interviews, we observe that the case companies that
were examined in this paper coming from different sectors, have one common similarity: they know what
tools, methods and technologies to implement and make use of to achieve operational efficiency through
Big Data and Big Data analysis, they are aware of the benefits and challenges of them from a technical,
process and managerial perspective and of the Key Success Factors that they incorporate, but they seem to
struggle to actually establish all this knowledge inside their organizations. Therefore, they have a theoretical
knowledge about the phenomenon of Big Data, but they lack the practical application of that knowledge.
Future research can focus more, from that managerial and operational point of view, on combining certain
factors and theory around Big Data and, through an in-depth examination, find methods or techniques of

48
how organizations can integrate more successfully and effectively Big Data technologies and analytics to
accomplish an improved performance and in turn novel or enhanced New Product or Service Development
processes. In addition, since most of the case companies in this paper are involved in the manufacturing
industry, it will be also useful to highlight the influence of Big Data practices into the automatization of the
internal processes of these kinds of companies and what effective and faster solutions can provide to various
departments inside organizations. This research concept can also be expanded in other kind of industries as
well.
Further findings from the empirical studies indicated a close relation of Big Data except with a traditional
set of analytics, but also its significant influence of the emerging trends of the Internet of Things, Artificial
Intelligence and Machine Learning. These technologies have proved to learn faster and make more accurate
assessments, judgments and predictions, functioning sometimes like humans. As the representative of
Ericsson claimed, they try to automate their processes more and more decreasing the human interference
and produce more “smart” products or provide their customers with “smarter” networks and services, from
whom many types of data can be derived. Almost the same situation applies to Volvo Group’s self-driving
and connected vehicles, which can yield many unstructured data. With these “smart” output, organizations
can synthesize valuable information from distinct kinds of data generated from many diverse sources and
experimenting how these emerging technologies can affect their entire organization in many aspects from
the organizational scheme to several departments, their operations, their people and their output. Therefore,
an interesting and challenging topic would be to examine the impact of these technologies to certain internal
and external corporate operations, with the only proposed prerequisite, however, to be, when organizations
will have established and integrated a high rate of maturity and utilization of Big Data and the Internet of
Things or Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning.
Moreover, the aforementioned technologies combined with Big Data exploitation will lead organizations
to innovative products and services customized to user’s needs, which may strengthen the position of
established, developing or start-up organizations in the business environment. Thus, an interesting research
will be investigating the impact of Big Data on small and medium sized companies or start-up companies
and whether they have started establishing Big Data as one of their strategic objectives or utilizing any
other emerging technology.
An author’s speculation is the challenge of actually implementing BD perhaps rises from the fact that the
field of Big Data is highly complex for organizations. The latter want to see quick and clear results in their
established strategies and targets, quick returns of their investments, so most of them are impatient and the
procedures of collecting various types of data from diverse sources, storing, cataloguing, and analyzing it,
extracting insights, creating graphs and patterns to understand it better, employing the appropriate software,
tools and technologies, and applying this information of analytics in every spectrum of their business, are
perplexing and time-consuming. Therefore, they try to meet their objectives by other business and strategic
means. However, the assistance of the emerging technologies that were mentioned before, can definitely
play a major role by automizing these procedures leading the organizations to explore Big Data with much
more efficient and effective methods that will make their lives easier in the short-term future. Moreover,
there is a risk that may see in investing in Big Data resources (human, financial, technological) and in
developing business models based on market, customer and social media insights and trends for creating
new products or services that may change in the near future, reasons that may affect its implementation,
might be mitigated by utilizing these technologies.
Finally, the author speculates that there are problems in the organizational structure and ineffective
communication among managers and among employees from different departments inside an organization,
so a research that focuses on examining the organizational structure, what communication channels,
frameworks and protocols are used and how these have effect on the Big Data implementation would be
stimulating.

49
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Appendices

Appendix A: Interview Guide

* My master thesis project is about the impact of Big Data on business performance of Swedish-based
firms.
* The results will be used for a better understanding of the related topic.
* The data after the end of the course will be used only for academic purposes.
* Do you want to be anonymous?
* Is it ok if we record this interview?

Background information
(This part is designed to get some addition information about the role and the position of the person in the
company. According to the answers taken from the interviewee, we can see if this specific person is the
appropriate one to answer the research question.)
a. What is your full name and the name of the organization that you work?
b. What is your position inside the company?
c. How long have you worked at the organization? How long have you had this position?
d. How is your role related to Big Data and/or Business Development? (Business Intelligence, Big
Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Innovation Management, Project Management)

Big Data Understanding

-How would you define Big Data?
-How does your company collect data?
-How does your company manage the data and verify its quality?
-What is your company data mining/data gathering objective(s)?
-What types of data are considered useful and how are they used in the company’s daily operations?
-How do you select and assess the potential value of data?
-Have you established a data-driven culture inside your company?
-Have you noticed any data-driven influence on your daily business operations?

Big Data and Business Performance

-How do you measure business performance at your company?
-Do big data help you to create new business opportunities and how?
-Do/Have Big Data improve your business performance (achieving selected goals) and in which ways?

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-In which parts/departments of your company do you apply insights from Big Data Analytics?
-Does data-driven decision-making can result in business change and how?
-Big data analytics provides companies with many insights and information about their business
performance, but a lot of companies face difficulties in utilizing it. Machine Learning is proved to be a
solution to big data analytics challenges. Have you considered using it or are you using it already?

New Product and Service Development

-What is your company’s process for New Product or Service Development?
-How do you structure/manage this process?
-What tools do you use to evaluate your projects during development?

Big Data and New Product Development (NPD)

-Have big data helped you to improve the value of your offerings?
-Does your company make use/implement Big Data in the NPD process?
-If your company does not make use of Big Data, how possibly could make use of them regarding the
NPD process, in your opinion?
-What benefits/challenges have you noticed of using Big data in NPD process?
-How would you rate your company’s utilization of Big Data in NPD process?
-Successful: Can you quantify results?
-Unsuccessful: What are the reasons?
-Do you use any Big Data Analytics tools in NPD process to get insights? If not, which ones would you
use?
-Do you have/Have you had any actions planned to improve the management support towards big data
implementation in the NPD process?
-Are there any Key Success Factors (KSF) of using big data in the NPD process?

Big Data and New Service Development (NSD)

-Does your company make use/implement Big Data in the NSD process and how do they improve the
NSD process?
-If your company does not make use of Big Data, how possibly would make use of them regarding the
NSD process, in your opinion?
-What benefits/challenges have you noticed of using Big data in NSD process?

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-How would you rate your company’s utilization of Big Data in NSD process?
-Successful: Can you quantify results?
-Unsuccessful: What are the reasons?
-Do you use any Big Data Analytics tools in NSD process to get insights?
-Do you have/Have you had any actions planned to improve the management support towards big data
implementation in the NSD process?
-Are there any Key Success Factors (KSF) of using big data in the NSD process?

Appendix B: Communication e-mail to the companies

Hello,
My name is Alexandros Kouseras and I am a master student enrolled in the program of
Innovation and Industrial Management at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the
University of Gothenburg. This semester I am conducting my master thesis and I write this e-
mail wishing to build with you an initial communication channel seeking to explore the
possibility of a joint research cooperation.
The topic of my master research will be: “The impact of Big Data on business performance for
Swedish-based firms”. Your participation to the project through an interview can be contributive
as I will have the opportunity to exploit your accumulated knowledge and experience on the
related topic. The interview will take 15-20 minutes and can be conducted face-to-face or
through a skype call or a phone call. We can fix an appointment whenever it suits you better
always dependent on your already respected and burdened agenda.
I hope in a more direct communication and in a more extensive dialogue with you on the subject.
You can contact me on the details that appear below. Thank you in advance for your time and
interest.
Best Regards,
Alexandros Kouseras

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