The Impact of Internet of Things on Software Business Models

Context. Internet of Things (IoT) technology is significantly impacting software business. Several contributions were made in the literature regarding IoT. However, the importance of various business model elements for IoT and the impact of IoT on requirements engineering activities remains greatly unexplored. This paper focuses on the impact of IoT on software business models and requirements engineering. The objectives for this research include: (1) summarizing the current business models for IoT, (2) analyzing the impact of IoT on software business models (3) analyzing the impact of IoT on requirements engineering. We conducted a systematic snowballing literature review, followed by an industrial survey. We identified 21 peer reviewed papers which were analyzed in relation to their rigor and relevance and received 56 survey responses. The results of the literature review indicate 9 business model elements that IoT literature focus on. Morevoer, 4 business model aspects were described with respect to the business model structure, context and governance. The industrial survey results highlighted that value proposition, followed by customer segmentation and revenue streams were the most important business model elements for IoT. Moreover, the survey results suggest that requirement management, requirement prioritization and requirement modeling and analysis are highly impacted by IoT.