Engineering Management in Production and Services

Volume 11 • Issue 3 • 2019

received: 2 May 2019

accepted: 15 September 2019

Marketing principles for Industry 4.0 pages: 9-20

— a conceptual framework

Katarzyna Nosalska, Grzegorz Mazurek

ABSTRACT
The holistic approach to Industry 4.0 requires a broader look at the changes taking
place in the area of marketing. Therefore, this article mainly aims to present an outline
of changes in marketing for companies implementing the concept of Industry 4.0 in the
context of Design Principles of Industry 4.0. The authors propose a conceptual
framework for Marketing in Industry 4.0, deriving from the guidelines for designing
strategies to implement Industry 4.0.
The paper allows a better understanding of the Industry 4.0 phenomenon in the Corresponding author:
context of changes in the area of marketing in general and in industrial markets in
particular. The conceptual framework presented in the article suggests a need for Katarzyna Nosalska
a new approach to shaping marketing strategies and the marketing mix in the Fourth
Industrial Revolution and helps in identifying the key areas for the marketing mix Kozminski University, Poland
according to the Industry 4.0 concept. email: [email protected]

KEY WORDS Grzegorz Mazurek

Industry 4.0, digital marketing, digital transformation, Fourth Industrial Revolution
Kozminski University, Poland
DOI: 10.2478/emj-2019-0016 e-mail: [email protected]

Introduction
transformation of value chains, business models,
The current changes in production methods and products, and services. The changes that are shaping
the business environment of manufacturing compa- this transformation are happening in two integral
nies, caused by the development of new digital tech- business areas, namely, production and business
nologies, tend to be described as the Fourth Industrial management, and involve a development of smart
Revolution. Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing factories that communicate in real time via the Inter-
are related expressions, often used interchangeably net of Things in an ecosystem composed of machin-
(Liao et al., 2017). The concept refers to a deep digital ery, a network of factories, and people (Kagermann et

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al., 2013). Cloud technologies and the ability to per- of computers and the automation of production pro-
form an intelligent analysis of large data volumes also cesses initiated the following — third — industrial
enable the integration of value chains, both vertical revolution. Currently, new digital technologies, such
— occurring inside companies — and horizontal — as Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Big Data Ana-
involving other market participants (Jarocka and lytics, Cyber-physical Infrastructure (CPS), Internet
Wang, 2018; Saucedo-Martínez et al., 2017). This of Things, Additive Manufacturing, Cloud Comput-
phenomenon has a direct impact on the changes in ing, Smart Sensors, Artificial Intelligence, Mobile
the management domain of a product lifecycle and Technologies, and Autonomous Robots and Systems,
on the relationships with stakeholders in the market. are causing material changes in the business environ-
The digital solutions of Industry 4.0 change humans ment and our everyday lives (Mittal et al., 2017; Pfohl
as consumers and affect their work processes and et al., 2015; Mazurek, 2019). These disruptive tech-
behaviour. Moreover, considering the extremely nologies are shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolu-
dynamic and even exponential development of tech- tion.
nology and its impact on society, one can claim that The importance of these phenomena has also
changes also occur in the areas of marketing activities been noticed at the level of governments of multiple
and marketing tools aiming to adapt them to the new countries (Kagermann et al., 2013; Li, 2018). Many
reality of today’s markets (Daviy et al., 2017; Sterev, government authorities have proceeded with the
2017; Mazurek, 2019; Mazurek and Nosalska, 2018). introduction of development schemes to increase the
A review of the relevant source literature has digitisation of production companies and to facilitate
shown a gap in research regarding the impact of the achievement of higher industrialisation index
Industry 4.0 on marketing. Therefore, the authors rates. One of such schemes is the concept of Industry
have prepared a literature analysis with regard to 4.0, which was first proposed in Germany in 2011.
marketing theory to present a conceptual framework The term is used in Europe interchangeably with the
of marketing in Industry 4.0. This article uses qualita- Fourth Industrial Revolution, and it is this concept,
tive methods and offers a wide literature review to around which the scientific discourse concerning
propose five main marketing principles for the era of digitisation revolves now. The concept has also been
the Fourth Industrial Revolution and discuss their popularised under different names in different parts
impact on the overall marketing mix. of the world. For instance, the names functioning in
the US include the Industrial Internet of Things
1. Literature review (IIoT) or Smart Manufacturing, or the Internet of
Things, which describes a broader range of changes.
The terms refer to similar phenomena encompassing
1.1. Industry 4.0 — a definition the advancing digital revolution, and, thus, fit in the
The Fourth Industrial Revolution determines the general digital transformation trend occurring today.
changes in the domain of manufacturing. It concerns Many different definitions of Industry 4.0 are
a shift in the production practice — from mass to present in the source literature. Authors, e.g. Her-
personalised production — which results in greater mann, Pentek, and Otto (2015), Wang et al. (2017),
flexibility of production processes and provides Sandengen et al. (2016) and Tupa et al. (2017), briefly
means to satisfy the individual needs of different define Industry 4.0 as a collective term describing
customers more effectively. changes in the technological scope and the organisa-
The term is also a direct reference to the changes tion of value chains. This approach reveals two main
that have taken place over the course of history under aspects of the digital transformation in question — its
the influence of the spread of new manufacturing technological aspect and its business aspect.
technologies, which have prompted radical changes Many authors emphasise the importance of the
in production, society, economy, culture, and busi- holistic approach to Industry 4.0, treating the changes
ness. The First Revolution started with mechanical caused by digitisation very broadly. Strandhagen et al.
production relying on the power of steam and water (2017) define Industry 4.0 as an “umbrella term”
(the so-called Age of Steam), taking place in the late referring to a number of concepts and affecting many
18th century. The Second Revolution began in the disciplines in the industry. Generally, defining the
early 20th century, driven by the development of scope of Industry 4.0 requires listing its specific
electricity, which contributed to the growth of mass aspects. For example, Saucedo-Martinez et al. (2017)
production. Then, during the 1970s, the development sequentially refer to the meaning of Industry 4.0,

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i.e. (1) the integration of complex machines and role in business operations pursued in their respective
devices with sensor and software networks used to markets during the time of the industrial revolution
predict, control and improve business activities that (Bettiol et al., 2017).
have a social impact, (2) a new level of organisation The activities pursued by companies aiming to
and value chain management throughout the entire implement the Industry 4.0 concept are targeted at
product lifecycle, (3) a common term for technology individual customer requirements, calling for cus-
and value chain organisation concept, (4) a holistic tomer-oriented organisations (von Leipzig et al.,
system including IT solutions, people, machines, and 2017). The customer is treated as the company’s part-
tools, enabling the flow of goods, services and data in ner who co-creates the product. The process of inte-
a controlled manner in the value chain, using autono- grating data in the value chain enables a fuller
mous processes and the possibility of high data flow interaction between the customer and the company at
capacity and information necessary to make deci- virtually every stage of value creation. By applying
sions. technologies — such as virtual reality, 3D print, or
Therefore, based on a review of different defini- smart design tools, which are also supported by exten-
tions, Industry 4.0 can be defined as a concept of sive communication with the customer — the cus-
organisational and technological changes that involve tomer can participate in creating the product at an
the integration of value chains and new business early stage of research and development (R&D). The
models, smart products, and services. These changes ability to use fast prototyping that involves 3D print-
are driven by individual needs of customers, the ing, combined with the easy operation of product
development of digital technologies, data integration, configuration software allows companies to work
and common access to the Internet (Saucedo-Mar- closely with customers and, consequently, satisfy each
tínez et al., 2017). customer’s expectations to receive a customised prod-
The concept is actually materialised through uct. An example of such a process is what companies
a network of digital factories, the operation of which who manufacture running shoes offer to their cus-
is based on cyber-physical systems that create virtual tomers, making it possible for them to order footwear
copies of physical applications that can make autono- that perfectly fits each customer’s foot (for example,
mous decisions. Such cyber-physical systems work NIKEiD, Adidas Futurecraft). Such cooperation with
with and exchange data among themselves, people, the customer may be even more extensive in the B2B
and other smart factories, thereby creating one ele- area. An example of such a practice in the B2B market
ment of a larger ecosystem of the Internet of Things. is the 3DExperience platform of Dassault Systèmes. It
The smart products they manufacture can also react is a virtual space that lets a number of people com-
to changes happening in their surroundings in real- municate and create innovative products (Dassault
time and make autonomous decisions on their opera- Systemes, 2018). Co-creation reinforces the value
tion (Wang et al., 2016; Mittal et al., 2017). proposal even further by offering customers the
option to personalise their own products and services.
According to a forecast by PwC (Reinhard et al.,
1.2. Role of costumers in a digital eco-
2016), changes caused by the implementation of digi-
system
tal solutions show a large potential for changes in data
The original impulse to introduce new solutions analytics to improve customer relations and analyse
based on digital technologies was to change the each customer’s behaviour (so-called customer intel-
method of manufacturing goods by turning from ligence). This facilitates access to products, sales, and
mass production to mass personalisation. It was marketing channels. These changes will include,
caused by a strong trend that involved customer among others, management of the order placement
demands for custom products. The application of the process and further development of customised prod-
latest technological solutions and the creation of flex- ucts. Such progression of data integration along the
ible production lines result in the costs of personalised entire value chain enables the transmission of data all
low-volume production remaining still similar to the the way from the production stage to centralised pro-
costs of mass production. Customer needs are the duction planning systems and even further — into
factor that triggers the changes described above. integrated customer service systems. Data coming
Therefore, if the customer and the product have from every stage of the product lifecycle will thus
a significant impact on the transformation processes, become a new information resource for marketing
one can claim that marketing plays a considerable and will be useful for the value creation process.

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One of the factors for gaining competitive advan- The rapidly progressing digital transformation
tage in the industry of the future is the ability to and the implementation of Industry 4.0 solutions also
function effectively in business network ecosystems create opportunities to redefine the previous nature
(Teece and Linden, 2017). Therefore, the multitude of of business operations and create new business mod-
stakeholders who co-create value and cooperate with els or introduce innovations to the existing ones.
a company at various stages of value creation will be Innovations in products, processes or services alone
able to create new possibilities but also spawn new are not sufficient any longer to stay fully competitive
obligations in terms of marketing. (Gassmann et al., 2017). A study (Planing and
The fundamental element of the development of Pfoertsch, 2016) conducted among leading produc-
digital transformation is the existence of a digital tion companies has proven that their strategic deci-
ecosystem wherein spontaneous interactions between sionfieldsbelongtotwomain dimensions — digitisation
objects, people, and business units occur enabled by of products or services and digitisation of business
data exchange processes (Saarikko et al., 2017). models. The authors of this study suggested that to be
Therefore, cooperation and deeper integration fully successful, companies had to follow these two
between smaller market players give all the ability to strategic directions simultaneously. However, at pres-
succeed in global markets. According to Cisco (Brad- ent, companies most frequently follow the pathway
ley et al., 2015), as many as 40% of companies will towards digitisation of their products. This choice
face the risk of insolvency in the next few years if they may be caused by a focus on the technological dimen-
do not meet the challenges posed by the new reality of sion of the phenomenon, translating into opting for
cooperation taking place now in the digital world. the simplest solution, which is equipping products
Referring to the Darwinian theory of the biological with data sensors. This choice enables companies to
ecosystem, also in the digital network, adaptation to collect information from the product use phase and
the changing business environment becomes a condi- use that information further to offer complementary
tion for the survival in the market of today and of the value and to profile the product based on the cus-
future (Kreutzer and Land, 2013; Moore, 1993). tomer’s behaviour history.
A viable solution for enabling integration and In Industry 4.0, a digital product should be con-
activity in a network is the digitisation of companies sidered not only as the physical result of the manufac-
and effective process management in the entire value turing process but also as an intelligent source of data
chain. This means that enabling the growth of a digi- collected from the process of its use. The product also
tal ecosystem is provided naturally by new technolo- gains a new virtual dimension, thereby creating
gies and the ubiquitous Internet, which is also a digital equivalent of a physical product called
a natural progression of the trend of the Internet of a digital twin. In a not too distant future, the purchas-
Things. According to McKinsey’s forecasts, the num- ing process for technology components may change
ber of devices interconnected within this network by completely. It will be necessary for the customer to
2025 will exceed 50 billion objects, that is 2.7% of all create a digital twin of any product to be able to simu-
products manufactured, reaching the potential for late the entire process and test the product first in the
the world economy that amounts to between USD virtual phase before the actual acquisition of the
4 and 11 trillion (McKinsey Global Institute, 2015). physical equivalent. Such an activity makes it possible
to reduce customer costs and enable the customer to
1.3. Strategic business changes caused make the right investment decision (Uhlemann et al.,
by digital transformation 2017).
As MIT’s Capgemini studies show (Westerman at
The market of today is becoming more and more
al., 2012), to reach the highest digital maturity, which
unpredictable, forcing companies to adopt a more
directly affects the financial results gained, it is neces-
flexible outlook on their own strategies. The phenom-
sary for companies to develop strategic and techno-
ena that companies face, such as the blurring of the
logical investments simultaneously for successful
boundaries between industries, the shortening of
organisational changes within their structures. The
supply chains, or the occurrence of coopetition, affect
entire digitisation process should, therefore, be
the ongoing process of strategic decision-making and
treated as a project that involves extensive changes
involve changes in marketing activities with respect
both in the company and in its positioning in the
to value distribution. When analysing the market and
digital business ecosystem.
designing a strategy, marketing teams must fully
consider all of these factors.

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2. Conceptualisation main phenomena that mark the Fourth Industrial

Revolution, meaning the processes of integration of
data in value chains. Data generated at various stages
Aiming to structure marketing changes caused of value creation become available to each one of the
by the impact of new digital technologies and the chain elements, bringing about new opportunities to
frequently growing number of new business models, use diverse data in the value creation process. Also,
the authors of this paper propose a conceptual frame- new business models that form one of the main pil-
work for marketing in Industry 4.0. The development lars of Industry 4.0 make it necessary to look at the
and structuring of the concept involved the use of the marketing mix from a new perspective.
qualitative method proposed by Jabareen (2009), Aiming to derive the basic principles for market-
which defines a conceptual framework as “a network ing that should form the basis for the creation of
or a plane of linked concept”. This method of analysis effective marketing strategies, it is reasonable to take
offers a procedure of theorisation for building con- a closer look at the four principles of Industry 4.0 as
ceptual frameworks based on the grounded theory defined by Hermann, Pentek, and Otto (Hermann et
method. The analysis is supported by a broad litera- al., 2015, 2016), which facilitate the transformation of
ture review performed in the area of research on the companies and the actual achievement of digital
development of the Industry 4.0 concept in the con- maturity according to the concept of Industry 4.0.
text of changes taking place in the domain of market- The principles support companies in identifying and
ing. implementing Industry 4.0 scenarios and lie at the
The authors have put together two concepts — core of the functioning of companies according to
the Design Principles of Industry 4.0 (Hermann et al., Industry 4.0. These principles are (1) Interconnec-
2016) and the popular Marketing 4.0 concept offered tion, (2) Information Transparency, (3) Decentralised
by Kotler, Kartajaya, and Setiawan (2016). The Decision, and (4) Technical Support — Virtual and
method makes it possible to combine two multidisci- Physical Assistance. They also have their own impli-
plinary areas of knowledge — technology and busi- cations for both organisation management and mar-
ness — allowing a better understanding of the keting.
Industry 4.0 phenomenon related to changes in the The authors of this paper offer an interpretation
area of marketing in general and in industrial markets of these four principles in the context of the need to
in particular. use them in the process of building a marketing
When analysing the source literature and the strategy and planning a marketing mix. Based on the
principles of the concept of Industry 4.0, one may Design Principles and literature review, a conceptual
notice that the main elements of a marketing mix framework for marketing in Industry 4.0 has been
remain under the considerable influence of the presented.
Fourth Industrial Revolution. This also necessitates
changes in the planning of marketing tools, which 2.1. Design principles of Industry 4.0 in
has been defined by Kotler, Kartajaya, and Setiawan the context of marketing
(2016) in the Marketing 4.0 concept. This stage of the
marketing mix evolution not only focuses on the Interconnection
digital dimension of the relationship but also com- As already mentioned, interconnections between
bines online and offline interactions between the the elements of a digital ecosystem are the essence of
customer and the company, using digital technologies the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Machines, devices,
to strengthen the actual customer engagement. products and people are connected to the Internet of
The traditional marketing mix has undergone Things, thereby creating the highest degree of net-
multiple evolution stages, transforming from 4Ps to work development — the Internet of Everything. This
4Cs (co-creation, currency, communal activation, way, all of the interconnected objects can share infor-
and conversation; Kotler et al., 2016). However, in the mation, which becomes the basis of cooperation
case of companies that implement Industry 4.0 solu- aimed at achieving common goals. We can distinguish
tions, effective marketing strategies that yield positive three types of cooperation within the IoE: human–
results require an innovative outlook on the market- human, human–machine, and machine–machine. It
ing mix as well as a profound understanding of the is important to maintain the interoperability of the
holistic meaning of the Industry 4.0 definition. This ecosystem and the modular nature of these solutions,
approach is all the more suitable if we relate it to the aimed at making it easier for companies to adapt

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themselves smoothly to the dynamic changes in the important here as well. Strengthening the sense of
market and to better meet individual requirements of trust between partners is one of the challenges posed
their customers. Modularity is extremely important for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. To overcome
in product design as it facilitates configuring an indi- this challenge and build strong relationships based on
vidual version of a product according to specific cus- mutual trust, it is important to implement solutions
tomer requirements. It is also a basic property that in the field of cybersecurity and change the organisa-
makes it possible to build a product configuration tional culture of enterprises. The issue of decentral-
tool which is then used by customers as part of offer ised decisions and trust also concerns the ability of
customisation. companies to design smart products that are able to
make autonomous decisions and react to the stimuli
Information transparency in their environment in real-time. One of the most
advanced examples of a smart product is Tesla, an
Aiming to effectively integrate the growing num-
autonomous car. It paves the way for similar solutions
ber of interconnected objects and people and create
not only in technology development but also in terms
virtual copies of a physical company, transparency
of legal regulations.
and – in some measure – standardisation of informa-
tion flow and processes is required. It is an indispens-
able element of effective data exchange between the Technical support — virtual and physi-
stakeholders of a business ecosystem, and an essential cal assistance
feature of the integration of value chains and supply
Owing to the growing complexity of production
chains. To draw reasonable conclusions and make
and business processes in the reality of the Fourth
good decisions, data coming from sensors must be
Industrial Revolution, people are supported by virtual
connected with other contextual information about
and physical assistants based on new technologies
a process, about the condition of the devices, and
(e.g. tablets with smart software, smartphones, robots,
about the products, and then be analysed and inter-
virtual assistants, and robo-advisors). Such systems
preted accordingly.
visualise and aggregate information transparently to
To benefit from full transparency of the decisions
facilitate informed decisions. The application of vir-
being made, the results of data analyses must be made
tual reality is one example that uses technologies to
available to all participants of a given value chain in
help customers make decisions. There are already
real-time. The cooperation based on transparent data
many solutions based on this technology, and they
is clearly illustrated by the functioning of the business
make it easier, for instance, to choose a flat and its
platform model, wherein data exchange standards
furnishing or configure the interiors of a car. Virtual
and the ability to share those standards are imposed
and augmented reality solutions reinforce the cogni-
by the creator of the system, while the decisions con-
tive stimuli that motivate the customer to select the
cerning the use are assigned to participants of a given
most suitable offer (Scholz and Smith, 2016). Another
platform. These new sources of information coming
example of innovative application of technology may
from business partners and various stages of product
be the design of a virtual reality-based training simu-
life are a major challenge to marketing and an area for
lator by Siemens. This solution makes allows acceler-
new opportunities to take better advantage of mar-
ating the training of employees in difficult conditions
keting in the efforts to shape a full marketing mix.
or in distant targeted workplaces (Schröder, 2018),
e.g. on drilling platforms.
Decentralised decisions
To sum up, the Design Principles of Industry 4.0
Decentralised decisions are based on the inter- (Hermann et al., 2016) provide a set of main direc-
connection of objects and people as well as on the tions and suggestions for implementing marketing
transparency of information placed along the entire strategies and creating a marketing mix. These
value chain. This kind of network makes it possible to include:
use local and global information for more effective • ensuring connectivity with the customer and the
business decision-making. This way, participants of product (connectivity) and using the possibility
the ecosystem are given a chance to make autono- of collecting and analysing data throughout the
mous decisions based on generally available data. product lifecycle to recognise the needs and cus-
Naturally, trust is another aspect mentioned in tomer behaviour in greater detail, even in real-
the open and sharing economy theory, which is time (cognitivity), which gives an opportunity to

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co-create value with the customer at every stage • Co-creation,

of product creation (co-creation), personalised • Cognitivity,
customer communication (conversation), and • Connectivity.
cooperation in the supply chain (cooperation); These five principles can be combined by a con-
• the ability to use data from the entire product text of using the approach to the marketing mix and
lifecycle to implement product servitisation and thus offer an innovative concept. In the new proposi-
new business models; tion of the marketing mix, the creation of a product is
• the development of product autonomisation; based on co-creation, and its promotion involves
• the digitisation and data integration in the value mutual communication with product stakeholders in
chain (vertical and horizontal), enabling trans- the market, while the distribution is based on the
parent exchange and sharing of data between cooperation in a full business ecosystem, and its price
business partners, customers and company is determined dynamically based on the data gathered
employees; from the cognitive processes that analyse customer
• taking advantage of product simulation and vir- behaviour in real-time. All four elements then merge,
tualisation capabilities (creating digital twins utilising the basic principle of connectivity (see Fig.
of physical products); 1). The implementation of these principles is possible
• the creation of a product offer based on the prin- with the use of new digital technologies and by build-
ciples of standardisation and modularity; ing strategies according to the Industry 4.0 concept.
• making use of digital customer assistants.
Co-creation
2.2. Principles for marketing in industry
We are currently talking about products being
4.0
co-created by customers through their active involve-
Speaking of a digital business ecosystem, we talk ment in the value creation process, e.g. by selecting
about the connectivity of and among stakeholders, customised parameters of a product being ordered
which enables cooperation, communication, as well via an online configuration tool, or about the impact
as the co-creation of personalised value that is created of customer voices and opinions shared on social
on the basis of data available in real-time and coming media, and about the impact on brands and products.
from the cognitive processes that analyse customer The cooperation with a customer taking advantage of
behaviour. Both customers and other market partici- mobility and Internet access reinforces the innovative
pants, e.g. business partners or suppliers who partici- nature of products and enables companies to perform
pate in a vast digital business ecosystem, should be a quick validation and tests of their new projects. We
treated as stakeholders of the ecosystem. Therefore, can then already speak of the customer as a co-
based on an in-depth literature review of the idea of designer, a co-marketer, a co-brander, and a co-pro-
Industry 4.0, the authors propose a set of the main ducer. Then, undoubtedly, we can conclude that the
principles of marketing for the Fourth Industrial customer’s knowledge and knowledge about the cus-
Revolution. These principles are: tomer become the company’s greatest asset.
• Cooperation, The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the new
• Conversation, technologies that come with it position the customer

Fig. 1. Marketing Principles for Industry 4.0

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in yet another role, releasing the customer from full gradually adopting new strategies of brand promo-
and active engagement in the product co-creation tion using the dialogue with their customers to ben-
process. In a digital ecosystem, the customer co-cre- efit from long-term engagement and interaction.
ates value unknowingly, by making the data on the Using generally accessible mobile technology, the
manner of using a given product available and thus modern customer of today is a digital native who has
enabling the company to adjust their offer even more an enormous power to influence brands through
precisely to fit the customer’s needs. By analysing their ongoing activity pursued in social media or
historical data, artificial intelligence algorithms can blogs and by sharing their thoughts and opinions
learn and become able to discover the hidden needs online. Nowadays, it is possible to engage in direct
of customers rather than just react to the circum- conversations with customers on the Internet in real-
stances. time. The application of intelligent algorithm solu-
Thanks to data-collecting sensors and artificial tions and modern big data technologies leads to the
intelligence algorithms, we are already dealing with development of new communication tools, such as
smart products. Such products allow for the analysis chatbots, virtual assistants, and even marketing auto-
and interpretation of data, the prediction of failures, mation solutions. A message based on the strategy of
and autonomous decision-making. The advancing attraction and the use of content marketing and digi-
technology of AI-based voice assistants opens an tal content distribution channels can all encourage
entirely new chapter in the domain of product devel- customers to enter into a dialogue with a company
opment, thereby starting the process of an actual through the provision of useful content that matches
product humanisation. Therefore, the most important their unique current needs as they are appropriately
task is to develop the Smart Product vision, and from profiled.
a technical point of view, to ensure the access to data Most of all, the Fourth Industrial Revolution
provided by the customer and the connection of offers many new ways of collecting customer data in
products to the Internet. Then, under such circum- real-time, which reinforce the need to apply real-time
stances, the customer participates in “unconscious marketing. The voice assistant solutions mentioned
co-creation” of value. However, the psychological here earlier, such as Siri or Google Assistant, can
aspect of opening customers to new technologies and “talk” with the customer on the level of human bond-
ensuring the security of the data they generate is ing and, thereby, completely revolutionise the
equally important. Looking at a product as a source of assumptions made for brand promotion strategies.
access to very reliable user data, companies should
start creating new business models. The “as a service” Cooperation
model is currently one of the most popular solutions,
In a digital ecosystem, partnership and coopera-
which gives companies a new way to obtain income
tion become the basis for the operation of companies
not only from the sale of products but also from, e.g.,
that do not consider their participation in the market
renting products to be used by customers. Tires-as-
only in terms of competition with other brands any
a-service implemented by Michelin is one example of
longer, but instead take the opportunity to work with
this model (Frontere, 2013). “Engine-as-a-service”
them and take advantage of their best competencies
called TotalCare, offered by Rolls-Royce, is another
(Subramaniam et al., 2019). One of the most popular
example (Rolls-Royce, 2014). In this model, the com-
examples of cooperation between two large competi-
pany offers jet engines as part of a “power by the
tive brands is the current ongoing partnership
hour” payment, thus enabling payments to airlines
between Apple and Samsung in the area of supplying
for the use of their engines depending on several
components for Apple products.
variables, including the duration of the flight. There-
Cooperation can also be seen manifested in the
fore, the use of new business models today consider-
formation of smart supply chains, wherein technol-
ably diversifies portfolios of companies and offers still
ogy makes it possible for all chain participants to use
newer opportunities to build a competitive advantage
a transparent data system to increase supply effective-
in this new industrial revolution.
ness and reduce the time to market. For example, by
gaining access to data sources generated by partners
Conversation
and using big data technology, companies may indeed
Considering the increasing focus of companies transform business models and outline new opportu-
on their customers, which is aimed at personalising nities for cooperation in the value chain. This strat-
the products and services they offer, companies are egy enables them to arrive at an additional, unique

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information asset, which could never be accessed have become practicable if it had not been for the
without initiating this kind of cooperation. On the Internet. It is the Internet that forms the basis of the
other hand, companies more and more frequently digital ecosystem seen today and gives us the exact
reduce their supply chains and distribution networks ability to exchange data gathered from sensors. All
by turning to new business models and e-commerce digital technologies indeed achieve their real value
solutions. This change is illustrated by the project only when such connectivity is employed. This feature
announced in late 2017 for the construction of a not only unites the concept of the marketing mix
joint sale platform for Unilever, Mars, and Reckitt presented here but also defines the key role that con-
Benckiser, which – according to the announcements nectivity plays in this list and, indeed, predestines this
– would offer products cheaper by about 30% com- role and its outcomes for becoming one of the major
pared to the prices normally offered in the traditional marketing principles of the Fourth Industrial Revolu-
sales channels (The Telegraph, 2017). tion.
When creating a product distribution plan, one
should also bear in mind that a company is a part of
a larger ecosystem, where strong cooperative ties 3. Discussion of the results
with other market participants are what matters. It is
important to remember to work towards making the The scientific discourse on Industry 4.0 focuses
most of these ties. currently mainly on the technological aspects of the
occurring changes. The holistic meaning of Industry
Cognitivity 4.0 suggests a need for a multidisciplinary approach
The Internet makes it easier for customers to to identifying the changes emerging in various areas
control prices through auctions and negotiations of business operations. Using this approach as
with multiple suppliers of the desired product. It also a direction to follow in the understanding and devel-
allows companies to adjust their prices dynamically oping the concept (in both practical and scientific
to the current demand — or the preferred customer fields), the authors have proposed the main market-
profile — in real-time. This concept is clearly illus- ing principles for Industry 4.0.
trated by the diversification of the fare rates in Uber, The authors also emphasise that technologies are
which vary depending on the time of day and the only “enablers”. They make it possible to develop
volume of orders at a particular time and in a par- relationships in business ecosystems, facilitating
ticular place. The ability to profile customers based communication between market participants. It is
on an analysis of the history of their activity on the not enough to implement a single technology in
Internet — or even the operating system they use — a company without considering all the processes in
enables airlines to diversify rates depending on their the related value chain and the stakeholders who cre-
customers’ outlined profiles. Amazon is a master in ate it. A competitive advantage based only on the
the domain of use of customer data and market implementation of new technologies is by its very
trends as it searches its databases and reacts to the nature only short-term (Carr, 2003). Only a strategic
current demand for a particular product range, pro- organisational change, effective process management,
filing any special offers for each customer and any a redefinition of production paradigms, a change in
complementary products, thereby determining these business models, an openness to cooperate, and
prices dynamically. a willingness to participate in a digital ecosystem
Considering the growing volume of data gener- provide unique opportunities to entities seeking
ated in sales and coming directly from smart prod- a long-term advantage.
ucts, we will gain more and more opportunities in The role of technology and IT systems is crucial
the future to utilise variables found in the price – but it is not the only factor that counts. Without
selection algorithms. Therefore, the answer to the applying a new strategy, it is not possible to take full
traditional question being “how much does it cost?” advantage of the introduced organisational changes.
is far from simple. For this reason, an effective strategy produces the
synergetic effect formed between the use of new
technologies and innovative business solutions. Sev-
Connectivity — the holy grail for 5CS eral examples of these impact areas related to various
Looking at the above four principles and the technologies on business operations and marketing
examples given, we may conclude that they would not are described in Table 1. As the examples suggest,

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Engineering Management in Production and Services
Volume 11 • Issue 3 • 2019

Tab. 1. Examples of technologies supporting Marketing Principles in Industry 4.0

Marketing Supporting
Changes brought by the supporting technologies
Principles (5Cs) technology

Connectivity IoT and 5G The technologies make it possible to obtain data on the use of products directly from the
Cooperation customer in real-time
Communication Such technologies connect multiple devices and products into a network of independent
Co-creation objects, which are additionally supported by artificial intelligence algorithms that can make
autonomous decisions
Connectivity Cloud It enables the formation of a network for the exchange of transparent data available to every
Cooperation Computing network participant. It facilitates the building of a digital ecosystem and the creation of new
Communication business models (e.g. a business platform model or Product as a Service)
Co-creation
Cognitivity Big Data An analysis of large data volumes makes it possible to identify regularities and market trends,
thereby offering cognitive conclusions on the use of products and customer behaviour previ-
ously unavailable to marketing planning. This focus enables more dynamic pricing
Cognitivity AI It facilitates the identification of customer behaviours and the prediction of their prefer-
ences and needs and makes it possible to offer a more personalised complementary value
to customers
Co-creation 3D Printing It enables customers to take part in fast prototyping and testing of products already at the
research and development stage and extends the spectrum of product personalisation, of-
fering the highest possible level of customisation
Co-creation VR/AR It enables better visualisation of a company’s offer through the use of each customer’s per-
Cooperation sonal sense of space.
This facilitates designing products in a three-dimensional virtual space
Co-creation Simulation It makes it possible to create a digital twin that gives an opportunity to test the functionality
Cooperation of a given product before buying it

these are also enablers within the meaning of the Literature

theory of five marketing principles of the Fourth
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