ABSTRACT
A deep and lasting change is currently affecting economies worldwide and even greater turbulence will manifest in the near future. After the Internet revolution that brought about e-commerce in the early 2000s, digitalization enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT) and other technologies have recently led the business sector into the smart era, which is quickly striding forwards in the wake of Industry 4.0: the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution after the 1st generated by mechanization, the 2nd characterized by the intensive use of electricity, and the 3rd defined by the introduction of the Internet and digitization (Lasi, Fettke, Kemper, Feld, and Hoffman, 2014).
