The whitepaper "The Advance of the Machines – Vision and Implications of a Machine Economy" (so far only available in German) elucidates the opportunities offered by the combination of the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain technology. The convergence of these technologies enables machines to act autonomously in economic processes. The whitepaper analyzes the vision of such a machine economy, explicates its implications for companies, and makes it tangible by means of three use cases.

As of October 1st, 2020, I will take over a new responsibility at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences where I will hold the professorship of Information Systems, especially Digital Business & Mobility. After more than seven memorable and fantastic years at the University of Bayreuth, I have decided to stop commuting several hours per week and to work in Frankfurt where I live with my family since several years.

At the same time, I am pleased to remain in the management team of the Project Group Business and Information Systems Engineering of Fraunhofer FIT as well as the FIM Research Center. Together with my team in Bayreuth, I will continue my work in the research fields of strategic IT management, digital transformation, managing AI, and blockchain. Further, I will maintain my close collaboration with the University of Bayreuth in several initiatives and research projects.

Leaving the Faculty of Law, Business and Economics at the University of Bayreuth with its fantastic colleagues was quite a tough decision. Thanks to its president, Stefan Leible, the University of Bayreuth with its increasing focus on entrepreneurship and digitalization topics has developed into a very vibrant and innovative place with fantastic opportunities especially for young researchers. Furthermore, developing the information systems group in Bayreuth together with Torsten Eymann, Max Röglinger and Gilbert Fridgen into one of Germany’s IS hotspots was quite a rewarding journey.

Now, I am very much looking forward to the new challenges and experiences in Frankfurt as well as the continued cooperation with my existing partners!

This week, I gave the opening keynote talk on DLT in mobility and logistics at Blockchain 2020 organized by the Finanz & Wirtschafts Forum. The event took place at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institut in Rütschlikon/Zurich, Switzerland.

We are pleased that our Electronic Markets article "Investigating the co-creation of IT consulting service value: empirical findings of a matched pair analysis" has been published online (Open Access).

As of today I am part of the Transformation Think Tank! As a member of the Advisory Council @WARGITSCH TRANFORMATION ENGINEERS I am looking forward to interdisciplinary and inspiring exchange in order to make transformation initiatives successful.

We published a white paper about our blockchain project in cooperation with the National Association of Notaries and the Bavarian State Ministry of Justice.

Our Blockchain project in cooperation with the National Association of Notaries and the Bavarian State Ministry of Justice has been awarded with the “Innovationspreis Reallabore” by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy.

My new Springer essential on marketing in the digital age is set to come out this summer, most likely in August. Stay tuned for further information.

Our paper "Investigating the Co-Creation of IT Consulting Service Value: Empirical Findings of a Matched Pair Analysis" co-authored by Severin Oesterle, Arne Buchwald and me has been accepted for publication in Electronic Markets.

Abstract
Digitalization is increasingly and broadly impacting on companies throughout all industries. To cope with digital transformation, organizations need specific IT skills and often face a bottleneck between required and existing capabilities. Thus, organizations revert to support from IT consultants. However, such collaborations need to create value so as to make client organizations future-proof in the long term. We therefore need a better understanding of how value is created in IT consulting projects. We build on service-dominant (S-D) logic as the theory base and evaluate our structural model, which explains IT consulting service value based on 77 matched pairs of IT consulting projects using structural equation modeling. We provide empirical support for the assumptions of S-D logic in the IT consulting industry and reveal determinants that significantly contribute to the overall IT consulting service value. Our results contribute to the ongoing discourse in the S-D logic literature and provide meaningful insights for practice.

Our article "KI-Anwendungsfälle zielgerichtet identifizieren" co-authored by Peter Hofmann, Jan Jöhnk, Dominik Protschky, Philipp Stähle, Christoph Buck and me has been published in Wirtschaftsinformatik & Management. The article can be downloaded here.