The role of digital technologies (DTs) in humanitarian supply chains (HSC) has become an increasingly researched topic in the operations literature. While numerous publications have dealt with this convergence, most studies have focused on examining the implementation of individual DTs within the HSC context, leaving relevant literature, to date, dispersed and fragmented. This study, through a systematic literature review of 110 articles on HSC published between 2015 and 2020, provides a unified overview of the current state-of-the-art DTs adopted in HSC operations. The literature review findings substantiate the growing significance of DTs within HSC, identifying their main objectives and application domains, as well as their deployment with respect to the different HSC phases (i.e., Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery). Furthermore, the findings also offer insight into how participant organizations might configure a technological portfolio aimed at overcoming operational difficulties in HSC endeavours. This work is novel as it differs from the existing traditional perspective on the role of individual technologies on HSC research by reviewing multiple DTs within the HSC domain.

Project‐based firms are transforming their business models in order to add services to their offers, with the consequence that their business projects are beginning to be conceived as long processes in which servitization takes place.

Firms in multiple sectors are incorporating information technology (IT) partners to gain digital capabilities, improve their operations, and offer new value propositions. The deployment of digitalization in well‐established firms from traditional sectors enables the creation of specific strategic alliances (concentric) with IT providers. However, establishing these particular strategic alliances with an IT provider raises tensions and reconsiderations both at the internal level and within the alliance as a consequence of the profound organizational challenges that both digitalization and a strategic alliance imply. This study analyzes how digitalization influences the emergence of these new strategic alliances, highlighting the process and key factors that have contributed to its success at our unit of study in the retailing sector.

The provision of added-value services is becoming increasingly important to winning work on civil engineering projects. This paper reports on a study into the adoption of ‘servitisation’ strategies by civil engineering firms, particularly through the use of smart technology. It focuses on factors that can lead to successful adoption of a servitisation strategy in an organisation, and then reviews how the adoption of smart technology can help to deliver added-value services during the various phases of a civil engineering project. The information generated by the technology can also lead to the development of new and improved services, further improving an organisation’s competitive advantage.

Off-site manufacturing is emerging as an advantageous production model in the construction industry. In recent years, many tier 1 construction companies are including off-site production as part of their portfolio. Likewise, this change of model is attracting new entrants to the sector. The shift from the traditional on-site construction model to off-site manufacturing is unleashing positive impacts on projects in terms of cost, time efficiency, sustainability, and improved quality. Nonetheless, this phenomenon has yet to be analysed from the perspective of how this change in production processes influences the inclusion of services in company business models. This study explores whether and how industrialisation arises as an enabler for servitization in the construction sector. By means of an in-depth case study, our research identifies different product-service system (PSS) typologies associated with industrial construction and reveals their potential to increase additional services. Furthermore, the research sheds light on how industrial construction provides an opportunity to integrate offers and features that work towards reducing the environmental impact of construction projects and the operation and maintenance of built assets.