Born Digitals internationalization - the challenges and success factors from a business model perspective

Abstract: The new phenomena, Born Digitals, is rapidly growing in the international business landscape. However, academics are still lacking knowledge about what success factors and challenges these firms may face during an international expansion. Previous literature has primarily focused on digital companies, performed single-case studies, or analyzed specific geographical regions. As such, this study will aim at closing the research gap by performing a cross-industrial study on Swedish Born Digital service companies with a focus on both success factors and challenges. These will be analyzed from a value capture, value delivery, and value creation perspective to provide a better understanding of how Born Digitals differentiate from traditional firms. We used a qualitative approach by collecting data through in-depth interviews with both company executives and experts within the given field. This allowed us to decompose Born Digitals' internationalization process into common themes and patterns. The results found that the success factors and challenges can generally be categorized into networks, adaptations & flexibility, market conditions, managerial capabilities, and flexibility. Overall, the findings imply that managers should consider the unique characteristics of their industry, leverage digital infrastructure, build and leverage networks, focus on achieving profitability, and adapt to local market conditions in order to create sustainable value and ensure the success of their business.