A strategic stakeholder mapping for the modular data center industry in Scandinavia: A case study of Swedish Modules AB

Abstract: In these years, an overload of the physical telecommunication network has been experienced due to the exponential growth of devices connected to the Internet and the whole new set of applications and software running on them. In order to make the services for the end-users reliable and more performant, a new approach had been proposed in the recent years to rethink in a more efficient way the connectivity paradigm. Edge (or fog) computing is the most viable solution at date, making the actors involved in the hardware side of the new network layer, active parts of one of the fastest growing businesses at a global level. Scandinavia is considered the region with the most developed agenda on the digital topics, and for this reason, a study on the stakeholders involved in such an approach to connectivity is needed to provide hardware providers a useful tool with which strategically analyze any type of stakeholders. The case study of this master thesis has the aim to give an example of a strategic stakeholder mapping for a modular data center provider, Swedish Modules AB, that is going to supply customers with hardware solutions to build the edge layer in Scandinavia. The approach here followed is to first define who are the stakeholders with the Porter’s Five Forces and then group them with the Savage and Blair Model under four different families of stakeholders, making strategies and decisions to pursue towards these third parties more analytical and easier to undertake.