Curriculum Vitae:

Work experience

• August 2015 - February 2019: Head of Digital Media, con|energy agentur GmbH
• July 2010 - July 2015: Senior Consultant, con|energy agentur GmbH
• August 2008 - June 2010: Consultant, con|energy ag
• February 2002 - July 2008: Project Manager Web Development, con|energy ag
• January 2001 - January 2002: Software developer, Energieportal GmbH & Co. KG
• June 2001 - March 2009: Managing partner, ARW Multimedia GbR
• March 1999 - December 2000: Web developer, con|energy ag

Education

• Degree Program in Information Systems (VAWi, M. Sc.), Universität Duisburg-Essen
• Systems Engineering (B. Sc.), Universität Duisburg-Essen, specialization: Business Systems Engineering

Fields of Research:

• Ecosystems, Value Networks Digital Business Models
• Fintech, E-Commerce
• Internet of Things (IoT)

Publications:

• Wulfert, Tobias; Woroch, Robert; Strobel, Gero; Schoormann, Thorsten; Banh, Leonardo: E-commerce ecosystems as catalysts for sustainability: A multi-case analysis. In: Electronic Markets, Vol 34 (2024) No 58. doi:10.1007/s12525-024-00733-zCitationAbstractDetails

  Single organizations encounter intricate challenges in meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on their own and thus are increasingly concerned with forming ecosystems. This is also the case in the e-commerce domain. It is assumed that particularly focal actors of such ecosystems have the power to foster initiatives towards more sustainability. We conducted an embedded multi-case study with 135 initiatives collected from three types of e-commerce ecosystems to uncover what sustainability goals are addressed by different ecosystem participants. This paper’s analysis explores (1) what sustainability initiatives are reported from focal actors and differences depending on a specific type of ecosystem, (2) dependencies between SDGs within the initiatives, and (3) the degree of involvement of other ecosystem actors and how they contribute to certain SDGs. Our work synthesizes existing initiatives towards sustainable development to give orientation and impulses for practice and academia as well as outlines avenues for future research at the intersection of ecosystems and sustainability.

• Wulfert, Tobias; Woroch, Robert; Strobel, Gero: Follow the flow: An exploratory multi-case study of value creation in e-commerce ecosystems. In: Information & Management, Vol 61 (2024) No 8. doi:10.1016/j.im.2024.104035CitationAbstractDetails

  Platform-based ecosystems dominate e-commerce, generating value through participant growth and resulting network effects. However, research has lacked any conceptualization of value creation in e-commerce ecosystems. This paper fills this gap by providing a theoretically grounded and empirically validated conceptualization of value creation and exchange, including roles, value creation activities, and value flows among participants. The model integrates insights from a systematic literature review and a multi-case study of ten leading e-commerce ecosystems. Furthermore, an extension to the e3-value notation is proposed by introducing ecosystem segments, allowing for a higher level of abstraction of meta-roles and individual ecosystem participants.

• Muschkiet, Michel; Wulfert, Tobias; Woroch, Robert; Strobel, Gero; Banh, Leonardo: Unleashing the digital building bricks - A smart service taxonomy for retail. In: Electronic Markets, Vol 2023 (2023) No 33. doi:10.1007/s12525-023-00666-zFull textCitationAbstractDetails

  The increasing online competition, associated changes in customer behaviors, and effects of the pandemic in recent years have led to increasing retail store closures. This development has given rise to a downward spiral in terms of a decreasing attractiveness of local shopping places and a further reduction of stores. Research has recognized that smart services can unleash the potential to compensate for the competitive disadvantages of physical retailers by combining tailored physical and digital offerings to enhance customer-oriented value creation. However, most approaches are limited to in-store services without addressing the wider shopping experience in retail surroundings. Therefore, this paper provides a classification framework for smart services in retail evaluated against 163 use cases, as well as six service archetypes. This work contributes to understanding relevant service design elements and proposes applying the idea of a holistic customer experience to service design in physical retail environments.

• Wulfert, Tobias; Woroch, Robert; Strobel, Gero; Schoormann, Thorsten; Banh, Leonardo: Unboxing the Role of E-Commerce Ecosystems to Address Grand Challenges. In: AIS (Ed.): ECIS 2023 Research Papers. Kristiansand, Norway 2023. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  The modern world is confronted with grand challenges, such as those codified by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. As single organizations are often not capable of addressing a broad set of goals on their own, they are increasingly concerned with creating ecosystems. This is also the case in the domain of e-commerce. Owners of focal platforms in e-commerce ecosystems have the power to implement sustainability initiatives and therefore need to be equipped with an overview of possible initiatives and actionable guidance. To unbox how e-commerce ecosystem participants consider sustainability, we conducted a multi-case study with 99 initiatives collected from sustainability reports. We found that (1) sustainability initiatives particularly focus on reducing inequality and managing climate change as well as (2) manufacturers, sellers, and service providers are the most involved ecosystem participants. Based on our findings, we (3) synthesized six categories of sustainability initiatives as measurements.

• Woroch, Robert; Strobel, Gero; Wulfert, Tobias: Four Shades of Customer: How Value Flows in Fintech Ecosystems. In: AiS (Ed.): ICIS 2022 Proceedings. Copenhagen, Denmark 2022. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  The financial sector is undergoing a massive transformation, with new technology-driven players challenging established mechanisms and transforming the sector into a fast-moving market. With the gradual transition from a scale economy to a platform-driven network economy, enterprise networks are gaining strategic importance. Despite the growing interest in fintech’s, research has so far lacked a conceptualization of value creation in fintech ecosystems. Therefore, this research paper aims to analyze key players, value creation activities, and value streams based on the analysis of the business models of payment services, personal financial management, robo-advisory, peer-to-peer lending, trading, and cryptocurrency. We present a holistic value network for the fintech ecosystem based on structured literature review and analysis of 171 fintech companies. We were able to show that fintech platform orchestrates multiple market sides and that customers take four distinct roles at the center of the ecosystem when using fintech services.

• Wulfert, Tobias; Woroch, Robert; Strobel, Gero; Seufert, Sarah; Mölller, Frederik: Developing design principles to standardize e-commerce ecosystems - A systematic literature review and multi-case study of boundary resources. In: Electronic Markets (2022). doi:10.1007/s12525-022-00558-8CitationAbstractDetails

  Platform ecosystems have captured a variety of markets, enabling coordination, transactions, and value co-creation between independent actors. A focal platform constitutes the central nexus of e-commerce ecosystems and fosters the interaction among ecosystem participants through their boundary resources. Standardizing these interfaces simplifies ecosystem entry for developers and increases the number of participants propelling the network effects, and thus the overall value of the ecosystem. Currently, there is a lack of prescriptive design knowledge guiding platform owners in designing successful e-commerce ecosystems. Addressing this issue, we followed a dual approach, reporting on a systematic literature review in which we identified design requirements and complemented these with a multiple-case study on selected e-commerce ecosystems. Aggregating the requirements resulted in six meta-requirements and 19 design principles that foster the standardization of focal e-commerce platforms. Our design principles simplify the development of complements and enable multi-homing for developers due to possible standardization across ecosystems.

• Woroch, Robert; Strobel, Gero: Show me the Money: How to monetize data in data-driven business models?. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI). Nürnberg, Germany 2022. CitationAbstractDetails

  Increasing digitization and the associated tremendous usage of technology have led to data of unprecedented quantity, variety, and speed, which is generated, processed, and required in almost all areas of industry and life. The value creation and capturing from data presents companies with numerous challenges, as they must create or adapt appropriate structures and processes. As a link between corporate strategy and business processes, business models are a suitable instrument for meeting these challenges. However, few research has been conducted focusing on data-based monetization in the context of data-driven business models so far. Based on a systematic literature review the paper identifies five key components and 23 characteristics of data-driven business models having crucial influence on data-based value creation and value capturing and thus on monetization. The components represent key factors for achieving commercial benefits from data and serve as guidance for exploring and designing suitable data-driven business models.

• Woroch, Robert; Strobel, Gero: Understanding Value Creation in Digital Companies – A Taxonomy of IoT-enabled Business Models. In: AiS (Ed.): Proceedings of the 29th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2021). A Virtual AIS Conference 2021. CitationAbstractDetails

  The spread of the Internet of Things offers companies the potential to exert a disruptive influence on existing market structures and entire domains. The shift from product to service orientation and the integration of the customer as a value co-creator makes the identification and development of value-adding, IoT-based offerings a central challenge. As a link between strategy and business processes, business models are a suitable tool to meet this challenge. However, present business models lack of consideration of IoT specific characteristics. Against this background we provide a taxonomy for the description of IoT-based business models based on systematic literature research. Furthermore, the taxonomy is applied to 103 business models, demonstrating its usefulness. We also provide insights into the design of business models within two domains. The taxonomy provides a tool for investigating busi-ness models, especially how IoT can be incorporated into them and also a conceptual basis for future research.

Reviewing and consulting activities:

• Reviewer for European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2024)
• Reviewer for Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS)
• Reviewer for Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2024 (HICSS-57)
• Reviewer for 18th International Conference on
  Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) 2023 for the Track Business Models, Digital Transformation & Entrepreneurship
• Reviewer for International Conference on Software Business (ICSOB) 2022
• Reviewer for Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) 2021
• Reviewer for International Conference on Software Business (ICSOB) 2021

Talks:

• Woroch, Robert: Four Shades of Customer: How Value Flows in Fintech Ecosystems, International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) 2022, 14.12.2022, Copenhagen, Denmark. AbstractDetails

  The financial sector is undergoing a massive transformation, with new technology-driven players challenging established mechanisms and transforming the sector into a fast-moving market. With the gradual transition from a scale economy to a platform-driven network economy, enterprise networks are gaining strategic importance. Despite the growing interest in fintech’s, research has so far lacked a conceptualization of value creation in fintech ecosystems. Therefore, this research paper aims to analyze key players, value creation activities, and value streams based on the analysis of the business models of payment services, personal financial management, robo-advisory, peer-to-peer lending, trading, and cryptocurrency. We present a holistic value network for the fintech ecosystem based on structured literature review and analysis of 171 fintech companies. We were able to show that fintech platform orchestrates multiple market sides and that customers take four distinct roles at the center of the ecosystem when using fintech services.

• Woroch, Robert: Show me the Money: How to monetize data in data-driven business models?, 17th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI22), 22.02.2022, Nürnberg, Germany (Virtual). AbstractDetails

  Increasing digitization and the associated tremendous usage of technology have led to data of unprecedented quantity, variety, and speed, which is generated, processed, and required in almost all areas of industry and life. The value creation and capturing from data presents companies with numerous challenges, as they must create or adapt appropriate structures and processes. As a link between corporate strategy and business processes, business models are a suitable instrument for meeting these challenges. However, few research has been conducted focusing on data-based monetization in the context of data-driven business models so far. Based on a systematic literature review the paper identifies five key components and 23 characteristics of data-driven business models having crucial influence on data-based value creation and value capturing and thus on monetization. The components represent key factors for achieving commercial benefits from data and serve as guidance for exploring and designing suitable data-driven business models.

• Woroch, Robert: Understanding Value Creation in Digital Companies – A Taxonomy of IoT-enabled Business Models, 29th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2021), 14.06.2021, A Virtual AIS Conference. AbstractDetails

  The spread of the Internet of Things offers companies the potential to exert a disruptive influence on existing market structures and entire domains. The shift from product to service orientation and the integration of the customer as a value co-creator makes the identification and development of value-adding, IoT-based offerings a central challenge. As a link between strategy and business processes, business models are a suitable tool to meet this challenge. However, present business models lack of consideration of IoT specific characteristics. Against this background we provide a taxonomy for the description of IoT-based business models based on systematic literature research. Furthermore, the taxonomy is applied to 103 business models, demonstrating its usefulness. We also provide insights into the design of business models within two domains. The taxonomy provides a tool for investigating busi-ness models, especially how IoT can be incorporated into them and also a conceptual basis for future research.

Courses:

• Advanced Programming Concepts (since winter term 19/20)
• Paradigms and Concepts of Software Engineering (summer term 20) 
• Supervision of Bachelor and Master Project (seit winter term 19/20)

Tutored Theses:

• Generativity as a driver of innovation in digital platforms: Analyzing impact factors and deriving a research agenda (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems, in progress)
• Unveiling the Value Creation in Digital Platform Ecosystems: A Multi-Case Study of AI Service Platforms (Master Thesis Business Information Systems, in progress)
• Data Ecosystems in the Energy Sector – Analysis of Data and Value Flows (Master Thesis Business Information Systems, 2023)
• Developing design principles for VR training systems in industrial maintenance and assembly (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems, 2023)
• Shaping the Path Towards European Data Sovereignty: Developing Design Principles for International Data Spaces (Master Thesis Business Information Systems, 2023)
• Conceptual modeling in the era of augmented reality: design and evaluation of a modeling tool for value modelling (Master Thesis Business Information Systems, 2022)
• Value in the Age of Data Ecosystems: A Systematic Approach to Assessing Data Value (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems, 2022)
• Business Process Management in the era of Internet of Things: A State-of-the-Art Analysis of potentials and challenges (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems, 2022)
• Analysis of opportunities and challenges using IoMT to combat pandemics based on the example of Covid-19 (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems, 2022)
• Analyse der Anwendbarkeit von Business Model Frameworks für digitale Plattformen im Smart City Kontext (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems, 2021)
• Industry 4.0 – Conception of a Requirements Catalogue for Employees in the Smart Factory Regarding to Human-Machine Interaction (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems, 2021)
• Conception and evaluation of the use of innovative technologies for the digital transformation of stationary retail trade (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems, 2020)
• Design Principles for Data Ecosystems in the health sector (Bachelor Thesis Business Information Systems)