General Contractor Business Model for Smart Cities: Fundamentals and Techniques

This book covers three principal subject areas: smart cities, general contractors and business models. The smart city concept is currently on the rise and cities around the world appear to be in a race to become smart, fast. Converting big cities into smart cities is a move that almost all cities around the globe have made, or will undoubtedly make in the near future, to be able to cope with the various repercussions of urbanization. Smartness is a vague term that could relate to anything and everything, such as infrastructure, people or governance. In this book, we focus our attention on smart buildings - large ones, in particular - and attempt to identify the key problems that France-based construction companies face today, in order to suggest plausible solutions. Our research findings show that no single business model can fit all smart cities worldwide. Using the general contractor business model for smart cities, this book proposes an original solution to managing smart city projects, bringing together architecture, construction and strategy.

Table of Contents:
List of Acronyms ix Preface xiii Introduction xix Chapter 1 On Smart Cities: A Literature Review 1 1.1 Historical synopsis 3 1.1.1 Sustainability, unfolded 5 1.1.2 The sustainable in a city 6 1.1.3 The start of smart 9 1.2 Definitions, features and models 11 1.3 Examples of smart cities and initiatives 21 1.3.1 Barcelona, Spain 21 1.3.2 Amsterdam, The Netherlands 22 1.3.3 London, United Kingdom 23 1.3.4 Copenhagen, Denmark 24 1.3.5 Seoul, South Korea 26 1.4 Smart city market outlook 30 1.5 Are all cities destined to be smart? 32 1.6 Conclusion 33 Chapter 2 A General Contractor: A Maven, A Connector 35 2.1 New value chains in construction 36 2.2 The construction project lifecycle 42 2.3 Innovation in construction 46 2.4 The general contractor 47 2.4.1 Roles and responsibilities 48 2.4.2 General contractors versus other industry actors 52 2.5 How do general contractors resemble music conductors? 57 2.6 Conclusion 63 Chapter 3 On Business Models 65 3.1 Definitions 66 3.2 Constituents and illustrations 69 3.2.1 Business model canvas 72 3.2.2 Causal loop diagram 75 3.2.3 RCOV framework 78 3.2.4 Triple layered business model canvas 80 3.3 Business model arrangements and value 83 3.4 An amalgam of strategies and tactics 88 3.4.1 Strategies 89 3.4.2 Tactics 90 3.4.3 Stractics 91 3.5 On business model innovation: a long primer 94 3.5.1 Definitions 99 3.5.2 Streams of research on BMI 102 3.5.3 Gaps and challenges 106 3.5.4 Some practical insights into BMI 110 3.6 From the managerial question to the research questions 120 Chapter 4 The Design Process of the General Contractor Business Model 121 4.1 Phase 1: rise 124 4.2 Phase 2: showcase 131 4.3 Phase 3: maturity 139 4.3.1 The six-stratum business model 144 4.4 Phase 4: evaluation 156 Chapter 5 Research Findings 159 5.1 Problems 159 5.1.1 Economic 160 5.1.2 Social 176 5.1.3 Environment 182 5.1.4 Technical 186 5.2 Solutions 194 5.2.1 Economic 196 5.2.2 Social 208 5.2.3 Environment 215 5.2.4 Technical 218 5.3 The general contractor business model 227 5.3.1 Breakdown of problems 229 5.3.2 Breakdown of solutions 247 5.4 Conclusion 253 5.5 Appendix 254 5.5.1 Interview technique 254 5.5.2 Interviewees 254 Chapter 6 Discussions 257 6.1 Theoretical and methodological contributions 257 6.1.1 On smart cities 257 6.1.2 On general contractors 260 6.1.3 On business models 263 Conclusion 265 References 271 Index 287