Infocom business models innovation with the development of corporate universities

Since the mid-90s, the infocom industry has gone into a period of sustained disruptive innovations which, combined with deregulation, led to a lot of turbulence and a sometimes difficult redefinition of business models. A Schumpeterian wave of innovation enhanced by competition leads to creation of wealth as an unprecedented investment boom occurs in the infocom sector sustained by overly optimistic and sometimes fraudulent forecasts of internet traffic. We provide a strategic framework by explaining which types of infocom business models are better adapted to cope with the challenges of the new developments related to the digital economy, in order to shape the corporate innovation strategy. We also analyse how the development of a corporate university must be linked to the development of such innovation strategy. The first section of the article deals with the wave of disruptive innovations in the communications industry over the last few years and pinpoints the ubiquity of IT in all aspects of the economy and society. The next section focuses on the search for profitable business models for infocom providers. The links between business model innovation and the development of corporate universities is analysed in the next section. It is followed by a discussion section.