Orchestrating the Twin Transition in Multinational Corporations: Technology Roadmapping for Green and Digital Global Business Services
For multinational corporations and GBS leaders, this provides a data-driven design approach to navigate the Twin Transition, though it is largely conceptual and lacks concrete empirical validation.
This paper synthesizes Technology Roadmapping with an ICT innovation ecosystem toolkit to derive a socio-technical framework for orchestrating the Twin Transition (green and digital) in multinational corporations' Global Business Services. It identifies an evolutionary shift toward 'Sustainable Intelligence' and highlights resilient 'Middle Power' hubs as a 'third way' for global value chains.
Global Business Services (GBS) have emerged as a "living laboratory" for the Twin Transition of Green and Digital Transformation, as multinational corporations (MNCs) face increasing pressure to harmonize digital efficiency with environmental stewardship. Aiming to derive a socio-technical framework, this paper synthesizes Technology Roadmapping (TRM) with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ICT-centric innovation ecosystem toolkit. A bibliometric analysis of research clusters reveals an evolutionary shift from basic process automation toward "Sustainable Intelligence," identifying the GBS unit as a central "operational airlock" that mediates between landscape pressures -- such as the EU's dual mandate and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms -- and niche innovations in AI-native workflows. The study further maps these clusters onto a stakeholder engagement canvas, highlighting how resilient "Middle Power" hubs in Poland, Portugal, and Malaysia are bypassing the middle-income trap to provide a "third way" for global value chains amidst a bifurcated geopolitical cloud. The results offer a data-driven design approach for leaders and entrepreneurial support networks to orchestrate talent and supply chain flows, thereby enriching the conceptual understanding of Industry 5.0 and the role of GBS as a primary mechanism for navigating a volatile, multipolar digital economy.