The digital transformation of industries, which traditionally focused on physical products, towards integrated product-service offerings requires fundamental changes also on the level of information technology. In particular, these changes require the provision of flexible IT architectures that support fast adaptations for innovative combinations of physical products and IT-delivered services. In this context, multiple dimensions need to be taken into account. These range from performance and cost aspects to recent opportunities emerging from modern cloud-based approaches. In this paper we describe how the selection of an appropriate IT architecture can be supported using the concept of archetypes. Thereby different options for the design of the IT architecture are derived and compared to each other. The approach has been successfully applied in a feasibility study with Hilti Corporation where it supported the realization of the Hilti Cloud.

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