  Digitalization and servitization are impacting many domains, including the
mining industry. As the equipment becomes connected and technical
infrastructure evolves, business models and risk management need to adapt. In
this paper, we present a study on how changes in asset and risk distribution
are evolving for the actors in a software ecosystem (SECO) and
system-of-systems (SoS) around a mining operation. We have performed a survey
to understand how Service Level Agreements (SLAs) -- a common mechanism for
managing risk -- are used in other domains. Furthermore, we have performed a
focus group study with companies. There is an overall trend in the mining
industry to move the investment cost (CAPEX) from the mining operator to the
vendors. Hence, the mining operator instead leases the equipment (as
operational expense, OPEX) or even acquires a service. This change in business
model impacts operation, as knowledge is moved from the mining operator to the
suppliers. Furthermore, as the infrastructure becomes more complex, this
implies that the mining operator is more and more reliant on the suppliers for
the operation and maintenance. As this change is still in an early stage, there
is no formalized risk management, e.g. through SLAs, in place. Rather, at
present, the companies in the ecosystem rely more on trust and the incentives
created by the promise of mutual future benefits of innovation activities. We
believe there is a need to better understand how to manage risk in SECO as it
is established and evolves. At the same time, in a SECO, the focus is on
cooperation and innovation, the companies do not have incentives to address
this unless there is an incident. Therefore, industry need, we believe, help in
systematically understanding risk and defining quality aspects such as
reliability and performance in the new business environment.
