Managing business model innovation: an innovative approach towards designing a digital ecosystem and multi-sided platform

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nino Bernd Hoch ◽  
Stelian Brad

PurposeThis study aims to increase understanding regarding the transformation of traditional business models, integrating digital technologies. The significance of digitisation within business models has increased dramatically in recent years. Because of this, new knowledge on how to transform traditional business models into digital business models in a systematic way is needed. Digital technologies, embedded in previously non-digital goods, force companies to rethink their business models.Design/methodology/approachA design science research methodology was chosen for this study. A literature review and semi-structured interviews served as the theoretical foundation to integrate behavioural science into the design science process. From the design science perspective, an artefact is introduced to provide an architectural framework to manage business model innovation in a systematic way. The artefact's application is demonstrated through a case study conducted at a real company and evaluated afterwards by means of structured interviews with experts.FindingsThe authors propose a highly useable and valuable conceptual framework for systematic business model innovation. However, one limitation of the research is that it was conducted among construction professionals in Germany, and so the result might not hold true for other firms or industry branches.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was conducted among construction professionals in Germany, and this acts as a limitation, as the result might not hold true for other firms or industry branches.Originality/valueThe purpose of this study is to provide managers with a framework for business model innovation, helping them systematically integrate digital technologies to create customer-added value. The proposed framework presents an innovative conceptual analysis of systematic business model innovation, which has not been addressed in prior studies.

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Nardelli ◽  
Risto Rajala

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to improve the current understanding of business model innovation by outlining how business models unfold over time within supplier–client relationships in facilities management (FM) services. Design/methodology/approach This study of FM services in Denmark consists of an explorative case study and three case studies of FM clients. Both phases, related and overlapping, involved collection and analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and archive data. Findings Findings show that business model innovation entails interorganisational collaboration across different phases of the innovation process. The research demonstrates that external orientation within FM service ecosystems involves both a reaction to changes in the external environment and the proactive involvement of stakeholders throughout business model innovation. Research limitations/implications The selection of business model innovation processes was limited to the Danish context. The sample, although heterogeneous and representative, represented only a fraction of the total population, which may have excluded processes of business model innovation that contradict the research. Practical implications This paper suggests that by observing the business models of the value network over time, organisations could learn from the interdependencies between intra- and interorganisational stakeholders, thereby supporting the monitoring of risks and uncertainties as well as the anticipation of potential consequences of changes in the ecosystem. Originality/value This paper introduces new thinking on the subject of business model innovation to the context of FM. It presents the external orientation of FM business models as a way to combine planned and emergent business model innovation through interorganisational collaboration and value creation in FM ecosystems.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjar Priyono ◽  
Baziedy Darmawan ◽  
Gunawan Witjaksono

Purpose This study aims to investigate how manufacturing firms in the creative industries harness digital technologies to undertake business model innovation. Design/methodology/approach This study used in-depth case studies to examine the complex interplay between digital technologies and business model innovation. A longitudinal approach was selected to capture major events both within the firm and in the business environment. Building on the firm’s archival data, interviews and secondary data that was available to the public, the authors carefully analyzed impactful digital technology events and the firm’s responses to the technological changes that occurred over the period of 2004–2020. Findings The findings suggest that digital technologies alone are not sufficient for business model innovation to be successful; support from sociotechnical factors is also required. Additionally, firms should reinvent a new business model when the existing ones seem to start to diminish. Research limitations/implications In this study one firm was examined as the subject, using a qualitative method. This method allowed us to observe complex interplays among the resources required in business models. Future research can combine qualitative methods with computational case studies, which utilize a large volume of quantitative big data. Practical implications The results of this study suggest that managers must ensure that the resources within and outside organizations are loosely connected and are readily available to be mobilized for supporting business model innovation. To enable this, managers must prepare the required resources in advance. Originality/value The current findings add to a growing body of literature on business model innovation and digital technologies. In particular, this study describes the process of how a traditional firm from a least developed country pursues business model innovation with the support of digital technologies.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phuc Hong Huynh

PurposeDigital innovation and circular business model innovation are two critical enablers of a circular economy. A wide variety of digital technologies such as blockchain, 3D printing, cyber-physical systems, or big data also diverges the applications of digital technologies in circular business models. Given heterogeneous attributes of circular business models and digital technologies, the selections of digital technologies and circular business models might be highly distinctive within and between sectorial contexts. This paper examines digital circular business models in the context of the fashion industry and its multiple actors. This industry as the world’s second polluting industry requires an urgent circular economy (CE) transition with less resource consumption, lower waste emissions and a more stable economy.Design/methodology/approachAn inductive, exploratory multiple-case study method is employed to investigate the ten cases of different sized fashion companies (i.e. large, small medium-sized firm (SME) and startup firms). The comparison across cases is conducted to understand fashion firms' distinct behaviours in adopting various digital circular economy strategies.FindingsThe paper presents three archetypes of digital-based circular business models in the fashion industry: the blockchain-based supply chain model, the service-based model and the pull demand-driven model. Besides incremental innovations, the radical business model and digital innovations as presented in the pull demand-driven model may be crucial to the fashion circular economy transition. The pull demand–driven model may shift the economy from scales to scopes, change the whole process of how the fashion items are forecasted, produced, and used, and reform consumer behaviours. The paths of adopting digital fashion circular business models are also different among large, SMEs and startup fashion firms.Practical implicationsThe study provides business managers with empirical insights on how circular business models (CBMs) should be chosen according to intrinsic business capacities, technological competences and CE strategies. The emerging trends of new fashion markets (e.g. rental, subscription) and consumers' sustainable awareness should be not be neglected. Moreover, besides adopting recycling and reuse strategies, large fashion incumbents consider collaborating with other technology suppliers and startup companies to incubate more radical innovations.Social implicationsAppropriate policies and regulations should be enacted to enable the digital CE transition. Market patterns and consumer acceptances are considered highly challenging to these digital fashion models. A balanced policy on both the demand and supply sides are suggested. The one-side policy may fail CBMs that entail an upside-down collaboration of both producers and consumers. Moreover, it is perhaps time to rethink how to reduce unnecessary new demand rather than repeatedly producing and recycling.Originality/valueThe pace of CE research is lagging far behind the accelerating environmental contamination by the fashion industry. The study aims to narrow the gap between theory and practice to harmonise fashion firms' orchestration and accelerate the transition of the fashion industry towards the CE. This study examines diverse types of digital technologies in different circular business models in a homogeneous context of the fashion industry with heterogeneous firm types.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhong Chen ◽  
Ruijun Zhang ◽  
Di Wu

The equipment maintenance services have become a new profit center and an important way to gain sustainable competitive advantage for manufacturing enterprises. The business model is an important tool for manufacturing enterprises to derive economic benefits from sustainable competitive advantage in the context of digitalization technologies, such as IoT, big data, and cloud computing. At present, the concept of equipment maintenance business model innovation is still vague, and it is rare to report on the innovation behaviors and types of equipment maintenance business models adopted by manufacturing enterprises. Based on literature analysis of equipment maintenance services and business model innovation, following business model gestalt theory, the concept of equipment maintenance business model innovation is analyzed at the business-level, the types are divided into novel and efficient following value sources—“innovation and efficiency”. The initial scale is developed through literature investigation, semi-structured interviews and expert reviews, and tested by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis by using the data of two independent large-sample questionnaires. The results indicate that the behavior and types of equipment maintenance business model innovation can be described by two types and 19 items.


2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 34-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Pohle ◽  
Marc Chapman

PurposeTo ascertain whether the choices CEOs were making about particular types of innovation and key enablers had any correlation with financial performance, IBM looked at a subset of our sample where publicly reported financial information was available.Design/methodology/approachThe findings in this report are based on in‐depth, consultative interviews on the topic of innovation with 765 CEOs, business executives and public sector leaders from around the world.FindingsFor a subset, the authors compared their financial performance to that of an industry‐accepted list of their nearest competitors (up to ten companies with similar revenue and publicly available information). Some of their competitors were CEO study participants, but most were not. By taking a five‐year view, the researchers were able to identify which companies outperformed and under‐performed the average revenue growth, operating margin growth and historical operating margins of their closest competitors.Research limitations/implicationsThroughout the analysis, IBM used these top‐half and bottom‐half groupings to look for notable financial correlations. In this report, the term outperformers refers to the study participants that are in the top 50 percent based on this competitive comparison, and under‐performers are those that fall in the bottom 50 percent.Practical implicationsThe authors report on how business leaders are seeking and finding new ways to adapt their business models to remain competitive in their current industry – or to seek growth by entering new industries.Originality/valueCompanies focusing on business model innovation have enjoyed significant operating margin growth, while those using products/services/markets and operational innovation have sustained their margins over time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (12) ◽  
pp. 2051-2065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Melander ◽  
Ala Pazirandeh Arvidsson

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a seller can use interactions to respond to public procurement needs for innovation when the buying side is restricted by public procurement regulations. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected data using qualitative semi-structured interviews of different empirical examples, in which private–public interactions of four different high-technological products are studied. Two products belong to the defence industry and two to the civil industry. Findings The findings point to three types of innovations in public procurement: product, service and business model. The empirical examples further indicate, as suggested in previous studies, that innovation is hindered by regulations that limit interaction between suppliers and the public. In addition, the empirical examples indicate that firms mobilize actors in their network when the buyer is restricted in regard to interaction. The findings also add to the IMP literature by comparing interactions in the three types of innovations in the public procurement context. Originality/value Public procurement is an area where innovations are lagging behind, compared with private procurement. Research points to limited interaction between actors as an obstacle to innovation in public sector collaborations. This paper extends the literature on how organizations interact in the setting of public procurement. The authors identify demand and supply triggers for three types of innovations: product, service and business model innovation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelo Cavallo ◽  
Antonio Ghezzi ◽  
Bertha Viviana Ruales Guzmán

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how a firm may innovate its business model to internationalize. Design/methodology/approach Owing to its novelty and to the depth of the investigation required to grasp the mechanisms and logics of business model innovation aiming at internationalization, a single case study has been performed related to a company located in North-Western Colombia. Findings The study provides detailed empirical evidences over the mutual connection and complementarities among value mechanisms of business models. Moreover, this study suggests that BMI fosters internationalization to scale, which, in turn, will require additional changes to match new customer needs as they emerge. Also, the study shows an extension of the action–space of lean startup approaches, intended as scientific approaches to international entrepreneurship. Originality/value This study connects business model innovation and internationalization as few studies have done before.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiali Zheng ◽  
Han Qiao ◽  
Xiumei Zhu ◽  
Shouyang Wang

Purpose This study aims to explore the role of equity investment in knowledge-driven business model innovation (BMI) in context of open modes according to the evidence from China’s primary market. Design/methodology/approach Based on the database of China’s private market and data set of news clouds, the statistic approach is applied to explore and explain whether equity investment promotes knowledge-driven BMI. Machine learning method is also used to prove and predict the performance of such open innovation. Findings The results of logistic regression show that explanatory variables are significant, providing evidence that knowledge management (KM) promotes BMI through equity investment. By further using back propagation neural network, the classification learning algorithm estimates the possibility of BMI, which can be regarded as a score to quantify the performance of knowledge-driven BMI Research limitations/implications The quality of secondhand big data is not very ideal, and future empirical studies should use first-hand survey data. Practical implications This study provides new insights into the link between KM and BMI by highlighting the important roles of external investments in open modes. Social implications From the perspective of investment, the findings of this study suggest the importance for stakeholders to share knowledge and strategies for entrepreneurs to manage innovation. Originality/value The concepts and indicators related to business models are difficult to quantify currently, while this study provides feasible and practical methods to estimate knowledge-driven BMI with secondhand data from the primary market. The mechanism of knowledge and innovation bridged by the experience from investors is introduced and analyzed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 398-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arash Najmaei ◽  
Jo Rhodes ◽  
Peter Lok

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore and explain how market and technological knowledge gained by executives interact in a complementary fashion to form the knowledge structure of their business model which in turn enable them to make sense of underlying complexities surrounding management of strategic courses of action. Design/methodology/approach – Unitizing, categorizing, and classifying (UCC) in conjunction with pattern-matching (power and proof quotes) as qualitative methods were used to analyse a series of semi-structured interviews with eight executives from five small manufacturing firms in Australia. Findings – It was found that executives’ business modelling knowledge structure defined as the knowledge base that underpins their business models is developed from four interactions that exist between their market and technological knowledge. Particularly, executives can learn about technological aspects of their business model from market knowledge they acquire and also learn about marketing issues of their business model from technological knowledge they acquire. This interactive nature offers novel insights into versatility and fungibility of executives’ knowledge as a strategic resource that defines how business models evolve and shows how executives use knowledge as a non-rivalrous resource in different ways for developing different business models. Research limitations/implications – This study is limited in scope to: first, the context of executive of Australian small manufacturing firms and second, limited sources of data. Practical implications – This study offers important implications for business modelling and strategic formulation of practicing managers. It particularly contributes to a fuller understanding of how executives’ learning contributes to the cognitive formation of business models. It also helps executives gain new insights into the importance of various types of knowledge and the complementary nature of their interactions in the development of novel mental models as a key managerial competency in today’s dynamic markets. Originality/value – The conceptual framework developed and findings reported in this study have not been previously studied and offer novel insights into the literature on knowledge-based management, competitiveness, and business modelling.


Author(s):  
Jaqueline Pels ◽  
Tomás Andrés Kidd

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that expands business model innovation literature by including a social goal, the emerging markets (EMs) environmental characteristics and adopting a bottom-up perspective. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on a single-case study. Sistema Ser/CEGIN (SER–CEGIN) is an Argentine social business that offers high-quality medical healthcare to BOP users. Findings – The paper presents a new conceptualization on business model innovation that includes three dimensions: firm-centric, environment and customer-centric. The framework incorporates to the traditional framework on business model innovation, the social profit equation, the general and task environment and the end-user, as well as the dynamics between them. Research limitations/implications – While the authors acknowledge the importance of studying the components of the business model operating levels (economic, operational and strategic) to determine the type of business model innovation (revenue, enterprise and industrial), the framework incoporates the environment and customer-centric dimension. The suggested framework opens new streams of research both for the innovation business model literature as well as for the EMs – bottom of the pyramid (BOP) literature. Practical implications – To achieve economic and social goals, particularly in the BOP, firms need to adopt a bottom-up approach to understand the components of their business model that need to be modified. Originality/value – The paper proposes a novel business model innovation conceptualization which is useful for both researches to better study business models in the BOP and for firms to successfully operate in the BOP.


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