Analysing e-business Models

Abstract

Abstract:The business model concept is becoming increasingly popular within ebusinesses and e-business research. However, the concept is often used relatively independently from theory, meaning model components and their interrelations are relatively obscure. This paper analysis three e-business models taxonomies based on a generic business model, which include customers and competitors, the offering, activities and organisation, resources and factor market interactions. The longitudinal processes and actions by which business models evolve are also included. The result of the analysis shows that most of the e-business models only addresses customers and the offering. Other important aspects of any business, e.g. activates and resource, are not addressed. In sum, e-business models, as they appear, in literature are formal descriptions of how businesses can use the Internet to leverage their offering, without any casual relationships between components, e.g. that the offering requires some activities to be performed by the organisation in order to deliver a offering to a market.

Business Models of Social Enterprises: Insight into Key Components and Value Creation

“…Business models describe the elements and relationships of a company [14]. Michelini and Fiorentino [14] have mapped out which components of a business model are highlighted by various authors, such as strategy, resources, customer interface, competitors, channels, structure et cetera [2,42]. Although the BMC of Osterwalder and Pigneur [41] has become a popular reference standard and is taught worldwide in management and entrepreneurship education [43], the literature also argues that the BMC does not fully represent the business model of a social company.…”

“…A network within environment is important [47]. From the hybrid organization literature, the following elements of a social business model should be considered [42,48,49]: (1) The mission should be defined around a social purpose. It creates a long-term mind-set.…”

Strategic Business Model Development in Ecosystems

“…Ecosystem: The dynamic perspective on the BM concept is further stressed by the increasing agreement amongst scholars that different types of ecosystem engagement characterise ventures' VCC mechanisms. While VCC is widely recognised as an interactive process (Hamel, 2002;Hedman & Kalling, 2002;Shafer et al, 2005), discussions about what, why, and how ecosystem interactions influence the process have been fuelled by the growing interests in BM development and long-term firm performance. To extend the ship analogy, when, where, and in what conditions a ship is arriving in a safe harbour when sailing through the uncertain and turbulent waters of ventures' early development stages, is often dependent on the course chosen, access to nautical maps, the crews' navigational skills, capabilities to leverage air and water currents, and changing weather conditions.…”

“…BMs' interdependent sets of activities, performed by ventures and actors, are widely regarded as the foundations for VCC mechanisms (Amit & Zott, 2001;Morris et al, 2005;Markides, 2015;Foss & Saebi, 2018). Since interdependencies of activities have been stylised as value and cost drivers (Afuah & Tucci, 2001;Hedman & Kalling, 2002;Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart, 2007;Zott & Amit, 2010), orchestrating internal and external activities can enhance value creation and/or reduce costs for engaged actors (Hamel, 2002;Morris et al, 2005;Zott et al, 2011;Massa et al, 2017). These interdependencies often define BMs' positions in ecosystems and thus what and how much value they can co-create and capture (Chesbrough, 2006;Sabatier et al, 2010;Ritter & Lettl, 2018).…”

“…Explaining VCC mechanisms in ecosystems calls for an understanding of how activities and underlying resources are combined and developed over time (Hedman & Kalling, 2002). Sabatier et al (2010) outlined that performing activities requires the accumulation of strategically important resources that may or may not be possessed internally.…”