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Strategic reasoning about business models: a conceptual modeling approach

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Abstract

Strategic reasoning about business models is an integral part of service design. In fast moving markets, businesses must be able to recognize and respond strategically to disruptive change. They have to answer questions such as: what are the threats and opportunities in emerging technologies and innovations? How should they target customer groups? Who are their real competitors? How will competitive battles take shape? In this paper we define a strategic modeling framework to help understand and analyze the goals, intentions, roles, and the rationale behind the strategic actions in a business environment. This understanding is necessary in order to improve existing or design new services. The key component of the framework is a strategic business model ontology for representing and analyzing business models and strategies, using the i* agent and goal oriented methodology as a basis. The ontology introduces a strategy layer which reasons about alternative strategies that are realized in the operational layer. The framework is evaluated using a retroactive example of disruptive technology in the telecommunication services sector from the literature.

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Notes

  1. In a positioning strategy, a firm believes that there are a few positions in the economic marketplace for any given industry. A firm that occupies those positions can defend itself from existing and future competitors (Mintzberg et al. 1998).

  2. Co-option is a situation in which an incumbent acquires the required skills to mimic the disruptive technology and integrate it in their own business (Christensen et al. 2004, p. 46).

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Acknowledgments

Financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Bell University Labs are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Engineering Center, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, 8140 Bahen center for Information Technology, 40 St George St, Toronto, ON, M5S3G8, Canada

    Reza Samavi & Thodoros Topaloglou

  2. Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto, 140 St George St, Toronto, ON, M5S3G6, Canada

    Eric Yu

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  1. Reza Samavi
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  2. Eric Yu
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  3. Thodoros Topaloglou
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Correspondence to Reza Samavi.

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Samavi, R., Yu, E. & Topaloglou, T. Strategic reasoning about business models: a conceptual modeling approach. Inf Syst E-Bus Manage 7, 171–198 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-008-0079-z

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