Economics of Grids, Clouds, Systems, and Services by Karim Djemame & Jörn Altmann & José Ángel Bañares & Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda & Maurizio Naldi

Author:Karim Djemame & Jörn Altmann & José Ángel Bañares & Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda & Maurizio Naldi
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030360276
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

2.2 Business Models and Business Model Patterns

No commonly accepted definition of the term “business model” has been established to date [19]. Besides textual definitions there exists a component-based view, which dominates the discussion on business models. According to that, a business model is a system comprising a set of interrelated components or partial models for depicting, implementing and evaluating the business logic of a company [20]. The business model concept builds upon central theories, in particular, the transaction cost theory, the resource-based view, the cooperation theory and the strategic network theory [21]. According to Amit and Zott [22], this cross-theoretical perspective is necessary as no existing theory can fully explain value creation alone. Business models have long taken a central role in explaining the differences in company performance [20, 23]. It has been shown that the same technology can result in significantly different economic output, depending on the way it is marketed by a business model [24]. Companies therefore differentiate and compete rather through business models and less through products or processes [25].

The scientific literature provides a variety of cross-industry and industry-specific business model frameworks, which include design options for various subsets of components [23]. A comprehensive and widespread cross-industry framework among both researchers and practitioners is the Business Model Canvas (BMC) [13]. The BMC comprises nine components: value propositions, key resources, key activities, partner network, customer segments, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams and cost structure. The BMC as a whole offers a common instrument to describe, visualize, evaluate and adapt business models [13].

Business model patterns are “[…] business models with similar characteristics, similar arrangements of business model Building Blocks, or similar behaviors” [13]. The use of business model patterns provides an efficient way to undertake business model innovation by drawing upon aspects that have already been proven to be successful for other firms and industries [26]. The importance of this concept is underlined by the finding that around 90% of all business models are a recombination of existing business model patterns [25]. However, business model patterns must not be misunderstood. They do not focus on imitating, but rather support creativity and efficiency within the business model innovation process [27]. Beyond this background, several scholars (e.g., [25, 28]) have proposed various, partly overlapping collections of cross-industry and industry-specific business model patterns. Research on business model patterns in the cloud domain is nascent. Only Labes, Erek and Zarnekow [29] identified four patterns, which, however, are mainly based on leading international providers and do not distinguish between the cloud service models.

In general, research on cloud business models has widely neglected so far that the cloud ecosystem entails a multitude of companies, which offer a variety of products and services such as IaaS, PaaS and SaaS and additionally act, e.g., as integrator, aggregator or consultant and thus are characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity [30]. An undifferentiated, ecosystem role-independent analysis of cloud business models therefore has only a low level of explanatory significance [3]. The majority of ecosystem role-specific studies has focused on SaaS providers [11].

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