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DOI 10.1007/s10796-013-9474-1
Networked enterprise business model alignment: A case study
on smart living
Sam Solaimani & Harry Bouwman & Timo Itälä
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract One of the first steps in innovation projects and
entrepreneurial initiative involves formulating a Business
Model (BM) that describes the value creation, delivery
and capturing logic of a business idea. However, when
formulating a BM for networked enterprises, the alignment of the collective BM, supporting the joint service or
product on offer, and the underlying operational processes of the networked businesses, need to be taken into
account. This paper analyses the concept of Business
Model Alignment (BMA) based on qualitative case studies of two Smart Living projects in Finland and China. To
begin with, a Business Model framework (STOF) is applied to describe the high-level BM. Next, the Value,
Information and Process (VIP) framework is applied to
analyse BMA. The case studies show that an analytical
framework, such as the VIP model, helps reveal the
hurdles that may undermine BMA and, as a result, obstruct BM implementation. This paper contributes to
existing BM literature by identifying the steps that are
necessary to move from an abstract, often strategy-driven
BM, of collaborating enterprises towards an aligned BM
that can be implemented. This paper also contributes to
S. Solaimani (*) : H. Bouwman
Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of
Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
e-mail: h.solaimani@tudelft.nl
H. Bouwman
e-mail: w.a.g.a.bouwman@tudelft.nl
H. Bouwman
IAMSR, Åbo Akademi, Turku, Finland
T. Itälä
Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: timo.itala@aalto.fi
theory formation by identifying the issues that play a role
in achieving BMA.
Keywords Business model . Alignment . Implementation .
Smart living . Health and care platforms . Case study
1 Introduction
Many (R&D) innovation projects and new entrepreneurial
initiatives fail to commercialize the services or products in
question (Bouwman et al. 2012). In this paper, it is argued that
a viable, feasible and sustainable business requires a clearly
formulated Business Model (BM). Generally speaking, a BM
describes what a business should do to create, deliver and
capture value (Afuah and Tucci 2003; Chesbrough and
Rosenbloom 2002; Linder and Cantrell 2000). Although the
relevant factors involved in BM have been classified in numerous studies (Alt and Zimmermann 2001; Pateli and
Giaglis 2004), and many alternative ontologies, taxonomies
and frameworks have been developed (Al-Debei and
Fitzgerald 2010; Bouwman et al. 2008, Osterwalder 2004),
empirical research into the implementation of BM is scarce.
BM implementation refers to the formulation and application
of a specific set of policies and activities of a business as well
as operational level, with the aim of effectuating the BM.
Crafting a BM, using any BM framework, helps describe
and visualize an entrepreneurial vision (e.g., a new service,
product or bundle of product and service, start-up, spin-off,
joint-venture) in a simplified and abstract way, which in turn
allows companies to play with the typical components of a
business (e.g. new business market combinations, new customers, new enabling technologies, changes in the ecosystem,
etc.) with the aim of innovating and obtaining a sustainable
market share. However, the abstract vision of a BM, often
described at a highly abstract, strategic level, generally
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speaking focuses on an individual firm, often neglecting the
fact that a BM is created by networked business partners. Such
a high-level BM often indicates that business partners lack a
proper understanding of the operational interactions and interdependencies between networked business partners, which is
underlined by a statement of Tom Graves on BM. “People like
building business-models. It’s wonderfully abstract, and it’s
fun—like playing with model-trains, where the passengers are
only imaginary and the trains really can run on time.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) the real world is a bit different
from that… Real-world detail can break the best-looking
business-model without even breaking out a sweat. We need
to know that detail—or at least have a better sense of that
detail—before committing ourselves and others to a lot of
hard work and ultimate heartache (from Graves’ personal
weblog, 2011).”
To understand the exceedingly complex, uncertain and
dynamic reality of networked enterprises, this paper argues
that it is important to look beyond a BM as such and engage in
the analytical process of Business Model Alignment (BMA).
Although BM literature emphasizes the networked nature,
business networks, value networks or (micro-) ecosystems
are often discussed only at a strategic level. The aim of
BMA is to move beyond the strategic level and reconcile the
business objective(s) of a company or networked-enterprise,
as described in a strategy-level (collective) BM, with the
underlying operational and informational processes and/or
business activities of companies involved in their business
ecosystem. Although Osterwalder (2004) positions his approach between strategy and business processes, he focuses
mainly on individual firms, and his approach uses brainstorming, the internal alignment of business model components, the
alignment of the BM with the external environment of the firm
and with future scenarios. In line with the traditional alignment concept (e.g., Henderson and Venkatraman 1993), in this
paper, the alignment concept is used to bridge the gap between
strategic business and IT thinking with operational execution,
specifically in the context of networked enterprises. In bridging this gap, inter-organizational business processes and the
exchange of information and value have to be discussed in
relation to the leading BM, which is why, in this paper, a
generic framework is proposed, as discussed in detail in
Solaimani and Bouwman (2012). Based on two cases, this
paper analyses the concept of BMA in a networked enterprise
setting, examining how cumbersome inter-organizational operational processes as well as the exchange of value and
information may obstruct the implementation of a BM. The
cases, which are set in Finland and China, involve businesses
that work together in offering smart living solutions.
Examples of networked enterprise collaboration and innovation can be found in the Smart Living domain. Today’s
homes are mainly equipped with technologies that were
invented decades ago, while countless innovative smart
solutions and technologies (e.g., robotics, advance telecommunication, sensor networking) are ready to be deployed
outside laboratories. Companies that provide services and
products to increase people’s quality of life, inside and outside
residential homes, often find it hard to commercialize those
products and services (Harper 2003; Peine 2008; Shadbolt
2003). For a long time, technology-related limitations, including interoperability, privacy and security, production costs,
usability, usefulness, etc., were responsible for commercial
failures (e.g., Aarts 2004; Chan et al. 2008; Demiris et al.
2004; Gann et al. 1999; Harper 2003; Leitner et al. 2007;
Remagnino and Foresti 2005). However, given the unprecedented fast-paced improvements in technology and the understanding of user behaviour, that situation is gradually changing. With respect to commercialization, this paper argues that
having an operationally feasible BM is a prerequisite for
networked enterprises offering Smart Living platforms, services and products. Key processes and resources describe how
the intended value will be delivered to (and captured from)
customers as well as business partners (Johnson et al. 2008).
Given that business operations are described by business
processes, an alignment between an enterprise’s (or networked
enterprise’s) business processes and its (collective) BM is
essential. The goal of this paper is to propose a BMA approach
to analyse the interdependencies between networked enterprises offering a joint solution and the way they create value,
exchange information and align inter-organizational processes
(from design and development up to and including value
provision and capturing processes). This paper contributes to
both BM and alignment literature by answering the question
“what are the challenges that networked-enterprises face in
dealing with a joint BM and inter-organizational process
alignment, and the exchange of value and information?”
This paper is structured as follows. In the next section,
existing literature on BM and BMA is discussed, highlighting
a number of shortcomings of the existing approaches. In
addition, a concise description of the proposed VIP approach
is provided. The methodology applied in this paper is explained in Section 3. Section 4 contains a detailed description
of the two cases, while Section 5 discusses the theoretical and
practical implications, conclusions and limitations of this
study, and suggestions for future research.
2 Business model (BM) and business model alignment
(BMA)
Although there is as yet no consensus as to what the correct
definition of BM is, generally speaking the term to the values
businesses need to create, deliver and capture from their
services (or products) to meet their strategic objectives.
Existing literature on BM proposes various conceptual frameworks and ontologies to guide BM design, including the
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Business Model Ontology (BMO) (Osterwalder 2004), the
STOF framework (Bouwman et al. 2008), e3value (Gordijn
and Akkermans 2001), the Four-Box Business Model
(Johnson et al. 2008), the IBM’s Component Business
Model (Tian et al. 2008), C-SOFT (Heikkila et al. 2010),
and the models developed by Hedman and Kalling (2003),
Shafer et al. (2005) and Timmers (1998). While a BM describes what a business should do to generate value, the
question as how this is (or can be) done requires an in-depth
and broad understanding of the operational business processes
and activities of the businesses involved. In other words, the
implementation of a company’s BM requires (and is determined by) processes and activities, including the way the
company interacts with its business ecosystem (i.e., customers, partners and vendors) (Alt and Zimmermann 2001;
Morris et al. 2005; Teece 2010). Business Process Models
(BPM) and Enterprise Architectures (EAs) provide detailed
insight into the operational construction of a business.
Davenport (1993) defines Business Processes as “a specific
ordering of work activities across time and place, with a
beginning, an end, and clearly identified inputs and outputs:
a structure for action”, while EA is defined as “a coherent
whole of principles, methods, and models that are used in the
design and realization of an enterprise’s organizational structure, business processes, information systems, and infrastructure” (Lankhorst et al. 2009). In contrast to BPMs, which
focus on business processes, EAs attempt to provide a holistic
blueprint of the enterprise that captures business and operations alike (Lankhorst et al. 2009).
BM, BPM and EA have all been examined in a large
number of publications. Extensive literature studies on
Business Models (e.g., Al-Debei and Avison 2010; Morris
et al. 2005; Pateli and Giaglis 2004; Zott et al. 2011), Business
Process Models (e.g., Aldin and Cesare 2011; Van der Aalst
et al. 2000; Weske 2007) and Business/Enterprise
Architecture approaches (Versteeg and Bouwman 2006;
Bernard 2012; Lankhorst et al. 2009) hint at the sheer volume
of literature in these areas. Many studies, however, indicate
there is a conceptual gap between a BM and a company’s
operational processes (Al-Debei and Avison 2010; Bouwman
et al. 2008; Gordijn and Akkermans 2001; Osterwalder and
Pigneur 2002). On the other hand, the number of studies is
limited, especially in networked-enterprise settings with highly complicated and multi-level interactions and interdependencies. Attempts to address BMA have yielded a few approaches that try to distill operational models (e.g., BPMN,
ArchiMate) from the BM of individual companies, for example
Andersson et al. (2005, 2006), Edirisuriya and Johannesson
(2008), Iacob et al. (2012). However, none of these approaches
try to analyze BM alignment with the operational processes of
companies that work together in an organizational networked
environment. Instead, they describe and prescribe operational
processes by following a set of converting steps, with limited
attention to the multi-level interactions and interdependencies
between multiple stakeholders, which means it is reasonable to
classify them as converting approaches. For instance,
Edirisuriya and Johannesson (2008) propose six transformation
rules to transform an e 3value model into an Activity
Dependency Model (ADM) (Hruby 2006).
The converting approaches have four major shortcomings:
they are not comprehensive and they are tool-specific, onesided and descriptive (Solaimani and Bouwman 2012). The
fact that they are not comprehensive implies that not all the
essential components of BM or BPM are included, which
means they cannot serve as a wide-scope business management tool. For example, using BMO as a starting-point does
not offer any detail about the operational processes in terms of
the exchange of information and knowledge between stakeholders involved. That being said, communication, interaction, and knowledge sharing is underlined as challenging
aspects of networked enterprises and systems (e.g., Barjis
et al. 2011; Retzer et al. 2012). Another example is that of
value-modeling approaches (Allee 2008), which merely focus
on the values being exchanged between actors, and pay insufficient attention to operational business processes or the
process-dependency between stakeholders. Business processes often span multiple departments or even across various
stakeholders, i.e., the inter-organizational business processes
(Xiao and Zheng 2012). Tool-specific means that most of
these approaches do not have a generic approach to dealing
with various Business Modeling or Business Process
Modeling tools (e.g., methodologies to transform e3value
model into BPMN). As such, these models are not particularly
useful in a networked enterprise setting, where, for example,
different process models are being used. Many of these approaches adopt the individual company as the level of analysis, and as such provide a one-sided account of the alignment
problem, which, again, makes them less useful in a
networked-enterprise environment. The descriptive characteristic of most of these approaches implies that none of them
facilitate an in-depth analysis of BMA, instead rather
describing/prescribing processes based on a series of steps.
2.1 The VIP framework
To bridge the conceptual gap between BM and operational
processes, and to overcome the limitations of the existing
converting tools discussed above, the authors of this study
use the VIP framework to analyse BMA in two cases. The aim
of the framework is to facilitate BMA analysis using the three
dimensions of value, information and processes (Fig. 1). Each
dimension contains a number of sub-components that are
interconnected horizontally and vertically (indicated by the
vertical and horizontal lines between layers and components).
The value is positioned as the first layer, because it is directly
related to the high-level BM. This layer includes stakeholders
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Fig. 1 The VIP framework
and their interactions in terms of the tangible and intangible
value exchange related to, for instance, funding, the value of
the product offered, contracts describing financial arrangements, and the value of having access to customers. The Vlayer components are interrelated, as “actors perform activities
by exchanging values objects to meet their (collective) business goals, and this process leads to all sorts of value interdependencies”. The second layer contains the exchange of information, which is a vital asset for networked enterprises.
Information, as defined in this paper, is a generic concept that
includes data and knowledge (e.g., experts and expert systems). Issues like the creation and possession of information
resources, access to information, information flow, and information dependencies, need to be considered separately. The
information layer inherits insights from the V-layer components, while it interacts with (and sometimes prescribes) the
operational business processes. In this layer, the components
are interrelated, as “actors possess and create information
objects to exchange (or authorize access to) information according to a specific flow (that is in accordance with the higher
level value goals), and this flow leads to all kinds of informational interdependencies”. The Value and Information-layers
prescribe the operational BPs, which means that the BPs are
described at the lowest level of the model. The P-layer implies
that “confined within stakeholders’ process boundaries (e.g., a
unit within a company), the stakeholders’ primary business
processes and their behavior (i.e., what a process exactly
does), are interconnected and that leads to all sorts of process
interdependencies between the stakeholders involved”. The
primary business processes are those processes that are required for the creation and offering of the intended service or
product. The framework is the starting point for the case
studies. In the next section, the methodology that was used
in this study is discussed.
nature and complexity of the processes taking place”
(Benbasat et al. 1987, p.370) and to “derive general conclusions” (Gummesson 2000). In addition, since the object of this
research is a complex network of actors with heterogeneous
interactions and interdependencies at various levels of abstraction, a holistic approach is required. A multiple case-study
approach is used, focusing on two related Smart Living cases,
in Finland and China. Fourteen semi-structural interviews
were conducted with key stakeholders from both cases. On
average, each interview took two and half hours and all the
interviews were recorded. During the interviews, several
memos were made containing meta-information, including
the emphases, reactions and expressions of the interviewees,
and key concepts they discussed. Immediately after each
interview, a brief report was written about essential topics that
were discussed during the interview. In order to triangulate
(Yin 2009), multiple additional data sources were used, including company websites, relevant marketing presentations,
formal contracts and other available documentation about
services and products (Tables 1 and 2). The search for new
Table 1 The ILP case (Finland)
Strategic
Title/Role
Acronym Company
No. of
interviews
The project
initiator
PI-F
1
DIR-F
CEO-F
PM-F
University
(professor and
entrepreneur)
Platform provider
Data integrator
Platform provider
DM-F
University
1
EA-F
University
3
OM-F
University
1
3 Methodology
Director
CEO
Project
manager
Operational Development
manager
Enterprise
architect
Operational
manager
1
1
4
Case studies are an appropriate research methodology “to
answer how and why questions, that is, to understand the
Additional data sources: companies websites, marketing presentations,
meeting minutes, service/product guiding documents, demonstration lab
and device guiding documents
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Table 2 The HSC case (China)
Strategic
Additional data sources: companies websites, marketing presentations, meeting minutes, formal
contracts, service/product guiding
documents, demonstration lab
and device guiding documents,
business integrator terms of condition, business integrator Service
Level Agreements (SLAs)
Operational
Title/Role
Acronym
Company
No. of interviews
CEO
Project manager
Director
Project manager
Process manager
CEO-C
PM1-C
DIR-C
PM2-C
PRM-C
platform provider
(Chinese) business intermediary
Smart home-lab
(Finnish) business intermediary
Smart home-lab
2
4
1
1
2
Development manager
Development manager
Developer
DM1-C
DM2-C
DVL-C
University
University
University
1
1
1
interviews and other data sources stopped only when saturation was reached. Interviews were conducted with strategiclevel managers and operational-level staff (Tables 1 and 2).
The interviewees were asked to describe the BM of their
projects using the STOF framework (Bouwman et al. 2008),
which made it possible to provide a holistic and high-level
representation of BM in both cases. The framework includes
four dimensions, i.e., Service, Technology, Organization and
Finance (STOF) (Bouwman et al. 2008). The service domain
offers a description of the value proposition (added value of a
service offering eventually enabled by new products) and the
market segment at which the offering is targeted. The technology domain describes the technical functionality, platforms
and architecture necessary to realize the service offering. The
organization domain offers a high-level description of the
structure and governance of the multi-actor value network
required to create, operate and manage the service, while the
finance domain contains a description of how revenues from a
particular service offering are generated, as well as the risks,
investments and revenues involved. In both cases, through
iterative interview rounds with one or two key informants, the
BM, based on STOF framework, was analyzed, verified and
validated (Appendix A, Q2).
Next, the VIP framework was used to enhance the highlevel description by adding operational details. Various questions were asked to gain an in-depth understanding about 1)
the underlying structure of value and information and how
they are created and exchanged, 2) the structure and flow of
the primary business processes that are shared between stakeholders, and 3) the way BM and the operational processes are
related and how/which operational issues (with regard to value
and information exchange and inter-organizational business
process) (may) undermine the BM (Appendix A, Q3). Insights
gained from the BM description, combined with the interviews concerning the operational business processes, made it
possible to visualize the operational structure in both cases
through the VIP diagrams. In addition, the VIP diagrams were
reviewed, verified and validated by the interviewees.
To identify the alignment issues at various levels of analysis (i.e., value, information and processes), the interview transcripts were coded, with a focus on keywords, sentences and
paragraphs that indicated attributes that (could) impede BM
implementation (Appendix A, Q4). First, an open-coding
approach was applied to identify, name and categorize the
issues (Strauss and Corbin 1998, p. 223). In both cases, this
process resulted in the identification of a number of operational issues that could not be directly derived from the high
level BM description. Next, the codes were categorized into
larger data segments, the so-called patterns (Miles and
Huberman 1994, p. 69—or selective coding, as proposed by
Strauss and Corbin 1998, p. 236), which resulted in the
classification of three core factors that influenced BM implementation and alignment with the operational processes.
These factors manifested themselves at all three levels of
value, information and processes. To improve the internal
validity, the authors of this paper were involved in the process
of coding and code analysis. Through recursive discussions,
they were able to establish a consensus with regard to the code
names, codes classifications and patterns. The results are
discussed in the next section.
4 Case description
4.1 The independent living project (ILP)1
Service The Independent Living Project (ILP) is a collaborative project aimed at developing and commercializing a common healthcare services platform for the elderly. Various
companies provide their services and products to elderly people through a single entry point, occasionally with intermediate actors like geriatric nurses or helpers. Providers combine
and exchange their resources, among other things to increase
usability (e.g., one interface instead of multiple interfaces),
reduce production costs (e.g., one collective device instead of
multiple devices), improve the service quality (e.g., using each
other’s user-related data to customize the services), and
strengthen their strategic position (e.g., the consortium provides more services than the individual competitors would be
able to provide). Examples of services and products provided
1
For the sake of confidentiality, fictitious names are used.
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through the platform are medicine dispensers and reminders,
home security, sleep quality analysis, location tracking and
social video conferencing. Ultimately, in response to the ageing population in Finland, the project aims to help the elderly
to stay at home longer and to improve the quality of their lives
through affordable healthcare services with a high level of
usability. Although the services are mainly geared towards the
elderly, no other user groups are deliberately excluded.
Technology The ILP project connects digital communication,
sensor technologies and security services in people’s homes to
create an intelligent and integrative service/product platform,
which integrates at three levels: user interface (ILP Portal), the
information level (Activity and Health Record, AHR) and the
device level (Home Gateway). The ILP portal, which was
developed by one of the universities involved, contains the
user database of different user groups, including elderly people, their families, nurses, doctors and other caregivers, administrators and others. The portal manages access rights to
various services and products, and provides single-sign-on to
the vendor systems involved. The user interfaces are implemented as ‘portlets’ on the portal, providing users with access
to all the services and products on single screen. In most cases,
family members or nurses who share responsibility for providing care to elderly customers access the portal. The
Activity and Health Record is a key integrator of the data
being collected. All device vendors have opened their Server
Application Programming Interfaces (SAPIs) to allow relevant detailed data to be stored in the shared database, for
instance ILP, provided by the data integrator company. The
AHR database, which can be accessed from the ILP portal,
shows the current status and recent events related to the
customer. Most device vendors have some kind of homebased gateway that connects their devices to the server in their
data centres. Elderly people with multiple devices would end
up having multiple gateways in their homes. To avoid the
added cost of multiple gateways and management systems,
the university involved has developed an integrated home
gateway.
Organization The ILP brings innovative companies and communities together in the field, enabling interaction between
service users, providers and technology. The project’s ecosystem includes service and technology companies in the area of
health and well-being, public and third sector organizations.
The central point in this network, which is made up of the
platform providers, coordinates the project and activities,
varying from fund raising and provider selection to stakeholder management and costumer contact. In all, 16 healthcare
service/product providers take part in this project, a number of
them only providing devices (non-integrated providers), while
others provide devices that make use of the platform (integrated providers). Three departments of three universities are
responsible for developing the platform. Care providers use
(or help the elderly to use) the services and an in-house call
centre is responsible for dealing with automated alarms (e.g.,
automatic alarm in case of forgotten medicine consumption)
or customer questions.
Finance The leading company in this project is the platform
provider, a non-profit organization funded by the Finnish
National Funding Organization, the local municipality, and
three universities of applied sciences. The companies taking
part in the project pay a participation fee to the platform
provider. The customers pay for the service(s) they use, and
the platform provider pays the service providers and the
caregivers (including their call centre). Integrating and centralizing the front office enables the customers to use up-dated
and consistent information, with greater convenience (onesingle help desk), and in a cost-efficient way (economy of
scale). In case of commercialization, the university reaps the
benefits in two ways. They have a share in the revenues, for
instance from patents, as well as intangible benefits, in terms
of scientific publications and access to student projects.
4.2 The home-based senior care (HSC)
Service Like the previous case, the HSC case is a collaboration between a number of technology and health care providers, owned and coordinated by a platform provider, with
the aim of improving independent living for the elderly in a
city in China. The basic idea of this collaboration is to develop
a platform through which various technology-enabled health
care services can be provided, for instance medicine dispenser,
location tracking, automated communication with family and
medical staff. As the founder of platform provider put it during
one of the interviews, “the platform can be seen as a marketplace, accessible for elderly at home, from which they could
select one or bundled services”. By integrating the information flow between various service providers and customers, a
rich collection of user behaviour data can be generated, which
can be used to further optimize the services. At the same time,
the user data is a source of income, for which many companies, such as insurance firms, are willing to pay. Like the
previous case, centralization improves customer convenience,
reduces production costs, increases insight into customer behaviour and needs and strengthens strategic market position of
the participating providers. There is also a health care service
provider involved in this case, who helps the platform provider to gain access to a large network of local customers.
Technology Like the previous case, the HSC project aims at
developing a portal-based platform to offer various care services to elderly people. However, there are a number of
fundamental differences. Firstly, this case only offers devices
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that enable portal-based services, which means that all the
providers involved are directly connected to the central database. Next, the project involves both national and international
providers. Another difference is that the HSC uses local
manufacturing for the reproduction of foreign devices, based
on the design and functional requirements that are delivered
by the platform provider. Finally, the university-based development teams are responsible for data integration.
Organization Apart from four issues, the organizational structure of this project is similar to that of the previous case.
Firstly, as mentioned earlier, only integrated service providers
(i.e., providers with device directly connected to the service
platform) are participating. Secondly, in contrast to the previous case, price plays a more crucial role in China, since a silent
majority of the population has relatively limited financial
resources, which is why a Taiwanese device manufacturer is
involved in the reproduction of devices of foreign companies,
1) to adapt the devices to the Chinese market demand/
requirements (e.g., regulations, customers needs, compatibility), and 2) to reduce production costs and make them affordable for the mainly underprivileged local customers. Thirdly,
the development teams have more responsibilities, for instance, some of the development teams are steering the service
providers, as well as autonomy to manage the development
process. There is also an IT development company involved,
which supports the university, mainly with interoperability
problems between the platform and the healthcare services/
devices. In addition, there are as many as 33 service providers
ready to collaborate and contribute to the platform. Finally, an
insurance company is part of the project ecosystem.
Finance In contrast to the previous case, HSC is a for-profit
project, which is why, in addition to funds from local government, the project management team is looking for other financial resources, for example from insurance companies. HSC
provide an insurance company with integrated data about
customer needs, wishes and behaviour, which can be used to
set up or improve the insurance healthcare policies and service
packages. As to the project owner (i.e., the platform provider),
it is indispensable to accomplish and sustain a balanced debt
(e.g., costs related to technical developments, marketing, project management) and income (e.g., providers participation
fee, customers usage fee, data selling). In a similar way as in
the previous case, the users will pay a small fee for the used
service or service bundles.
4.3 The VIP descriptive analysis
Based on the discussion of the core VIP concept with the
business partners involved, the interactions and interdependencies at all three layers of the framework can be described.
Figures 2 and 3 contain the integrated value, information and
process diagrams for both cases. The squares represent the
stakeholders, while the lines represent the processes, interactions and interrelationships.
Based on the interviews, it became clear that some processes and interactions are more relevant and critical and have
a bigger impact on BMA. The interviewees expressed their
opinions on the primary interactions at all three layers, i.e.,
value, information and business process, and discussed issues
that (may) undermine alignment. These critical processes and
interactions are divided based on the pattern coding technique,
as suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994) into three core
factors, i.e., complexity, conflicts and co-dependency (see
Section 3 for the applied methodology), which is discussed
below in greater detail in order to move from a descriptive
model towards a more explanatory model.
4.4 Pattern of alignment
As discussed in Section 3, a long list of issues were identified
with regard to value, information and processes. However,
three factors stand out as being crucial for alignment: complexity, conflicts and co-dependency.
4.4.1 Complexity
The concept of complexity refers to obscure, uncertain, ambiguous, poorly organized and/or unstructured processes or
interactions between stakeholders in all three VIP domains.
Value complexity An example of complexity at the value layer
that became apparent in the HSC case involved the large
number of actors involved in this case, their diverse objectives
and the changing definition of the markets they want to serve,
which creates uncertainty with regard to the commercialization of the BM. The enterprises involved are forced to continuously evaluate and compare their own BM to the joint BM.
In the HSC case, applying stakeholder analysis helped one of
the project managers to make strategic decisions:
1. “The business model needs to be assessed or evaluated to
see whether it is going to be a success. Right now, we are
not quite sure yet! …the question is whether we will help
our clients and business partners while we are improving
the care for the elderly… A challenge is how we can
assess the benefits that our concept would have for our
partners, for example by looking how the actors involved
would operate without our company [platform provider].” {CEO-C}
A vague notion of the collective value proposition
makes it hard for stakeholders to position and profile
themselves within the ecosystem, which means they have
to analyse the questions around value creation and
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Fig. 2 The VIP diagram for Independent Living Project (ILP)
delivery, i.e., what value is created for whom? One of the
interviewees from the ILP case found it difficult to define
the BM, because the identification of common values
seemed to be complicated:
2. “Having a sustainable business model is about value
creation, not only about the costs and what somebody is
willing to pay, we need to have or create a common vision
and work together! Unfortunately, it is too complex to
really unravel the business objectives of the various partners…. I don’t know yet where the value is going to be, but
I know that it will take a smart person to translate that
value in an innovative way and to show who gets what
value out of it.” {CEO-F}
As is indicated by the last quote, ambiguous
business strategies and objectives make it harder to
deal with strategic trade-offs, e.g., the dilemma regarding short-term operational excellence versus
long-term customer intimacy. In the HSC case, the
providers need to keep the price as low as possible,
while, as far as their European counterparts are
concerned, service quality has a higher priority,
which leads to higher production costs. The diversity of strategic priorities among the various stakeholders complicates BM alignment at the value level. The problems appear as soon as financial issues,
such as service pricing, are discussed:
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Fig. 3 The VIP diagram for Home-based Senior Care (HSC)
3. “The pricing of the services is difficult, since
European prices won’t work here [China]… the
elderly here are quite poor, but the population is
massive. This means prices need to be changed,
which is difficult to arrange with our ILP partners,
as production costs are much higher in Europe than
they are here.” {CEO-C}
A lack of consensus regarding a common strategy
makes it difficult to formulate a common value proposition, which affects the complexity of the value activities
required to realize a sustainable creation and exchange of
value. The example is from the ILP case, concerning
decision-making around a ‘local integrated system’ versus
a ‘remote portal solution’, i.e. improvement of service
usability for customers versus reduction of service costs
for providers.
4. “…in the short term, working on the server level (portal
layer) is beneficial to providers, because they can apply
changes in their services with little effort and they don’t
have the integration problem; however, in the long run,
having local control (home layer) would improve usability, as one device can be used for various services or more
local devices can be connected to the central device.”
{DM-F}
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Informational complexity Information resources and the exchange of resources need to be separated from the exchange of
value. Despite its similarity with value complexity, information complexity requires a stand-alone analysis, because it has
a significant impact on BM alignment. The importance of
exchanging information is explicitly separated from a
business-driven intention to work together to create value
(quote 2). In other words, although there may be an intention
to create, deliver and capture value, the complexity of exchanging information or a reluctance to share information will
cause problems:
5. “Despite the fact that companies are collaborating, in
some cases companies do not know exactly what information to share with whom, but we [platform provider] will
do everything we can to avoid this situation.” {CEO-C}
In the HSC case, the need for operational intervention
to improve inter-organizational communication is emphasized, which means that, in addition to the intention to
work together, the companies in question need to consider
activities designed to encourage and streamline the exchange of information:
6. “How stakeholders communicate and how we [the platform provider and its intermediary partner] could facilitate this communication, to generate innovative concepts,
from innovative services to improved information and
business processes, will be a challenging task for us in
the very near future.” {PM1-C}
The same topic also plays an important role in the ILP
case. The next quote points out the significant impact that
systematic communication interventions, such as weekly
follow-up meetings, have on the exchange of information
between stakeholders. At the same time, it shows how
difficult (inter-organizational) interventions are in a multiactor project. Communication between stakeholders is not
an obvious activity and it needs to be supported.
7. “Communication is a crucial tool in weekly follow-up
meetings that helps to evaluate the project and to solve
problems… What we have not done yet, but still need to
do, is sit down with all the stakeholders and discuss
everyone’s requirements to be able to define and redefine
the business model.” {CEO-F}
Business process complexity Complexity occurs at the operational layer as well, and it affects the management and modelling of the stakeholders’ business processes, for example their
service quality evaluation processes. In the HSC case, monitoring the heterogeneous processes of the various stakeholders
involved is a challenging task for the platform provider:
8. “To sustain our relationship with our customers, the
quality of the services being provided needs to be evaluated. However, this is a very complex task, considering
the fact that many actors with different backgrounds are
involved.” {CEO-C}
Another example is the resource allocation process in
the ILP case, which is considered to be complex, due to
the fact that it is difficult for stakeholders to see the flow of
resources of the other stakeholders, which means that a
detailed representation of the value and resource flows is
needed (quotes 2 and 5):
9. “Small companies are involved in this project, and their
resources are scarce. They need to have a clear insight
into the complex process of resource exchange between
other actors, while carefully deciding their own resource
allocation. To sustain their involvement, we really need to
help them in this complex process.” {CEO-F}
4.4.2 Conflicts
Conflicting factors are interactions that are inconsistent with,
opposing, or weakening other interactions. Like in the case of
complexity, these conflicting interactions are found at all three
levels of the VIP framework.
Value conflicts At the value layer, the conflicting interactions
are mainly strategy-oriented. Although the stakeholders have
certain common goals, there are also many apparent and
hidden conflicting goals that need to be taken into account
throughout the project management.
10. “One of the difficulties is to balance the interests of
different service providers and stimulate collaboration.
All these companies have common goals, which is why
they can collaborate. However, beyond these goals,
there are many conflicting values. Some are willing to
create value for the government, some for their own
pockets, some are interested in short-term profits, others
in long-term profits.” {PM1-C}
Another example in the ILP case involves government institutions, such as the municipality involved,
that focus specifically on regulation and legislation,
while the commercial service providers are more
benefit-driven:
11. “An important restriction is the legislations from the
municipality that prescribe how we should serve the
customers. This should, of course, be part of our project
and stakeholder management.” {PI-F} Also, competition between service providers leads to conflicting valuedriven interactions, for example involving the service
providers in the ILP case, who attempt to gain a more
dominant presence on the online portal to increase their
market visibility:
12. “At the portal level, where all the providers and their
services are presented, there is a ceaseless fight on who
Inf Syst Front
gets a bigger picture (link) and a brighter colour ad to be
shown on the portal to the customers.” {DM-F}
Informational conflicts At the information layer, various conflicts were also identified, for example the diversity of the
information sources. Collecting and balancing system and
user requirements in the HSC case is one of the conflicts were
sharing and discussing information is an issue. The platform
developer deals with two major stakeholders, i.e., service
providers and customers, who both have their own specific
requirements and constraints. These requirements can be
conflicting:
13. “There are two types of requirements, one of which is
related to user needs, while the other involves provider
demands. Collecting and aligning these large sets of
requirements should be done correctly, because there
may be many serious conflicts in-between.” {DM2-C}
Informational conflicts are not always functional in
nature: they can also be inherited from a higher strategic
level, i.e., value conflicts and co-dependencies (quotes
12 and 26), which, for example, can manifest themselves
in the dissemination of disinformation to mislead
competitors.
14. “If the companies were to lie or provide disinformation
about their intentions, we would have several conflicts.”
{DM-F}
In both cases, the approach that was adopted to conflicts in this area was to define common standards
(quotes 18 and 19).
Business process conflicts The conflicting interaction at a
process level has a number of causes. One is the overlap of
processes. One of the interviewees from the ILP case recalls
that overlap of business processes among stakeholders typically implies a more intense competition, probably because
they provide similar, or even interchangeable services. That
competition will, however, continue at process level as well:
15. “Some organizations are offering similar services, in which
case we see conflicts, not only at a high level, where these
companies are competing with each other, but also at a
lower level, where processes sometimes overlap.” {DM-F}
For instance, at the process intersection point, where
various stakeholders link their processes, the (interorganizational) operational and technical interoperability
conflicts become apparent:
16. “Right now, the providers don’t need to open their boxes,
they just need to adapt their interfaces and integrate
them with the platform, which is why conflicts between
providers processes are at a minimum… but imagine
when some companies are integrated at the homelevel. At a technical level, compatibility becomes a real
challenge then. As a company changes its services, it has
to apply these changes on the platform, which could
create problems for other providers.” {DM-F}
In the HSC case, one of the interviewees reflected on
the execution of business processes and emphasized that
processes cannot be executed flawlessly, and pre/post
analysis of process—together with the other stakeholders involved—is required to adjust the processes in
question and solve the operational problems:
17. “We need to pre-analyse the processes to prevent process frictions, but any conflicts in processes will also be
communicated by users, through the platform provider,
and then we will adjust them.” {DM1}
Typically, standardization is an accepted approach to
prevent conflicting informational interactions and conflicting operational business processes. In both cases, the
platform providers define a standard that addresses various features of the intended service(s), including service
delivery procedures, service quality indicators, but also
data/inform ation forma ts and authorization.
Standardization allows the platform providers to reduce
informational and process-related conflicts, and to harmonize and govern the collaboration at both levels. In
this regard, the interviewees underlined the need for
process standardization to increase inter-organizational
interoperability and reduce process conflicts:
18. “Standardization of service requirements helps to maximize the quality of services by increasing the process
compatibility.” {DM1-F}
19. “…to prevent misunderstanding, the health provider,
together with us, develops a standard that service providers can use for their service quality and service
development.” {CEO-C}
However, the same value complexities and conflicts
(see quotes 2 and 10) are expected to impede the operational level process standardization.
4.4.3 Co-dependency
Co-dependency implies that dependencies motivate, prescribe
or sometimes force stakeholders to interact with each other at
all three level of the VIP framework. Hence, it is crucial to
scrutinize the interactions based on the dependencies involved
and to reveal the ones that are problematic.
Value co-dependency At the value level, value dependencies
trigger different interactions and considerations. However,
both dependencies affect (and are affected by) the need among
high-level stakeholders to work together and interact with
each other. An example of value dependency is the common
interest that both the Chinese and Finnish governments have
in initiatives like ILP and HSC, both aiming to improve
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healthcare for the elderly. The Chinese government needs to
take concrete steps to deal with sub-optimal elderly care to
keep their political promises:
20. “The [Chinese] government needs to solve the lack of
care for the elderly at a national and a local level.
Without these kinds of projects [HSC project], nothing
will change!” {CEO-C}
The relationship between municipality and the platform provider is another example of mutual value dependency (in this case monetary). In Finland, the municipalities are responsible for the public health care
(HSR 2008). Accordingly, the municipality expects to
improve healthcare through these project, while the platform provider relies on the municipality strategic position and continuous financial support:
21. “..local [Finnish] governments understand that they
need to support us to generate the market [platform for
health care service], as more than 60 % of their budget
is spent on health care and well-being, but in 15 years it
will be over 100%!” {DIR-F}
Another example is that of the service providers
involved in HSC and ILP cases, who want to expand
their market and service more customers:
22. “The technology providers are small SMEs that will
gain access to new markets [through the platform]
to which they would normally never have access.”
{DIR-F}
In both cases, all parties (i.e., government versus
platform providers and platform providers versus
service providers), need to explicate their contribution and live up to their promises, in order to maintain and sustain the relationship. Consequently, platform providers need to demonstrate their added value, governments need to support the platform providers, access to platform should lead to service
delivery to new customers and increased revenues
for service providers, and service providers need to
provide high quality services. Otherwise, the mutual
dependency between these actors will evaporate:
23. “Convincing the service providers is not easy. They are
small companies, very much sales-oriented, and if they
can’t see how this integration can yield a profit in the a
short run, they are less motivated, and we need to
convince them that this is going to benefit them in the
future… and that they are not able to do this by themselves.” {OM-F}
In the HSC case, there is a critical dependency on
(local) government support. One interviewee indicated
that the platform provider needs to obtain government
accreditation in order to gain trust among service providers and customers alike. In response, the platform
provider put lot of effort in lobbying and networking
among the various local and national government
institutes:
24. “They [the Chinese government] help us communicate
and collaborate with various business partners. Here [in
China], we need the trust of our business partners to be
able to collaborate with them, the way we want to
collaborate, and the government is a great help in this…
we can say the same about the clients. Government
approval helps us enormously in gaining people’s trust.”
{CEO-C}
As is the case with competition (see quotes 10, 12 and
15), there is a significant dependency between service
providers when it comes to value and information.
Therefore, the platform provider needs to put a great
deal of effort in managing, encouraging and streamlining
the interaction between service providers, to improve
mutual commitment, trust and even friendship.
However, in line with quotes 2, 8, 10 and 12, it remains
a challenging endeavour:
25. “Trust is needed between these providers, so they can
work together and share information, for example. We
need to carry out lot of project management activities to
create this trust and, consequently, improve information
sharing.” {PM1-C}
26. “Although it is not easy, we still need to set up activities
that improve the commitment of different service providers, which will increase collaboration, even when it
involves direct competitors.” {CEO-F}
Information co-dependency Information dependencies trigger
interactions between stakeholders with regard to access to
information, and the exchange and ownership of information
resources. Some of these interactions are more critical than
others. Distinguishing these critical interactions increases understanding of the core dependencies between the stakeholders involved. In addition, the information codependency between service providers (quote 25), the need
for access to data regarding customer behaviour on the part of
the insurance company, can be seen as another example of
information co-dependency. As a consequence, the platform
data generation and data aggregation need to be designed and
developed in such a way as to satisfy insurance companies,
which in turn, will motivate insurance companies to invest in
the platform:
27. “The platform stores different kinds of information, rich
information, about clients’ daily lives, healthcare needs,
client behaviour and circumstances, etc., much of which
can be used for their [insurance company] policies, and
we should take the needs of the insurance company into
account.” {CEO-C}
Another example is the service providers’ demand for
the user requirements, without which it would be
Inf Syst Front
impossible for them to develop and provide customized
services:
28. “Where else can they [the international service providers] get this essential information about the
users?…without these insights an effective service provisioning is almost impossible… It is challenging for us
to collect the user requirements… with this information a
lot can be done. For example, using them [user requirements] for service development and technical engineering.” {CEO-C}
Business process co-dependency At the most operational layer of the VIP framework, the two cases also show various
business process dependencies, for example in the way the
business processes of the various stakeholders are interconnected. Typically, the output of one stakeholder serves as the
input for another:
29. “On the platform, providers work together, which means
that helping providers change their processes and make
them compatible with the platform is an essential task
for us. This is also needed because we deal with crossactor processes that are followed by or initiate other
processes.” {DIR-F}
A specific example of these interconnections involves
the sales teams that need to adapt their activities to the
progress of the development teams. As such, the demands of the sales teams should be in line with the
supply from the development teams. One of the interviewees referred to this issue as a challenging operational dependency, where the business processes of one
stakeholder need to be aligned with those of the other:
30. “A lot of operational-level management effort is needed
to organise a good collaboration between sales and
developers. The commercial party always depends on
the development party. The commercial stakeholders
want their services fast, cheap and with a high quality,
while the developer always need more time to develop
the products or services further.” {EA-F}
5 Discussion and conclusion
Many studies have examined business models, providing a
wide variety of approaches. However, it is far from clear to
managers and companies which BM they should use
(Chesbrough 2010). In this paper, it is argued that an
empirical evaluation of the operational implementation (or
execution) of business models may prove helpful, especially
in complex network-enterprise settings, where multiple enterprises are involved. BM implementation targets the actual
commercial exploitation of a product or service. Although a
BM captures the business logic for the creation, delivering
and capturing of value (Johnson et al. 2008; Magretta 2002;
Teece 2010), a description of a BM is merely a first step,
and may not be enough to guarantee a successful BM
implementation, let alone a fully-fledged commercialization,
or an implementation that is focused on the Enterprise
Architecture of the organizations involved. In addition to the
BM, a deeper understanding is needed concerning the exchange of value and information within a given network,
and the way inter-organizational processes are aligned. This
paper has shown how an operational analysis of a BM provides insight into the issues that need to be taken into account
for a BM to create and capture value. Based on two cases,
three generic factors were identified as having an influence on
BMA: complexity, conflicts and co-dependency.
Based on the case study results, the analyses of the
Business Model and VIP diagrams, it became clear that there
are three factors that influence the alignment and implementation of business models, which help explain the rationale
that underlies or causes alignment challenges and problems at
all three VIP layers. Accordingly, three propositions can be
formulated:
P1. Uncertainties caused by or inherent in operational
processes influence the implementation of Business
Model.
P2. Conflicting business processes influence the implementation of Business Model.
P3a. Resource interdependencies, including operationallevel supportive resources, between stakeholders influence the implementation of Business Model.
P3b. Resource accessibility (or availability), including
operational-level supportive resources, influences the
implementation of Business Model.
The first proposition refers to operational level limitations,
within and between stakeholders, which are hard to predict
due to irregular or complex interactions of situational conditions. The case study shows that often complexity is manifested in activities and processes that are hard to evaluate,
have uncertain or immeasurable outcome, ambiguously or
poorly organized, fuzzy in nature and/or in a state of chaos.
In addition, uncertainties and complexities at process level
may be triggered by higher-level activities and decisions at
value and information level and vice versa. The second proposition refers to all kinds of activities or operational processes,
within or between stakeholders, that are inconsistent with,
oppose or weaken other processes or cause value discrepancies. Examples from the case study are process and system
compatibility and scalability issues (which is in line with the
interoperability challenges in eHealth systems, emphasized by
Weber-Jahnke et al. 2012). Similar to the previous proposition, conflicts at one level cause or are caused by other issues
at the other levels (e.g., a conflicting perception of value
proposition will likely affect the orchestration of [inter-
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organizational] business processes), which in turn, may lead to
an instable and vulnerable process model. The third proposition refers to stakeholders interdependencies. It is apparent
that not all interdependencies are problematic. In fact, it is the
company’s interdependencies that bring them together.
According to Pfeffer and Salancik (1978, p.2) “no organization is self-contained, and the key to organizational survival is
the ability to acquire and maintain resources ”. However,
within a networked enterprise, stakeholders are typically challenged by unavailable (or inaccessible) assets, capabilities and
processes that are highly required to create and capture value
and implement the BM. As such, a BM needs to address
stakeholders operational requirements and constraints as well
as problematic (network) interdependencies. In short, the
propositions translate as follows: keep it simple, do not assume that, although parties have reasons to collaborate, collaboration in practice will be free of conflicts, and be aware
that aligning processes is an issue in itself. By taking the
proposed factors (and their typical indications and manifestations) into account, a better understanding of BM operational
feasibility can be achieved. A careful analysis of the value
exchanges is a prerequisite to achieve alignment. If the benefits are unequally distributed or costs are deferred by some but
not by all party’s projects will fail, even if the intentions to
succeed are there. Also transparent communication and information exchange has to be safeguarded. This doesn’t apply
only to information exchange that is directly related to operational processes, but also motivations for behaviour as well
as for exchange of relevant knowledge and know how related
to core strategic as well as operational issues. Operational
process alignment can be supported by orchestration and
business process tooling (e.g., the architectural ontology proposed by Mouttham et al. 2012). In general open communication and governance bodies that are aware of these issues
can be instrumental in searching for solutions.
From a theoretical viewpoint, this paper contributes
to existing BM and alignment literature by combining a
BM ontology (the STOF framework) with an additional
descriptive framework for analysing the alignment of
value and information flows, as well as the operational
processes of networked enterprises. This can be seen as
an intermediate step that is necessary for further commercialization and in order to connect strategy, BM,
business processes and enterprise architectures (EAs).
Whereas Fritscher and Pigneur (2011) attempt to establish this connection for a single firm, this study focuses
on networked enterprises. Future research will involve
working out the approaches described in this study in
greater detail, with the aim of connecting the intermediate VIP-model to EAs, and vice versa.
To summarize, the message this paper aims to convey is
that more attention is needed to the analysis of the operational
feasibility of business models. Existing ontologies are mainly
descriptive in nature, which means they can be valuable
brainstorming tools, but they are not helpful when it comes
to implementing business models in individual firms or
networked enterprises. The latter is a more common practice.
Generally speaking, BM tooling is relatively limited. The VIP
framework can be seen as a modest attempt to develop a tool
that helps enterprises develop a joint BM, and also understand
the complexity, conflicts and dependency involved in aligning
value and information flows, and in aligning operational processes. It is evident that VIP tooling needs to be developed
further, as does the grounding of the approach proposed in this
paper, due to existence of some limitations related to the case
studies (number of studies, domain of the cases, scale of the
cases, specific countries, and cultures, development phase of
cases), the most important of which involves research generalizability, which makes it essential to repeat this study, using
multiple projects with different scales (small versus large
business ecosystems), industry sectors other than Smart
Living, throughout various innovation/design phases (e.g.,
R&D, implementation and commercialization). In addition,
the propositions have been formulated in a qualitative way
(based on a limited number of cases) and are relatively highlevel. These propositions are open to further conceptual development and testing. It may be clear that further qualitative
and quantitative research is needed to develop clear metrics
that are directly related to business models, as well as metrics
that can be used to assess the alignment of relevant processes
within a networked environment.
Acknowledgments We would like to thank the editor and the three
anonymous reviewers for their suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.
We are also grateful to many friends and colleagues who have commented
on earlier versions of the paper, especially Mark de Reuver, Fatemeh
Nikeyin and Wally Keijzer-Broers. Particular thanks are due to Matti
Hämäläinen and Yan Ke, for their collaboration and generous support.
Appendix A: Interview questions
Q1 Background
What is the background of the interviewee, company
(s)he is working for, and his/her role and responsibilities,
within the case?
Q2 Business Model
a. What the project mission and vision?
In terms of (intended) value proposition, technologies (to be) used, services (to be) provided, relationships with partners and customers, needed/available
key resources.
b. Who are the stakeholders and what are their roles?
In terms of contributions, responsibilities, contracts, etc.
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c. What is the structure of the case costs and benefits?
In terms of payments, revenues, ROI, etc.
Q3 Operational arrangement
3.1 Value creation & exchange:
a. What values are (should be) created and exchanged
between, and captured from stakeholders?
Referring to the core value objects and value goals
that are required to drive the project towards the high
level missions and visions discussed in Q2.
b. How are (will) the values (be) created, exchanged
and captured?
Referring to the core value activities required for
creation and capturing of values, and value dependencies (between stakeholders) created through exchange (or need) of value objects.
3.2 Information creation & exchange:
a. What information (resources) is (should be) created
and exchanged between stakeholders?
Referring to the core data, information and knowledge objects required for the value activities
discussed in Q3.2
b. How are the information (including data and
knowledge) objects created and exchanged between stakeholders?
Referring to the crucial information flows, information access (points and permissions), and information dependencies between information objects in the
previous question.
3.3 Primary Business Processes:
a. What are the primary business processes (will be)
shared among stakeholders?
Referring to business processes required to enable
the value and information activities discussed in Q3.2
& Q3.2.
b. How are these business processes flow between
stakeholders? Referring to the flow, behaviour,
and boundaries of, and dependencies between
business processes discussed in the previous
question.
Q4 Problematic interactions
a. What values and values activities (creation, exchange, capturing) are the most critical, vulnerable,
complex, or problematic? And how to deal with
them?
b. What information resources and information activities (creation, exchange) are the most critical, vulnerable, complex, or problematic? And how to deal with
them?
c. What primary business processes are the most critical, vulnerable, complex, or problematic? And how to
deal with them?
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Sam Solaimani is a PhD candidate at Faculty Technology, Policy and
Management, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He is also
affiliated with the Haas School of Business, in Berkeley, USA. He has a
BSc. in Information Science, and a MSc. in Business Information Systems (Cum Laude), specialized in the topic of Business-IT Alignment.
Currently, his research focuses on business model innovation, design, and
analysis in networked-enterprise settings, in particular within the Smart
Living domain. The key concepts of his research include business
models/modeling, business operations and processes, business architecture and enterprise architecture. He has more than 20 academic journal
and conference publications, some of which has recently appeared in the
Business Process Management Journal (BMPJ), Journal of Design Research (JDR), and Electronic Markets (EM).
Harry Bouwman is a Finnish Distinguished Professor at the Institute for
Advanced Management Systems Research, Åbo Akademi University,
Turku Finland and an associate professor at Information and Communication Technology Section, Faculty Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. His research is focused on (1) design and analysis of Mobile services and
service platforms, (2) Business models, Customer Value, mobile eco-
Inf Syst Front
systems, and mobile web services, and (3) Strategy, Business Models,
Enterprise Architectures, metrics and Systems dynamics. He is the coeditor of Mobile Service Innovation and Business Models and codeveloper of the STOF-model. He extensively published on usage of
mobile services, and on (mobile) business models (see www.
harrybouwman.nl). He is editor of several scientific journals.
Timo Itälä received his MSc. in Helsinki University Computer Science,
1978. He has held several positions as a programmer, systems analyst,
project manager, product manager, marketing manager and consultant.
Also he was the project manager of the Mywellbeing research project
(Citizen Centric approach to collaboration with the healthcare and
wellbeing service providers) in 2008–2010 and participated in SOLEA
(Service Oriented Locally Adapted Architecture) research project in
2008–2011. Dynamic Business Frameworks for Networks in Healthcare,
Wellbeing and Active Aging domains is the topic of his forthcoming
PhD, which is related to the concepts of business models, business
processes, and SOA. Digital platforms, ecosystems and business models
are also his other recent topics of interest. He is also involved in close
cooperation with universities and companies in China in this area.