Why is a business model important?

importance of business model essay

Learning & Academics

A business model may seem like a straightforward concept. But the term has shifted and changed over time. Today, if a company is incapable of creating an innovative and flexible business model, that could be its downfall.

Today, technology and innovation are the main players in how successful businesses are run and reinvented. With an explosive amount of information available through big data and the resources provided by digital tech, companies can more easily create and continue to capture value for stakeholders.

Businesses that want to start and stay at the cutting edge use design thinking, strategy, and continuous, fearless change in their business models. Some of the most successful businesses today are those that have reinvented the model, disrupting the industry that was and creating the kind of value customers are looking for in the digital era .

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What is a business model?

Does a business model have a simple definition? Yes and no. Business models are the logic behind a company, but the concept can be framed in many different ways. And today, the way the idea has been reframed is inspiring the business owners and CEOs of companies from startups to well-established multinationals.

In his book The New, New Thing , Michael Lewis explains that the business model has been thought of as simply the way a business plans to make money. Expanding upon this idea, Peter Drucker talks about the business concept in terms of flexible assumptions about what a company will and will not do: what they get paid for; markets, customers, and competitors; values and behaviors; technology; and a company’s strengths and weaknesses. Joan Magretta adds that a business model is basically a story about how the company will operate, including the activities involved in making and selling a product or service.

Alex Osterwalder offers a simplified format for thinking about these hypotheses adopted by startups and established businesses alike, called the busi n ess model canvas. This business map is a one-page template that includes space for designing, discussing, and reinventing business models. The nine building blocks included are customer segments, value propositions, channels for delivering value, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, activities and partners, and cost structure. The idea of having everything mapped out on one page enables forward-thinking leaders to keep things light and flexible in order to invent or innovatively reiterate their business models as situations change and evolve.

importance of business model essay

Types of business models and tech

Business models have been transformed by technology . Interconnectivity , globalization , and a digital, tech-driven world have all allowed innovative thinkers to rethink traditional models in sectors from travel to retail.

One example of an age-old business model that has been transformed by tech is the platform business model. In the simplest terms, this model brings buyers and sellers together in one space. An in-person marketplace, auction house, or shopping mall are examples of this model that have been around for decades or even centuries. But digital tech has meant these platforms are no longer confined by time and space. Technology has allowed innovative business owners to use this type of model to create enormous digital networks enabling participation and collaboration across the globe. Some of the most successful companies today, including Airbnb , WhatsApp , Facebook , Google , and Alibaba , are examples of reinvented platform business models that use tech to their advantage.

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The global business model is another example of one which has been inspired by technology. These models focus on producing and selling globally in a short period of time, relying on the fast pace of globalization and interconnectivity to thrive. The clothing brands Mango and Desigual are good examples of successful models based on selling to small target segments globally in order to achieve economy of scale, in a way that is only possible in a globalized world.

Interconnectivity and the digital world has also led to the availability of big data, allowing businesses to make sure they are offering the goods and services customers are actually looking for. The “seeking-excellence” business model depends on creating innovative products or services that consumers didn’t even know they wanted. The most disruptive thinkers today can use big data to analyze trends and find new value propositions that reinvent the business model—like Apple did with the iPod and iTunes store in the early 2000s.

Inspiring business models that have broken the status quo

Airbnb is one of the most disruptive businesses of the digital era. Founded by a couple of young startupers in 2008, it is the result of a recognized opportunity (when no hotel rooms were available in San Francisco during a conference held in the city), and the technology capable of connecting hosts and renters from around the globe.

Airbnb Room

As they put it on their About Us page, “ Airbnb uniquely leverages technology to economically empower millions of people around the world to unlock and monetize their spaces, passions, and talents to become hospitality entrepreneurs. ” It is a sharing-economy-based business , eliminating the overhead of owning the rooms that are rented out, like traditional hotels do. And its platform business model—which uses advances in digital tech to create networks that continuously improve—has allowed the business to boom around the world.

Uber is at the top of the list as another example of a business that has taken an existing business model and reinvented the wheel. By looking at how a current business model—taxis—could be improved, Uber was able to take a share of a preexisting market using a disruptive, tech-based model for grabbing a ride.

Uber

Now they have expanded and continue to grow through reiterations of their model, including Uber Eats for food delivery; Uber Freight offering shipping services; Uber Health providing rides for patients and healthcare providers; and even technology groups working towards self-driving vehicles and shared air transportation.

In the fast-paced digital world, innovation is a key element of any business model. Executives and CEOs are not responsible for maintaining the status quo defined in one iteration of the business model, but rather for experimenting, learning, and continuously improving to stay ahead of the competition.

Author: IE University

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What is a Business Model? A Short Guide to Developing Successful Business Models

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You’ll often hear professionals discuss how important it is to have a clearly defined business model . A company’s business model can literally make or break their chances of success

But what is a business model exactly? Let’s take a look.

what is a business model

What is a Business Model and Why is It Important?

In essence, a business model is how a company plans to make a profit. This scope includes the business’s value proposition, key expenses, products or services, and its target market.

The value proposition, a central part of any business model, defines the company’s key offering or offerings, whether products or services. Importantly, it also describes what differentiates this offering from existing products, and what makes it attractive to the business’ target market.

Business models can be broadly grouped into categories, such as:

  • Manufacturer
  • Marketplace
  • Subscription
  • Fee-for-Service

It’s also important to note that one company may operate more than one business model concurrently. For example, eCommerce giant Amazon acts as both a retailer and a marketplace.

It is essential for new companies to define their business model, as it allows them to attract more investors and talent, as well as develop effective strategies . 

However, it’s equally important that established businesses regularly review and update their business model in the face of changing market trends and as their company grows.

What Makes a Strong Business Model?

A strong business model must clearly lay out how your business is going to generate revenue, including drilling down into your target market and value proposition.

Key elements of a good business model include:

  • A well-defined value proposition
  • The business’ target market
  • Start-up costs anticipated expenses
  • Revenue projection
  • Key competitors and how they measure up against the company
  • Marketing strategy
  • Key stakeholders and partnership opportunities

Additionally , the business models of successful companies generally share certain common characteristics. They often have a unique selling point, or unique selling proposition (USP), that sets them apart from their competition and meets their target customers’ needs, which they offer at an attractive price point. 

Furthermore, successful business models are financially sustainable and adapt to meet changes in the market or in the business’s own needs.

How to Create a Successful Business Model

1. conduct market research.

The best business models are based on a thorough understanding of current market trends, opportunities, and challenges. Start by conducting research into the latest trends, your top competitors, and what is and isn’t currently working well in the industry.

2. Define your Target Market

Next, you’ll need to identify who your business’ target market or customer base will be. Dig deeper into your ideal customer’s needs, and especially their key pain points. These will become the problems that your product or service will solve.

3. Develop Your Service Offering

Once you have a clear picture of your target audience and their main pain points, you can use this to develop a service offering that will most effectively address this.

Be sure to tie this back to your business’s value proposition: what makes your products or services not only desirable to your target market, but what differentiates you from your competitors?

4. Make a Road Map

Once you’ve defined your target market and the product or service you’re going to offer them, the next step is to work out what you need to make that happen. It’s essential to create a clear picture of the resources you’ll need to get your business up and running. 

At this point, you should also consider potential challenges you may face along the way, and how you plan to address them. 

Document all of these elements as part of a well-defined road map to launch your business.

5. Start Developing Partnerships

Another essential part of any business model is the partners who will help the company achieve success. This could be suppliers, service providers, contractors, advertising partners, collaborators, or other stakeholders. 

Having an idea of who these partners will be and how you will work together will help you to shape your business model.

6. Define Revenue Streams

Revenue is central to any business, and any strong business model must clearly define where revenue will come from. You’ll also need to consider how you will increase revenue over time, such as specific strategies to build your customer base and close sales.

7. Do Testing

The final step of this process is testing your business model to ensure you’re in the strongest possible position to go live. This could involve test surveys within your target market, or soft launches. The idea is to gauge how well your business model will perform and help you to reach your goals.

8. Continually Review and Adapt

Avoid taking a “set it and forget it” approach to your business model. There are many reasons why you may need to adapt your business model over time. Not only may the market change, but as your business begins to operate and grow, you may find you need to reassess some of your original ideas and assumptions.

Therefore, it is essential to take a flexible position and continually review and adapt your business model to reflect evolving circumstances, whether internal or external to your business.

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It’s not enough to understand what a business model is: you also need to be familiar with the various push and pull factors that will allow you to create a winning model.

Experience is an essential part of being able to develop a successful business model. Knowledge of the latest industry trends, data insights , and strategic thinking are also critical. 

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Business Models – Example, Types, Importance & Advantages

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Listen to this:

Every business or company makes a plan for generating profit. They create a model for identifying products and services to sell, the market they want to target and also take into account anticipated expenses. This is known as business models.

Even if the business is already established or even if it is a new business, a plan needs to be made. Businesses need to regularly update their plans and strategy as they need to take into account the challenges and trends for future models.

Table of Contents

What are the business models.

The strategy a business uses to turn a profit is referred to as its business model. It lists any estimated costs as well as the goods or services the company intends to sell, as well as its chosen target clientele.

Both new and established businesses need strong business models. They aid young, developing businesses in luring capital, hiring talent, and inspiring management and personnel.

Established companies must continuously alter their business models if they are to stay abreast of emerging trends and problems. Business models also assist employees in understanding the future of an organisation they might want to work for and investors in evaluating companies that interest them.

How to Evaluate Succesful Business Models

When developing their business concepts, many organisations frequently underestimate the costs of financing the venture until it turns a profit. It is not sufficient to calculate the costs of a product’s launch. A corporation must continue operating until revenues outweigh expenses.

The company’s gross profit can be used as one indicator for analysts and investors to determine whether a business strategy is successful. A company’s gross profit is its total revenue less its cost of goods sold (COGS).

The efficiency and efficacy of a company’s business model can be determined by comparing its gross profit to that of its main rival or its sector. However, relying only on gross profit can be misleading. Analysts also request access to net income or cash flow. This shows how much actual profit the company is making by taking gross profit and subtracting operating expenses.

Importance of Business Models

The business model helps to target the customer base of the company. It helps in making marketing strategies, and projections of revenues and expenses taking into account the type of Business models and clientele.

Every investor needs to review the business model in order to get knowledge about the company’s competitive edge . Understanding the business model helps investors to have a better sense of financial data.

Evaluating the business model helps the investors to get an overall view of the company’s products, its business strategies and future prospects.

Business Model Examples

For example, let’s take company A which rents and sells video games. So the company is in the business of video games. The company used to make a profit of 5 million after spending 3 million on their inventories for video games. So, the total gross profit margin is 2 million.

The Internet arrived in the market and the company now has to alter its business model by taking into consideration the Internet in order to survive in the market. So as a result the cost of holding inventory and distribution cost also gets reduced. Since expenses reduce profit increases.

Even though with the arrival of internet sales get reduced but the company was able to expand its business as technology helped it to change course.

In a similar way, there are various business models types-

What are Business Models Types?

We will discuss here 4 business models types:

Business Models - Example, Types, Importance & Advantages 2

1. Business -To- Business Models (B2B)

When dealings or transactions take place between two companies or businesses then this type of business model is known as business to the business model.

It has good market predictability and more market stability . Since under B2B sale is made in bulk amount this model leads to lower cost for the businesses.

The best example of this type of business model in India is IndiaMart InterMesh which is a wholesale B2B marketplace. It offers millions of products to its customers which includes consumer electronics, machinery, apparel and many more.

2. Business -To-Consumer Models (B2C)

The business-2-consumer business model is a model that refers to businesses that sell their services or products directly to the consumer who are the end users of the products or services.

There is an ongoing demand for the products as it provides the essential items. This thus eliminates the risk of fluctuation in demand and helps in maintaining consistency in the business. Since direct contact is there with the customers so information is shared with them directly and easily.

Customers are given products at a low price compared to their competitors for the business to run smoothly.

An example of business to consumer model is Avenue Supermart which provides goods directly to its customers.

3. Subscription-Based Models

Any application-based businesses or software companies have subscription-based business models. They offer their product as a one-time purchase, in return company earns monthly or annual revenues.

Business Models - Example, Types, Importance & Advantages 3

This type of business model allows the company to earn regular income by giving the client the opportunity to pay for the cost of the purchase in 12 equal payments rather than asking them to pay the wholesome amount in one go.

One of the leading examples is Infoedge for this type of business model.

4. On-Demand Business Model

It is the most recent form of model which is made out on the need by answering immediately. This type of business model is prepared in such a way that all the questions will be answered by just a click of a button in seconds.

It is very much convenient and easy for customers as even before customers have visited a particular city they get their hotels or places booked.

One of the examples is making my trip which allows customers to plan the holidays and make the bookings in advance.

Advantages of Business Models

  • A good business model gives the company a competitive edge in the industry.
  • A strong business model provides the company good reputation in the market place encouraging investors to remain invested in the company.
  • Making the business model strong leads to an ongoing business profit leading to an increase in cash reserve and new investments.
  • A proven business model brings financial stability to the organization.

Business models have disadvantages as well.

Disadvantages of the Business Model

  • Once a business model is created, then it restricts to implementation new ideas for the product.
  • Creating a business model is time-consuming as a lot of factors need to be considered.
  • There might be a chance that the business model may turn out to be inaccurate.

Apart from the disadvantages, the business model is mandatory to be prepared before starting of a new project.

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A business is more than just a place where things are sold. It’s an ecosystem, therefore it needs a plan for who to sell to, what to sell for, how much to charge, and how much value it’s producing.

What an organisation does to consistently produce long-term value for its clients is described by its business model. A company should have a clearer understanding of how it intends to function and what its financial future looks like after developing a business model.

While preparing business and revenue models, one of the most important skills that is required is Ms Excel. Wish to learn it ? That also in Hindi? Then join our ms excel in hindi full course now!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good business model.

A good business model is one that provides the company with a competitive edge in the industry-leading to good business profits.

Why is a business model important?

The business model is important because it provides the investors with knowledge about the competitive edge of the company and provides better insight into the workings of the company. A strong business model leads to cash generation and future expansion.

How do you create a business model?

The business model is created by identifying the products and services that will be sold in the market to be targeted like B2B, B2C, subscription-based model or on-demand market.

What are the components of the business model?

The business model includes information about the company’s products, its target market and its future prospect related to its business type.

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Business model innovation: a review and research agenda

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

ISSN : 2574-8904

Article publication date: 16 October 2019

Issue publication date: 13 November 2019

The aim of this paper is to review and synthesise the recent advancements in the business model literature and explore how firms approach business model innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematic review of business model innovation literature was carried out by analysing 219 papers published between 2010 and 2016.

Evidence reviewed suggests that rather than taking either an evolutionary process of continuous revision, adaptation and fine-tuning of the existing business model or a revolutionary process of replacing the existing business model, firms can explore alternative business models through experimentation, open and disruptive innovations. It was also found that changing business models encompasses modifying a single element, altering multiple elements simultaneously and/or changing the interactions between elements in four areas of innovation: value proposition, operational value, human capital and financial value.

Research limitations/implications

Although this review highlights the different avenues to business model innovation, the mechanisms by which firms can change their business models and the external factors associated with such change remain unexplored.

Practical implications

The business model innovation framework can be used by practitioners as a “navigation map” to determine where and how to change their existing business models.

Originality/value

Because conflicting approaches exist in the literature on how firms change their business models, the review synthesises these approaches and provides a clear guidance as to the ways through which business model innovation can be undertaken.

  • Business model
  • Value proposition
  • Value creation
  • Value capture

Ramdani, B. , Binsaif, A. and Boukrami, E. (2019), "Business model innovation: a review and research agenda", New England Journal of Entrepreneurship , Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 89-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/NEJE-06-2019-0030

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Boumediene Ramdani, Ahmed Binsaif and Elias Boukrami

Published in New England Journal of Entrepreneurship . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Firms pursue business model innovation by exploring new ways to define value proposition, create and capture value for customers, suppliers and partners ( Gambardella and McGahan, 2010 ; Teece, 2010 ; Bock et al. , 2012 ; Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu, 2013 ). An extensive body of the literature asserts that innovation in business models is of vital importance to firm survival, business performance and as a source of competitive advantage ( Demil and Lecocq, 2010 ; Chesbrough, 2010 ; Amit and Zott, 2012 ; Baden-Fuller and Haefliger, 2013 ; Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu, 2013 ). It is starting to attract a growing attention, given the increasing opportunities for new business models enabled by changing customer expectations, technological advances and deregulation ( Casadesus-Masanell and Llanes, 2011 ; Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu, 2013 ). This is evident from the recent scholarly outputs ( Figure 1 ). Thus, it is essential to comprehend this literature and uncover where alternative business models can be explored.

Conflicting approaches exist in the literature on how firms change their business models. One approach suggests that alternative business models can be explored through an evolutionary process of incremental changes to business model elements (e.g. Demil and Lecocq, 2010 ; Dunford et al. , 2010 ; Amit and Zott, 2012 ; Landau et al. , 2016 ; Velu, 2016 ). The other approach, mainly practice-oriented, advocates that innovative business models can be developed through a revolutionary process by replacing existing business models (e.g. Bock et al. , 2012 ; Iansiti and Lakhani, 2014 ). The fragmentation of prior research is due to the variety of disciplinary and theoretical foundations through which business model innovation is examined. Scholars have drawn on perspectives from entrepreneurship (e.g. George and Bock, 2011 ), information systems (e.g. Al-debei and Avison, 2010 ), innovation management (e.g. Dmitriev et al. , 2014 ), marketing (e.g. Sorescu et al. , 2011 ) and strategy (e.g. Demil and Lecocq, 2010 ). Also, this fragmentation is deepened by focusing on different types of business models in different industries. Studies have explored different types of business models such as digital business models (e.g. Weill and Woerner, 2013 ), service business models (e.g. Kastalli et al. , 2013 ), social business models (e.g. Hlady-Rispal and Servantie, 2016 ) and sustainability-driven business models ( Esslinger, 2011 ). Besides, studies have examined different industries such as airline ( Lange et al. , 2015 ), manufacturing ( Landau et al. , 2016 ), newspaper ( Karimi and Walter, 2016 ), retail ( Brea-Solís et al. , 2015 ) and telemedicine ( Peters et al. , 2015 ).

Since the first comprehensive review of business model literature was carried out by Zott et al. (2011) , several reviews were published recently (as highlighted in Table I ). Our review builds on and extends the extant literature in at least three ways. First, unlike previous reviews that mainly focused on the general construct of “Business Model” ( George and Bock, 2011 ; Zott et al. , 2011 ; Wirtz et al. , 2016 ), our review focuses on uncovering how firms change their existing business model(s) by including terms that reflect business model innovation, namely, value proposition, value creation and value capture. Second, previous reviews do not provide a clear answer as to how firms change their business models. Our review aims to provide a clear guidance on how firms carry out business model innovation by synthesising the different perspectives existing in the literature. Third, compared to recent reviews on business model innovation ( Schneider and Spieth, 2013 ; Spieth et al. , 2014 ), which have touched lightly on some innovation aspects such as streams and motivations of business model innovation research, our review will uncover the innovation areas where alternative business models can be explored. Taking Teece’s (2010) suggestion, “A helpful analytic approach for management is likely to involve systematic deconstruction/unpacking of existing business models, and an evaluation of each element with an idea toward refinement or replacement” (p. 188), this paper aims to develop a theoretical framework of business model innovation.

Our review first explains the scope and the process of the literature review. This is followed by a synthesis of the findings of the review into a theoretical framework of business model innovation. Finally, avenues for future research will be discussed in relation to the approaches, degree and mechanisms of business model innovation.

2. Scope and method of the literature review

Given the diverse body of business models literature, a systematic literature review was carried out to minimise research bias ( Transfield et al. , 2003 ). Compared to the previous business model literature, our review criteria are summarised in Table I . The journal papers considered were published between January 2010 and December 2016. As highlighted in Figure 1 , most contributions in this field have been issued within this period since previous developments in the literature were comprehensively reviewed up to the end of 2009 ( Zott et al. , 2011 ). Using four databases (EBSCO Business Complete, ABI/INFORM, JSTOR and ScienceDirect), we searched peer-reviewed papers with terms such as business model(s), innovation value proposition, value creation and value capture appearing in the title, abstract or subject terms. As a result, 8,642 peer-reviewed papers were obtained.

Studies were included in our review if they specifically address business models and were top-rated according to The UK Association of Business Schools list ( ABS, 2010 ). This rating has been used not only because it takes into account the journal “Impact Factor” as a measure for journal quality, but also uses in conjunction other measures making it one of the most comprehensive journal ratings. By applying these criteria, 1,682 entries were retrieved from 122 journals. By excluding duplications, 831 papers were identified. As Harvard Business Review is not listed among the peer-reviewed journals in any of the chosen databases and was included in the ABS list, we used the earlier criteria and found 112 additional entries. The reviewed papers and their subject fields are highlighted in Table II . Since the focus of this paper is on business model innovation, we selected studies that discuss value proposition, value creation and value capture as sub-themes. This is not only because the definition of business model innovation mentioned earlier spans all three sub-themes, but also because all three sub-themes have been included in recent studies (e.g. Landau et al. , 2016 ; Velu and Jacob, 2014 ). To confirm whether the papers addressed business model innovation, we examined the main body of the papers to ensure they were properly coded and classified. At the end of the process, 219 papers were included in this review. Table III lists the source of our sample.

The authors reviewed the 219 papers using a protocol that included areas of innovation (i.e. components, elements, and activities), theoretical perspectives and key findings. In order to identify the main themes of business model innovation research, all papers were coded in relation to our research focus as to where alternative business models can be explored (i.e. value proposition, value creation and value capture). Coding was cross checked among the authors on a random sample suggesting high accuracy between them. Having compared and discussed the results, the authors were able to identify the main themes.

3. Prior conceptualisations of business model innovation

Some scholars have articulated the need to build the business model innovation on a more solid theoretical ground ( Sosna et al. , 2010 ; George and Bock, 2011 ). Although many studies are not explicitly theory-based, some studies partially used well-established theories such as the resource-based view (e.g. Al-Debei and Avison, 2010 ) and transaction cost economics (e.g. DaSilva and Trkman, 2014 ) to conceptualise business model innovation. Other theories such as activity systems perspective, dynamic capabilities and practice theory have been used to help answer the question of how firms change their existing business models.

Using the activity systems perspective, Zott and Amit (2010) demonstrated how innovative business models can be developed through the design themes that describe the source of value creation (novelty, lock-in, complementarities and efficiency) and design elements that describe the architecture (content, structure and governance). This work, however, overlooks value capture which limits the explanation of the advocated system’s view (holistic). Moreover, Chatterjee (2013) used this perspective to reveal that firms can design innovative business models that translate value capture logic to core objectives, which can be delivered through the activity system.

Dynamic capability perspective frames business model innovation as an initial experiment followed by continuous revision, adaptation and fine-tuning based on trial-and-error learning ( Sosna et al. , 2010 ). Using this perspective, Demil and Lecocq (2010) showed that “dynamic consistency” is a capability that allows firms to sustain their performance while innovating their business models through voluntary and emergent changes. Also, Mezger (2014) conceptualised business model innovation as a distinct dynamic capability. He argued that this capability is the firm’s capacity to sense opportunities, seize them through the development of valuable and unique business models, and accordingly reconfigure the firms’ competences and resources. Using aspects of practice theory, Mason and Spring (2011) looked at business model innovation in the recorded sound industry and found that it can be achieved through various combinations of managerial practices.

Static and transformational approaches have been used to depict business models ( Demil and Lecocq, 2010 ). The former refers to viewing business models as constituting core elements that influence business performance at a particular point in time. This approach offers a snapshot of the business model elements and how they are assembled, which can help in understanding and communicating a business model (e.g. Eyring et al. , 2011 ; Mason and Spring, 2011 ; Yunus et al. , 2010). The latter, however, focuses on innovation and how to address the changes in business models over time (e.g. Sinfield et al. , 2012 ; Girotra and Netessine, 2014 ; Landau et al. , 2016 ). Some researchers have identified the core elements of business models ex ante (e.g. Demil and Lecocq, 2010 ; Wu et al. , 2010 ; Huarng, 2013 ; Dmitriev et al. , 2014 ), while others argued that considering a priori elements can be restrictive (e.g. Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010 ). Unsurprisingly, some researchers found a middle ground where elements are loosely defined allowing flexibility in depicting business models (e.g. Zott and Amit, 2010 ; Sinfield et al. , 2012 ; Kiron et al. , 2013 ).

Prior to 2010, conceptual frameworks focused on the business model concept in general (e.g. Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002 ; Osterwalder et al. , 2005 ; Shafer et al. , 2005 ) apart from Johnson et al. ’s (2008 ), which is one of the early contributions to business model innovation. To determine whether a change in existing business model is necessary, Johnson et al. (2008) suggested three steps: “Identify an important unmet job a target customer needs done; blueprint a model that can accomplish that job profitably for a price the customer is willing to pay; and carefully implement and evolve the model by testing essential assumptions and adjusting as you learn” ( Eyring et al. , 2011 , p. 90). Although several frameworks have been developed since then, our understanding of business model innovation is still limited due to the static nature of the majority of these frameworks. Some representations ignore the elements and/or activities where alternative business models can be explored (e.g. Sinfield et al. , 2012 ; Chatterjee, 2013 ; Huarng, 2013 ; Morris et al. , 2013 ; Dmitriev et al. , 2014 ; Girotra and Netessine, 2014 ). Other frameworks ignore value proposition (e.g. Zott and Amit, 2010 ), ignore value creation (e.g. Dmitriev et al. , 2014 ; Michel, 2014 ) and/or ignore value capture (e.g. Mason and Spring, 2011 ; Sorescu et al. , 2011 ; Storbacka, 2011 ). Some conceptualisations do not identify who is responsible for the innovation (e.g. Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010 ; Sinfield et al. , 2012 ; Chatterjee, 2013 ; Kiron et al. , 2013 ). Synthesising the different contributions into a theoretical framework of business model innovation will enable a better understanding of how firms undertake business model innovation.

4. Business model innovation framework

Our framework ( Figure 2 ) integrates all the elements where alternative business models can be explored. This framework does not claim that the listed elements are definitive for high-performing business models, but is an attempt to outline the elements associated with business model innovation. This framework builds on the previous work of Johnson et al. (2008) and Zott and Amit (2010) by signifying the elements associated with business model innovation. Unlike previous frameworks that mainly consider the constituting elements of business models, this framework focuses on areas of innovation where alternative business models can be explored. Moreover, this is not a static view of the constituting elements of a business model, but rather a view enabling firms to explore alternative business models by continually refining these elements. Arrows in the framework indicate the continuous interaction of business model elements. This framework consists of 4 areas of innovation and 16 elements (more details are shown in Table IV ). Each will be discussed below.

4.1 Value proposition

The first area of innovation refers to elements associated with answering the “Why” questions. While most of the previously established models in the literature include at least one of the value proposition elements (e.g. Brea-Solís et al. , 2015 ; Christensen et al. , 2016 ), other frameworks included two elements (e.g. Dahan et al. , 2010 ; Cortimiglia et al. , 2016 ) and three elements (e.g. Eyring et al. , 2011 ; Sinfield et al. , 2012 ). These elements include rethinking what a company sells, exploring new customer needs, acquiring target customers and determining whether the benefits offered are perceived by customers. Modern organisations are highly concerned with innovation relating to value proposition in order to attract and retain a large portion of their customer base ( Al-Debei and Avison, 2010 ). Developing new business models usually starts with articulating a new customer value proposition ( Eyring et al. , 2011 ). According to Sinfield et al. (2012) , firms are encouraged to explore various alternatives of core offering in more depth by examining type of offering (product or service), its features (custom or off-the-shelf), offered benefits (tangible or intangible), brand (generic or branded) and lifetime of the offering (consumable or durable).

In order to exploit the “middle market” in emerging economies, Eyring et al. (2011) suggested that companies need to design new business models that aim to meet unsatisfied needs and evolve these models by continually testing assumptions and making adjustments. To uncover unmet needs, Eyring et al. (2011) suggested answering four questions: what are customers doing with the offering? What alternative offerings consumers buy? What jobs consumers are satisfying poorly? and what consumers are trying to accomplish with existing offerings? Furthermore, Baden-Fuller and Haefliger (2013) made a distinction between customers and users in two-sided platforms, where users search for products online, and customers (firms) place ads to attract users. They also made a distinction between “pre-designed (scale) based offerings” and “project based offerings”. While the former focuses on “one-size-fits-all”, the latter focuses on specific client solving specific problem.

Established firms entering emerging markets should identify unmet needs “the job to be done” rather than extending their geographical base for existing offerings ( Eyring et al. , 2011 ). Because customers in these markets cannot afford the cheapest of the high-end offerings, firms with innovative business models that meet these customers’ needs affordably will have opportunities for growth ( Eyring et al. , 2011 ). Moreover, secondary business model innovation has been advocated by Wu et al. (2010) as a way for latecomer firms to create and capture value from disruptive technologies in emerging markets. This can be achieved through tailoring the original business model to fit price-sensitive mass customers by articulating a value proposition that is attractive for local customers.

4.2 Operational value

The second area of innovation focuses on elements associated with answering the “What” questions. Many of the established frameworks included either one element (e.g. Sinfield et al. , 2012 ; Taran et al. , 2015 ), two elements (e.g. Mason and Spring, 2011 ; Dmitriev et al. , 2014 ). However, very few included three or more elements (e.g. Mehrizi and Lashkarbolouki, 2016 ; Cortimiglia et al. , 2016 ). These elements include configuring key assets and sequencing activities to deliver the value proposition, exposing the various means by which a company reaches out to customers, and establishing links with key partners and suppliers. Focusing on value creation, Zott and Amit (2010) argued that business model innovation can be achieved through reorganising activities to reduce transaction costs. However, Al-Debei and Avison (2010) argued that innovation relating to this dimension can be achieved through resource configuration, which demonstrates a firm’s ability to integrate various assets in a way that delivers its value proposition. Cavalcante et al. (2011) proposed four ways to change business models: business model creation, extension, revision and termination by creating or adding new processes, and changing or terminating existing processes.

Western firms have had difficulty competing in emerging markets due to importing their existing business models with unchanged operating model ( Eyring et al. , 2011 ). Alternative business models can be uncovered when firms explore the different roles they might play in the industry value chain ( Sinfield et al. , 2012 ). Al-Debei and Avison (2010) suggested achieving this through answering questions such as: what is the position of our firm in the value system? and what mode of collaboration (open or close) would we choose to reach out in a business network? Dahan et al. (2010) found cross-sector partnerships as a way to co-create new multi-organisational business models. They argued that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can collaborate with nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) to create products/or services that neither can create on their own. Collaboration allows access to resources that firms would otherwise need to solely develop or purchase ( Yunus et al. , 2010 ). According to Wu et al. (2010) , secondary business model innovation can be achieved when latecomer firms fully utilise strategic partners’ complementary assets to overcome their latecomer disadvantages and build a unique value network specific to emerging economies context.

4.3 Human capital

The third area of innovation refers to elements associated with answering the “Who” questions. Most of the established frameworks in this field tend to focus less on human capital and include one element at most (e.g. Wu et al. , 2010 ; Kohler, 2015 ). However, our framework highlights four elements, which include experimenting with new ways of doing business, tapping into the skills and competencies needed for the new business model through motivating and involving individuals in the innovation process. According to Belenzon and Schankerman (2015) , “the ability to tap into a pool of talent is strongly related to the specific business model chosen by managers” (p. 795). They claimed that managers can strategically influence individuals’ contributions and their impact on project performance.

Organisational learning can be maximised though continuous experimentation and making changes when actions result in failure ( Yunus et al. , 2010 ). Challenging and questioning the existing rules and assumptions and imagining new ways of doing business will help develop new business models. Another essential element of business model design is governance, which refers to who performs the activities ( Zott and Amit, 2010 ). According to Sorescu et al. (2011) , innovation in retail business models can occur as a result of changes in the level of participation by actors engaged in performing the activities. An essential element of retailing governance is the incentive structure or the mechanisms that motivate those involved in carrying out their roles to meet customer demands ( Sorescu et al. , 2011 ). For example, discount retailers tend to establish different compensation and incentive policies ( Brea-Solís et al. , 2015 ). Revising the incentive system can have a major impact on new ventures’ performance by aligning organisational goals at each stage of growth ( Roberge, 2015 ). Zott and Amit (2010) argued that alternative business models can be explored through adopting innovative governance or changing one or more parties that perform any activities. Sinfield et al. (2012) suggested that business model innovation only requires time from a small team over a short period of time to move a company beyond incremental improvements and generate new opportunities for growth. This is supported by Michel’s (2014) finding that cross-functional teams were able to quickly achieve business model innovation in workshops through deriving new ways to capture value.

4.4 Financial value

The final area of innovation focuses on elements associated with answering the “How” questions. Previously developed frameworks tend to prioritise this area of innovation by three elements (e.g. Eyring et al. , 2011 ; Huang et al. , 2013 ), and in one instance four elements (e.g. Yunus et al. , 2010 ). These elements include activities linked with how to capture value through revenue streams, changing the price-setting mechanisms, and assessing the financial viability and profitability of a business. According to Demil and Lecocq (2010) , changes in cost and/or revenue structures are the consequences of both continuous and radical changes. They also argued that costs relate to different activities run by organisations to acquire, integrate, combine or develop resources. Michel (2014) suggested that alternative business models can be explored through: changing the price-setting mechanism, changing the payer, and changing the price carrier. Different innovation forms are associated with each of these categories.

Business model innovation can be achieved through exploring new ways to generate cash flows ( Sorescu et al. , 2011 ), where the organisation has to consider (and potentially change) when the money is collected: prior to the sale, at the point of sale, or after the sale ( Baden-Fuller and Haefliger, 2013 ). Furthermore, Demil and Lecocq (2010) suggested that changes in business models affect margins. This is apparent in the retail business models, which generate more profit through business model innovation compared to other types of innovation ( Sorescu et al. , 2011 ).

5. Ways to change business models

From reviewing the recent developments in the business model literature, alternative business models can be explored through modifying a single business model element, altering multiple elements simultaneously and/or changing the interactions between elements of a business model.

Changing one of the business model elements (i.e. content, structure or governance) is enough to achieve business model innovation ( Amit and Zott, 2012 ). This means that firms can have a new activity system by performing only one new activity. However, Amit and Zott (2012) clearly outlined a systemic view of business models which entails a holistic change. This is evident from Demil and Lecocq’s (2010) work suggesting that the study of business model innovation should not focus on isolated activities since changing a core element will not only impact other elements but also the interactions between these elements.

Another way to change business models is through altering multiple business model elements simultaneously. Kiron et al. (2013) found that companies combining target customers with value chain innovations and changing one or two other elements of their business models tend to profit from their sustainability activities. They also found that firms changing three to four elements of their business models tend to profit more from their sustainability activities compared to those changing only one element. Moreover, Dahan et al. (2010) found that a new business model was developed as a result of MNEs and NGOs collaboration by redefining value proposition, target customers, governance of activities and distribution channels. Companies can explore multiple combinations by listing different business model options they could undertake (desirable, discussable and unthinkable) and evaluate new combinations that would not have been considered otherwise ( Sinfield et al. , 2012 ).

Changing business models is argued to be demanding as it requires a systemic and holistic view ( Amit and Zott, 2012 ) by considering the relationships between core business model elements ( Demil and Lecocq, 2010 ). As mentioned earlier, changing one element will not only impact other elements but also the interactions between these elements. A firm’s resources and competencies, value proposition and organisational system are continuously interacting and this will in turn impact business performance either positively or negatively ( Demil and Lecocq, 2010 ). According to Zott and Amit (2010) , innovative business models can be developed through linking activities in a novel way that generates more value. They argued that alternative business models can be explored by configuring business model design elements (e.g. governance) and connecting them to distinct themes (e.g. novelty). Supporting this, Eyring et al. (2011) suggested that core business model elements need to be integrated in order to create and capture value ( Eyring et al. , 2011 ).

6. Discussion and future research directions

From the above synthesis of the recent development in the literature, several gaps remain unfilled. To advance the literature, possible future research directions will be discussed in relation to approaches, degrees and mechanisms of business model innovation.

6.1 Approaches of business model innovation

Experimentation, open innovation and disruption have been advocated as approaches to business model innovation. Experimentation has been emphasised as a way to exploit opportunities and develop alternative business models before committing additional investments ( McGrath, 2010 ). Several approaches have been developed to assist in business model experimentation including mapping approach, discovery-driven planning and trail-and-error learning ( Chesbrough, 2010 ; McGrath, 2010 ; Sosna et al. , 2010 ; Andries and Debackere, 2013 ). Little is known about the effectiveness of these approaches. It will be worth investigating which elements of the business model innovation framework are more susceptible to experimentation and which elements should be held unchanged. Although business model innovation tends to be characterised with failure ( Christensen et al. , 2016 ), not much has been established on failing business models. It is interesting to explore how firms determine a failing business model and what organisational processes exist (if any) to evaluate and discard these failed business models. Empirical studies could examine which elements of business model innovation framework are associated with failing business models.

Another way to develop alternative business models is through open innovation. Although different categories of open business models have been identified by researchers (e.g. Frankenberger et al. , 2014 ; Taran et al. , 2015 ; Kortmann and Piller, 2016 ), their effectiveness is yet to be established. Further research is needed to examine when can a firm open and/or close element(s) of the business model innovation framework. Future studies could also examine the characteristics of open and/or close business models.

In responding to disruptive business models, how companies extend their existing business model, introduce additional business model(s) and/or replace their existing business model altogether remains underexplored. Future research is needed to unravel the strategies deployed by firms to extend their existing business models as a response to disruptive business models. In introducing additional business models, Markides (2013) suggested that a company will be presented with several options to manage the two businesses at the same time: create a completely separate business unit, integrate the two business models from the beginning or integrate the second business model after a certain period of time. Finding the balance between separation and integration is of vital importance. Further research could identify which of these choices are most common among successful firms introducing additional business models, how is the balance between integration and separation achieved, and which choice(s) prove more profitable. Moreover, very little is known on how firms replace their existing business model. Longitudinal studies could provide insights into how a firm adopts an alternative model and discard the old business model over time. It may also be worth examining the factors associated with the adoption of business model innovation as a response to disruptive business models. Moreover, new developments in digital technologies such as blockchain, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence are disrupting existing business models and providing firms with alternative avenues to create new business models. Thus far, very little is known on digital business models, the nature of their disruption, and how firms create digital business models and make them disruptive. Future research is needed to fill these important gaps in our knowledge.

6.2 Degrees of business model innovation

Business models can be developed through varying degrees of innovation from an evolutionary process of continuous fine-tuning to a revolutionary process of replacing existing business models. Recent research shows that survival of firms is dependent on the degree of their business model innovation ( Velu, 2015, 2016 ). This review classifies these degrees of innovation into modifying a single element, altering multiple elements simultaneously and/or changing the interactions between elements of the business model innovation framework.

In changing a single element, further research is needed to examine which business model element(s) is (are) associated with business model innovation. It is not clear whether firms intentionally make changes to a single element when carrying out business model innovation or stumble at it when experimenting with new ways of doing things. It may also be worth investigating the entry (or starting) points in the innovation process. There is no consensus in the literature on which element do companies start with when carrying out their business model innovation. While some studies suggest starting with the value proposition ( Eyring et al. , 2011 ; Landau et al. , 2016 ), others suggest starting the innovation process with identifying risks in the value chain ( Girotra and Netessine, 2011 ). Dmitriev et al. (2014) suggested two entry points, namely, value proposition and target customers. In commercialising innovations, the former refers to technology-push innovation while the latter refers to market-pull innovation. Also, it is not clear whether the entry point is the same as the single element associated with changing the business model. Further research can explore the different paths to business model innovation by identifying the entry point and subsequent changes needed to achieve business model innovation.

There is little guidance in the literature on how firms change multiple business model elements simultaneously. Landau et al. (2016) claimed that firms entering emerging markets tend to focus on adjusting specific business model components. It is unclear which elements need configuring, combining and/or integrating to achieve a company’s value proposition. Furthermore, the question of which elements can be “bought” on the market or internally “implemented” and their interplay remains unanswered ( DaSilva and Trkman, 2014 ). Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart (2010) argued that “[…] there is (as yet) no agreement as to the distinctive features of superior business models” (p. 196). Further research is needed to explore these distinctive elements of high-performing business models.

In changing the interactions between business model elements, further research is needed to explore how these elements are linked and what interactions’ changes are necessary to achieve business model innovation. Moreover, the question of how firms sequence these elements remains poorly understood. Future research can explore the synergies created over time between these elements. According to Dmitriev et al. (2014) , we need to improve our understanding of the connective mechanisms and dynamics involved in business model development. More work is needed to explore the different modalities of interdependencies among these elements and empirically testing such interdependencies and their effect on business performance ( Sorescu et al. , 2011 ).

It is surprising that the link between business model innovation and organisational performance has rarely been examined. Changing business models has been found to negatively influence business performance even if it is temporary ( McNamara et al. , 2013 ; Visnjic et al. , 2016 ). Contrary to this, evidence show that modifying business models is positively associated with organisational performance ( Cucculelli and Bettinelli, 2015 ). Empirical research is needed to operationalise the various degrees of innovation in business models and examine their link to organisational performance. Longitudinal studies can also be used to explore this association since it may be the case that business model innovation has a negative influence on performance in the short run and that may change subsequently. Moreover, it is not clear whether high-performing firms change their business models or innovation in business models is a result from superior performance ( Sorescu et al. , 2011 ). Further studies are needed to determine the direction of causality. Another link that is worth exploring is business model innovation and social value, which has only been explored in a few studies looking at social business models (e.g. Yunus et al. , 2010 ; Wilson and Post, 2013 ). Further research is needed to examine this link and possibly examine both financial and non-financial business performance.

6.3 Mechanisms of business model innovation

Although we know more about how firms define value proposition, create and capture value ( Landau et al. , 2016 ; Velu and Jacob, 2014 ), what remains as a blind spot is the mechanism of business model innovation. This is due to the fact that much of the literature seems to focus on value creation. To better understand the various mechanisms of business model innovation, future studies must integrate value proposition, value creation and value capture elements. Empirical studies could use the business model innovation framework to examine the various mechanisms of business model innovation. Also, the literature lacks the integration of internal and external perspectives of business model innovation. Very few studies look at the external drivers of business model innovation and the associated internal changes. The external drivers are referred to as “emerging changes”, which are usually beyond manager’s control ( Demil and Lecocq, 2010 ). Inconclusive findings exist as to how firms develop innovative business models in response to changes in the external environment. Future studies could examine the external factors associated with the changes in the business model innovation framework. Active and reactive responses need to be explored not only to understand the external influences, but also what business model changes are necessary for such responses. A better understanding of the mechanisms of business model innovation can be achieved by not only exploring the external drivers, but also linking them to specific internal changes. Although earlier contributions linking studies to established theories such as the resource-based view, transaction cost economics, activity systems perspective, dynamic capabilities and practice theory have proven to be vital in advancing the literature, developing a theory that elaborates on the antecedents, consequences and different facets of business model innovation is still needed ( Sorescu et al. , 2011 ). Theory can be advanced by depicting the mechanisms of business model innovation through the integration of both internal and external perspectives. Also, we call for more empirical work to uncover these mechanisms and provide managers with the necessary insights to carry out business model innovation.

7. Conclusions

The aim of this review was to explore how firms approach business model innovation. The current literature suggests that business model innovation approaches can either be evolutionary or revolutionary. However, the evidence reviewed points to a more complex picture beyond the simple binary approach, in that, firms can explore alternative business models through experimentation, open and disruptive innovations. Moreover, the evidence highlights further complexity to these approaches as we find that they are in fact a spectrum of various degrees of innovation ranging from modifying a single element, altering multiple elements simultaneously, to changing the interactions between elements of the business model innovation framework. This framework was developed as a navigation map for managers and researchers interested in how to change existing business models. It highlights the key areas of innovation, namely, value proposition, operational value, human capital and financial value. Researchers interested in this area can explore and examine the different paths firms can undertake to change their business models. Although this review pinpoints the different avenues for firm to undertake business model innovation, the mechanisms by which firms can change their business models and the external factors associated with such change remain underexplored.

importance of business model essay

The evolution of business model literature (pre-2000 to 2016)

importance of business model essay

Business model innovation framework

Previous reviews of business model literature

Reviewed papers and their subject fields

Source of our sample

Business model innovation areas and elements

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Innovation in Business: What It Is & Why It’s So Important

Business professionals pursuing innovation in the workplace

  • 08 Mar 2022

Today’s competitive landscape heavily relies on innovation. Business leaders must constantly look for new ways to innovate because you can't solve many problems with old solutions.

Innovation is critical across all industries; however, it's important to avoid using it as a buzzword and instead take time to thoroughly understand the innovation process.

Here's an overview of innovation in business, why it's important, and how you can encourage it in the workplace.

What Is Innovation?

Innovation and creativity are often used synonymously. While similar, they're not the same. Using creativity in business is important because it fosters unique ideas. This novelty is a key component of innovation.

For an idea to be innovative, it must also be useful. Creative ideas don't always lead to innovations because they don't necessarily produce viable solutions to problems.

Simply put: Innovation is a product, service, business model, or strategy that's both novel and useful. Innovations don't have to be major breakthroughs in technology or new business models; they can be as simple as upgrades to a company's customer service or features added to an existing product.

Access your free e-book today.

Types of Innovation

Innovation in business can be grouped into two categories : sustaining and disruptive.

  • Sustaining innovation: Sustaining innovation enhances an organization's processes and technologies to improve its product line for an existing customer base. It's typically pursued by incumbent businesses that want to stay atop their market.
  • Disruptive innovation: Disruptive innovation occurs when smaller companies challenge larger businesses. It can be classified into groups depending on the markets those businesses compete in. Low-end disruption refers to companies entering and claiming a segment at the bottom of an existing market, while new-market disruption denotes companies creating an additional market segment to serve a customer base the existing market doesn't reach.

The most successful companies incorporate both types of innovation into their business strategies. While maintaining an existing position in the market is important, pursuing growth is essential to being competitive. It also helps protect a business against other companies affecting its standing.

Learn about the differences between sustaining and disruptive innovation in the video below, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!

The Importance of Innovation

Unforeseen challenges are inevitable in business. Innovation can help you stay ahead of the curve and grow your company in the process. Here are three reasons innovation is crucial for your business:

  • It allows adaptability: The recent COVID-19 pandemic disrupted business on a monumental scale. Routine operations were rendered obsolete over the course of a few months. Many businesses still sustain negative results from this world shift because they’ve stuck to the status quo. Innovation is often necessary for companies to adapt and overcome the challenges of change.
  • It fosters growth: Stagnation can be extremely detrimental to your business. Achieving organizational and economic growth through innovation is key to staying afloat in today’s highly competitive world.
  • It separates businesses from their competition: Most industries are populated with multiple competitors offering similar products or services. Innovation can distinguish your business from others.

Design Thinking and Innovation | Uncover creative solutions to your business problems | Learn More

Innovation & Design Thinking

Several tools encourage innovation in the workplace. For example, when a problem’s cause is difficult to pinpoint, you can turn to approaches like creative problem-solving . One of the best approaches to innovation is adopting a design thinking mentality.

Design thinking is a solutions-based, human-centric mindset. It's a practical way to strategize and design using insights from observations and research.

Four Phases of Innovation

Innovation's requirements for novelty and usefulness call for navigating between concrete and abstract thinking. Introducing structure to innovation can guide this process.

In the online course Design Thinking and Innovation , Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar teaches design thinking principles using a four-phase innovation framework : clarify, ideate, develop, and implement.

Four phases of design thinking: clarify, ideate, develop, and implement

  • Clarify: The first stage of the process is clarifying a problem. This involves conducting research to empathize with your target audience. The goal is to identify their key pain points and frame the problem in a way that allows you to solve it.
  • Ideate: The ideation stage involves generating ideas to solve the problem identified during research. Ideation challenges assumptions and overcomes biases to produce innovative ideas.
  • Develop: The development stage involves exploring solutions generated during ideation. It emphasizes rapid prototyping to answer questions about a solution's practicality and effectiveness.
  • Implement: The final stage of the process is implementation. This stage involves communicating your developed idea to stakeholders to encourage its adoption.

Human-Centered Design

Innovation requires considering user needs. Design thinking promotes empathy by fostering human-centered design , which addresses explicit pain points and latent needs identified during innovation’s clarification stage.

There are three characteristics of human-centered design:

  • Desirability: For a product or service to succeed, people must want it. Prosperous innovations are attractive to consumers and meet their needs.
  • Feasibility: Innovative ideas won't go anywhere unless you have the resources to pursue them. You must consider whether ideas are possible given technological, economic, or regulatory barriers.
  • Viability: Even if a design is desirable and feasible, it also needs to be sustainable. You must consistently produce or deliver designs over extended periods for them to be viable.

Consider these characteristics when problem-solving, as each is necessary for successful innovation.

The Operational and Innovative Worlds

Creativity and idea generation are vital to innovation, but you may encounter situations in which pursuing an idea isn't feasible. Such scenarios represent a conflict between the innovative and operational worlds.

The Operational World

The operational world reflects an organization's routine processes and procedures. Metrics and results are prioritized, and creativity isn't encouraged to the extent required for innovation. Endeavors that disrupt routine—such as risk-taking—are typically discouraged.

The Innovative World

The innovative world encourages creativity and experimentation. This side of business allows for open-endedly exploring ideas but tends to neglect the functional side.

Both worlds are necessary for innovation, as creativity must be grounded in reality. You should strive to balance them to produce human-centered solutions. Design thinking strikes this balance by guiding you between the concrete and abstract.

Which HBS Online Entrepreneurship and Innovation Course is Right for You? | Download Your Free Flowchart

Learning the Ropes of Innovation

Innovation is easier said than done. It often requires you to collaborate with others, overcome resistance from stakeholders, and invest valuable time and resources into generating solutions. It can also be highly discouraging because many ideas generated during ideation may not go anywhere. But the end result can make the difference between your organization's success or failure.

The good news is that innovation can be learned. If you're interested in more effectively innovating, consider taking an online innovation course. Receiving practical guidance can increase your skills and teach you how to approach problem-solving with a human-centered mentality.

Eager to learn more about innovation? Explore Design Thinking and Innovation ,one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses. If you're not sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.

importance of business model essay

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Business model

Business strategy is an essential component to a firm’s business model and is a vital player in aiding the firm drive itself to achieve its mission. Through a clear business strategy a firm can derive its position in the long term and create a competitive advantage in the market for itself. In this essay we explore the business model of Ryanair and assess their strategy. Ryanair is an Irish low cost airline headquartered in Dublin founded in 1985. It operates 181 aircrafts over 729 routes across Europe and North Africa from 31 bases. Ryanair has seen large success over the recent years due to its low-cost business model and has become the world’s largest airline in terms of international passenger numbers. Taking Porter’s generic business strategies into consideration, Ryanair operates a cost-leadership strategy to drive itself into achieving its mission of being the leading European low-cost carrier (LCC). Throughout this essay the business strategy of Ryanair will be analysed and the sustainability of their model evaluated.

Ryanair’s objective is ‘to firmly establish itself as Europe’s leading low-fares scheduled passenger airline through continued improvements and expanded offerings of its low-fares service’ (Ryanair). Considering their objectives and mission, Ryanair’s decision on their cost-leadership strategy was based on a few main factors which are discussed below.

A major influence was the deregulation of the airline industry in 1978 which removed government intervention within the European continent. Under the new rules, routes and fare decisions were made by individual airlines which meant that they could compete on other factors besides food, cabin crew and frequency. As a result of deregulation, a large number of new airline start-ups emerged within the EU and competition among airlines increased dramatically resulting in downward price pressures. Ryanair was established to take full advantage of these market conditions. By offering low prices, Ryanair entered a huge and virtually unlimited market.

Having seen the major success of the low cost carrier Southwest in the United States, Ryanair decided to follow in their footsteps by establishing a LCC for the European continent that targeted fare conscious leisure travellers and regular low cost business travellers. By doing this Ryanair became the first low-fare airline in Europe. However, they took the Southwest model further by offering no drinks and snacks at all and abolishing the frequent flyer program which Southwest up to this day offers its customers (Boesch 2007).

The evaluation of Porters five forces influenced Ryanair’s choice of a cost-leadership strategy, as the threat presented by new entrants and the threat of substitutes could hinder their success. The threat of new entrants is high within the aviation industry which meant that low fares would help drive away any further competition. The threat of substitutes to Ryanair had to also be carefully examined. Their primary market, Europe, had the availability of high speed trains and car holidays. For Ryanair to be successful, prices had to be low to attract the public, and resist strong competition from substitutes like Eurostar.

As Europe’s largest low fare airline, Ryanair’s competitive advantage remains in their ability to continue as cost leaders; providing the cheapest fares to its customers. This dictates that the company must minimise its own costs to ensure that they are able to offer customers the service at a price below their direct competitors. This leads us to consider some key functional strategies which directly help Ryanair towards their ultimate goal ‘to be Europe’s leading low fares airline’ (Ryanair).

The marketing strategy is perhaps the most obvious and significant functional strategy of Ryanair. Low fares are designed to stimulate demand, attracting fare-conscious travellers, those who may have used alternative forms of transportation or even those who may have not travelled at all. Penetration pricing as it is called helps gain market share and simply, more customers equals more revenue (Wheelen & Hunger 2006). Tickets are almost solely sold on their website ‘www.ryanair.com’ which very importantly keeps sales costs to a minimum since very few phone operators are employed and computers are able to cheaply handle all functions of sales. With ever increasing accessibility of the internet globally anybody with internet access can buy airline tickets from Ryanair, so distribution practically takes care of itself through this medium. Ryan Air relies on low cost promotions and in recent times has concentrated on their ‘One million seats at one pound’ which is usually advertised through their internet site, national press and bulletin boards. It is the simplicity of this promotion which helps keep costs low since expensive advertising agencies can be entirely avoided and advertising can be dealt with in house.

Ryanair’s operations strateg1y determines how the airline will deploy its resources and the policies it will operate by. To keep costs low they operate a ‘no frills’ service onboard aircraft. This means the fare only includes the flight. There are however a number of other measures directly related to a no frills service. These include ticketless boarding, unallocated seats, one class of travel, costs for check-in baggage, no refund policy, basic seats (to increase aircraft capacity) and charging for any additional service. All this significantly reduces costs to Ryanair. The Achilles heel of Ryanair is their greater aircraft utilisation through super quick turnaround times. Essentially this means the aircraft spends very little time on the ground, they achieve this through their human resource policies and by having none or very little cargo in the baggage hold to speed up loading and unloading of the aircraft.

Logistics strategy deals with the flow of products into and out of Ryanair. Again there is heavy emphasis on cost saving and reducing measures.  Ryanair fly to secondary airports which are potentially much further from the City centre but accessible enough by other forms of ground transportation. At these airports Ryanair are able to negotiate extremely aggressively and demand the lowest landing and handling fees. Additionally Ryanair is usually able to gain financial assistance with marketing and promotional campaigns at these airports.

As cost leader Ryanair strives to undercut all its rivals but this means very low income per fare and requires maximum utilisation of its resources. Fortunately their financial policy ensures they are able to still profit handsomely from rock bottom fares. The aim is to breakeven on fares but to make their profits out of ancillary charges and commissions from their partners. Ryanair has a number of affiliates such as Hertz car rental, Acumus insurance and booking.com all of whom are advertised readily on the Ryanair website. Since the website has high website traffic its partners are able to reach out to Ryanair’s huge client base and are prepared to pay good commissions to the firm for this privilege (IdeaWorks). Ryanair also generate income from advertising on board the aircraft. Ancillary revenue is generated from many of the services that traditional airlines wouldn’t charge for, such as large baggage into the cargo hold, allocated seating, snacks and drinks.

Ryanair’s strategy when purchasing aircraft is to buy new, uniform aircraft. This is beneficial for a number of reasons all of which directly help cost saving measures. Firstly, by being able to order same aircraft in bulk they are able to negotiate a better price per aircraft. Secondly, uniform aircraft mean that there are potential savings in staff training; air stewards being more familiar with all aircraft and maintenance will be simpler. Finally by buying new, the company has safer, more fuel efficient planes with lower maintenance costs. Safer aircraft also means greater consumer confidence, equating to more fare sales.

Furthermore Ryanair aggressively hedge and fix as many of their costs as possible, such as oil and aircraft prices so they are not subject to future price fluctuations which could adversely affect profitability (Stone 2008).

The human resource policy is again directly related to reducing costs. Employees are expected to pay for their own uniform and equipment. Training given is the required minimum and staff utilisation is among the highest in the airline industry. Many staff are employed on performance contracts and those who do not meet their expectations are readily replaced. Staff are also expected to take on a number of roles, cabin staff will also clean the aircraft prior to the next service, check in staff assist in boarding the aircraft etc.

Ryanair has successfully experienced years of growth both in the number of its aircrafts and passengers since its launch. However, with the global financial system recently suffering its greatest crisis in more than 70 years, existing business models of many aviation firms are coming under great strain. As this economic downturn bankrupts LCCs like XL and Zoom with more expected to follow, the question is whether Ryanair’s cost-leadership strategy is sustainable or not as it continues to offer lower fares in the face of high costs. Although Ryanair has posted losses along with other aviation firms for the latest quarter, it is expected to emerge from this downturn with fewer competitors because its €1.8 billon balance sheet is one of the strongest in the industry. Additionally, as the credit crunch takes its toll, traditional airlines are not in a position to cut fares and the threat of new LCCs is virtually eliminated due to the lack of financing. Although Ryanair faces competition from substitutes like Eurostar, it is at an advantage because of Eurostar’s limited destinations.

Ryanair is sticking to its mantra, when the going gets tough, sell more seats for almost nothing (Symonds 2008). By offering low fares, Ryanair expects passengers to trade down to the low cost airlines rather than stop flying completely. This trend appears accurate so far based on passenger numbers as recession forces millions of passengers to focus on price (Waterman 2009). Additionally, the latest statistics from The European Low Fares Airline Association members show a 15.7% year-on-year growth in the number of passengers for 2008, indicating that the LCC model is robust, even in times of crisis (Latest 2009). Consequently, there is no doubt that Ryanair looks poised for substantial profits and passenger growth in the coming years. However, in order to compete with other LCCs and maintain its continued market share growth in the future, Ryanair needs to improve its poor customer relations.

The sustainability of Ryanair’s cost leadership strategy also depends largely on the price of oil and how effective the firm is in cutting costs in order to continue offering low fares. According to the firm’s latest financial report, ‘Ryanair will enjoy significantly lower oil costs thanks to their recent hedging programme, when most of their competitors are already hedged at much higher prices. These lower prices will drive Ryanair’s traffic growth, maintain high load factors and capture market share from higher cost fuel surcharging competitors’ (3rd Quarter Results 2009). In order to cut costs, Ryanair plans to close all its airport check-in desks by the end of 2009 and have passengers check-in online instead. Other cost saving methods not yet implemented include charging customers for using toilets on airplanes (Lalor 2009). These cost cutting ideas are not very popular among consumers and it means that Ryanair needs to improve its already tarnished brand image in the future which it had attained through negative press reporting and misleading advertisements.

The current strategy at Ryanair is expected to work so well that despite the recession Ryanair’s CEO has underlined the firm’s commitment to expansion. The firm is expected to grow at 20 percent a year because of a 180 aircrafts on order from Boeing. These expansion plans for the future will require the company to increase its landing slots at airports and recruit more employees. Currently Ryanair has limited access to landing slots in major airports and the secondary airports are long distances away from city centres which could make it less attractive in the future. However, a remarkable cut in flights by other European airline carriers due to recession is creating enormous opportunities for Ryanair, as many major airports compete to reduce charges in order to attract Ryanair’s growth (3rd Quarter Results 2009). Availability of skilled personnel shouldn’t be a problem for Ryanair due to recent high unemployment levels. However, Ryanair needs to improve its current low level of empathy for employees if it is to retain them in the future.

Even though Ryanair’s cost leadership strategy is robust and it looks set to serve them well in the future, there are some key areas within the business that can be improved on to enhance the firm’s profitability and brand image.

Ryanair has always been criticised for many aspects of its poor customer relations. According to The Economist, Ryanair’s "cavalier treatment of passengers" had given Ryanair "a deserved reputation for nastiness" and that the airline "has become a byword for appalling customer service… and jeering rudeness towards anyone or anything that gets in its way" (Aviation 2007). If Ryanair is to maintain its large customer base, it needs to ensure that it acknowledges its customers’ concerns and maintains a service focused attitude at all costs. Ryanair needs to invest in servicing customers better by providing a non-premium contact number, improving its non user friendly website, and simplifying the terms and conditions of the flight service. Ryanair should also create a frequent flyer program to establish a fixed customer base and encourage customer loyalty.

Ryanair is notorious for its high staff turnover which negatively affects its reputation as an employer. Over utilization of employees, poor remuneration package, and minimal training are a few other critical items to be considered by Ryanair if it is to retain employees in the future. Ryanair needs to understand that although it is currently possible to replace outgoing employees, but with time Ryanair’s overall image will be tarnished. Resultantly, attracting new employees could become impossible and this will hinder their expansion plans. Ryanair should incorporate a flexible benefits package solely designed to improve employee morale such as flexible working hours and extra holidays. To improve its image amongst employees, training at all employee levels must include exposure to similar techniques and methods that help promote the development of a uniform company identity.

Following huge success in Europe, Ryanair should consider introducing low cost transatlantic flights to support its expansion plans and attain a larger customer base. With a high demand for certain routes like London-New York and room for negotiation in airplane prices and airport slots mainly due to the current financial climate, it is an ideal time to further reap the rewards of the cost leadership strategy that has served Ryanair so well over the years.

Ryanair’s model looks set to survive the current industrial downturn through its lower costs and substantial cash balances. No airline is better placed in Europe than Ryanair to trade through this downturn. It will therefore continue to grow, by lowering fares, taking market share from competitors, and expanding in markets where competitors either withdraw capacity or go bust (Monaghan 2008). By taking the recommended improvements into consideration, it looks like Ryanair’s cost leadership strategy seems ideal for the future.

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The Importance of a Strong Business Model

To define a business model, it is first necessary to have a good understanding of what a business is. In the article What Is a Business Model , Andrea Ovans gives different definitions of business models, which are universal for different types of companies (2015). As a result, the author concludes that one of the key elements of a business model is a value proposition. Indeed, customers need to understand why they should choose a particular supplier. They need to be aware of the benefits and unique aspects of a product or service to decide in its favor.

One of the fairly general but accurate descriptions of the business model has two components. The first includes manufacturing, such as purchasing materials, making a product, and other activities. The second relates to sales: the supplier enters into a financial relationship with the buyer. Indeed, these aspects are the most important in any business model. On the one hand, the product or service must be of decent quality. On the other hand, any company needs to interact with buyers so that they are convinced to buy something.

The negative state of the business can be described as a gas leak. When a company invests more and more efforts in innovation, and they bring less and less results, one should think about the quality of the business model. The sooner a company does this, the more likely it is to stay afloat. However, knowing about a problem and solving it are not the same. Undoubtedly, company leaders may be well versed in crisis management, but it may be difficult for them to apply its techniques. At this point, it is essential to act and change the processes of interaction inside and outside the company.

Dr. Porter’s Five Forces is one of the most common ways to research the competitiveness of a business niche. Various factors affect rivalry in the industry (Porter, 2017). On the one hand, they include the threat of new entrants and the threat of substitutes. These aspects can indeed negatively impact sales as customers may find something cheaper or better. On the other hand, they include the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers. In other words, when starting a business, one needs to understand how much raw materials can be purchased from suppliers and what prices will be acceptable to customers.

This way of studying competitiveness is helpful and benefits business owners. By examining the business from different angles, one can understand whether it is worth doing it. It is an opportunity to adjust the assortment or choose a supplier with lower prices. It is crucial to pay attention to detail and do a good job of researching the market to benefit from using the Five Forces.

To research a business model, it is not enough to simply come up with a market proposition and study the audience. First, it is important to understand who will want to buy a product or service. Then one needs to understand what offers already exist on the market since there is a possibility that they are already of high quality and inexpensive. After that, it is worth researching suppliers and finding the best option. This will allow the business owner to be ready for any kind of competition and calculate all possible risks.

Ovans, A. (2015). What Is a Business Model , Harvard Business Review. Web.

Porter, M. E. (2017). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Essays on Business Model

We found 30 free papers on business model, essay examples, business model canvas analysis – paypal.

Business Model

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Cork’D Business Model: Building a Social Network for Wine Lovers

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Business Model Canvas Zillow Sample

The internet’s ability to supply entree to information has improved existent estate communications and concern ( Aalberts and Townsend. 2002 ) . Business theoretical accounts represent the concern logic of companies. They are executed by company web sites and are of import to the success of companies. E-business theoretical accounts represent the principle of how…

Costco Wholesale Corporation: Mission, Business Model, and Strategy

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In 2008, Costco achieved sales of around $71 billion. These sales were spread across its 544 warehouses located in different states, Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Mexico. Among these warehouses, over 50 stores had annual sales exceeding $200 million. Notably, two stores even surpassed $300 million in sales. On average,…

Huckleberry Finn: A Good Role Model

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“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” gives a ocular expression at the clip in which the writer Samuel Clemens lived. He explains how he felt about his life through the eyes of a immature male child named Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn has many escapades that teach him life lessons we can larn from today. Although there…

Dell Operations Strategy

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Kathmandu Sample Assignment

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Porters 5 forces for Flipkart

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Because of the economic lag in developed economic systems and the mature markets more and more companies are encouraged to come in in emerging markets. We can detect an increasing force per unit area for MNE to come in in emerging economic systems by aiming in-between and low Base of the Pyramid. The taking companies…

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BUS 313 - Understanding Business Models

The University Of Newcastle Australia

Business Model   (BUS 313)

Added on   2020-03-02

About This Document

In this document, we will discuss the clear and concise way of picturing how a particular business operates is called a Business Model . A business model is how the value proposition of the business is translated into the potential to achieve rapid growth of revenue and earn huge profits. The essay discusses the importance of a business model for a business. The essay shall support the claims with several examples of companies that have adopted the most suitable business model in their business.

   Added on  2020-03-02

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Innovation and Sustainable Business Development | Assignment lg ...

Business model of an organisation: definition and implementation lg ..., the contemporary economy | business model lg ..., innovation and business development- doc lg ..., mba 660 - essay on innovation and sustainable development lg ..., lmmei 077450d- innovation and sustainable business development- essay lg ....

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Retailers and Health Systems Can Improve Care Together

  • Robert S. Huckman,
  • Vivian S. Lee,
  • Bradley R. Staats

importance of business model essay

Health systems are struggling to address the many shortcomings of health care delivery: rapidly growing costs, inconsistent quality, and inadequate and unequal access to primary and other types of care. However, if retailers and health systems were to form strong partnerships, they could play a major role in addressing these megachallenges.

While some partnerships do exist, they are rare and have only scratched the surface of their potential. Rather than focusing on the direct-to-consumer model that retailers have largely employed, the partnerships should offer much broader care.

Drawing on real-world examples, the authors outline four key actions that retailers and health systems should take: (1) They must move beyond convenience to offer comprehensive care. (2) They should move care from clinics into the home. (3) They should leverage data to improve clinical care and the customer experience. And (4) they should change how—and by whom—health care work is done. Implementing these four actions would generate improvements that would benefit not just patients but also the organizations that pay for their health care.

They should coordinate their complementary services to help consumers and better address the needs of employers and insurers.

Idea in Brief

The problem.

Health systems are struggling to address the megachallenges facing health care: rapidly growing costs, inconsistent quality, and inadequate and unequal access to primary and other types of care.

Forge partnerships with retailers, which have largely focused on providing consumers with a convenient way to obtain basic care for one-off services such as taking a throat culture, treating an ear infection, or administering a flu vaccine.

The Way Forward

Together, retailers and health systems can better provide comprehensive care for complex conditions, offer care in patients’ homes, leverage data to improve clinical care and the customer experience, and address the looming labor shortage in health care.

The Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath have starkly highlighted the shortcomings of health care delivery in the United States and many other countries: rapidly growing costs, inconsistent quality, and inadequate and unequal access to primary and other types of care. However, if retailers and health systems were to forge strong partnerships, they could play a major role in addressing these megachallenges. While some retail–health care partnerships exist—for example, one between Target and Kaiser Permanente in Southern California began in 2014—they are rare and have only scratched the surface of their potential. To fundamentally change how health care is delivered, more of these partnerships are needed, and many of those that exist must be reoriented toward a different goal. Rather than focusing on the direct-to-consumer model that retailers have largely employed to provide a handful of basic services, the partnerships must offer much broader care. They should, of course, target the needs of consumers, but they must also help employers and insurers manage the overall health—and health care spending—of the populations they cover. In this article, we make the case for these partnerships and highlight four key actions that retailers and health systems must take to achieve this larger goal.

  • Robert S. Huckman is the Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he is the Howard Cox Faculty Chair of the HBS Health Care Initiative and head of the Technology and Operations Management unit. robert_huckman
  • Vivian S. Lee , MD, is an executive fellow at Harvard Business School. She is the former president of Verily Health Platforms at Alphabet, the former CEO of University of Utah Health, and the author of The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Care Crisis with Strategies That Work for Everyone (W.W. Norton, 2020).
  • Bradley R. Staats is Ellison Distinguished Professor of Operations at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he is the faculty director of the UNC Center for the Business of Health and senior associate dean of strategy and academics. He is the author of Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself and Thrive (Harvard Business Review Press, 2018). brstaats

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Trump’s Harsh Punishment Was Made Possible by This New York Law

The little-known measure meant hundreds of millions in penalties in the civil fraud case brought by Attorney General Letitia James.

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Letitia James sits in court behind Donald Trump, who is blurred and out of focus.

By Ben Protess and Jonah E. Bromwich

The $355 million penalty that a New York judge ordered Donald J. Trump to pay in his civil fraud trial might seem steep in a case with no victim calling for redress and no star witness pointing the finger at Mr. Trump. But a little-known 70-year-old state law made the punishment possible.

The law, often referred to by its shorthand, 63(12), which stems from its place in New York’s rule book, is a regulatory bazooka for the state’s attorney general, Letitia James. Her office has used it to aim at a wide range of corporate giants: the oil company Exxon Mobil, the tobacco brand Juul and the pharma executive Martin Shkreli.

On Friday, the law enabled Ms. James to win an enormous victory against Mr. Trump. Along with the financial penalty , the judge barred Mr. Trump from running a business in New York for three years. His adult sons were barred for two years.

The judge also ordered a monitor, Barbara Jones, to assume more power over Mr. Trump’s company, and asked her to appoint an independent executive to report to her from within the company.

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, reacted with fury, saying “the sobering future consequences of this tyrannical abuse of power do not just impact President Trump.”

“When a court willingly allows a reckless government official to meddle in the lawful, private and profitable affairs of any citizen based on political bias, America’s economic prosperity and way of life are at extreme risk of extinction,” he said.

In the Trump case, Ms. James accused the former president of inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loans and other financial benefits. Mr. Trump, she argued, defrauded his lenders and in doing so, undermined the integrity of New York’s business world.

Mr. Trump’s conduct “distorts the market,” Kevin Wallace, a lawyer for Ms. James’s office, said during closing arguments in the civil fraud trial.

“It prices out honest borrowers and can lead to more catastrophic results,” Mr. Wallace said, adding, “That’s why it’s important for the court to take the steps to protect the marketplace to prevent this from happening again.”

Yet the victims — the bankers who lent to Mr. Trump — testified that they were thrilled to have him as a client. And while a parade of witnesses echoed Ms. James’s claim that the former president’s annual financial statements were works of fiction, none offered evidence showing that Mr. Trump explicitly intended to fool the banks.

That might seem unusual, but under 63(12), such evidence was not necessary to find fraud.

The law did not require the attorney general to show that Mr. Trump had intended to defraud anyone or that his actions resulted in financial loss.

“This law packs a wallop,” said Steven M. Cohen, a former federal prosecutor and top official in the attorney general’s office, noting that it did not require the attorney general to show that anyone had been harmed.

With that low bar, Justice Arthur F. Engoron, the judge presiding over the case, sided with Ms. James on her core claim before the trial began, finding that Mr. Trump had engaged in a pattern of fraud by exaggerating the value of his assets in statements filed to his lenders.

Ms. James’s burden of proof at the trial was higher: To persuade the judge that Mr. Trump had violated other state laws, she had to convince him that the former president acted with intent. And some of the evidence helped her cause: Two of Mr. Trump’s former employees testified that he had final sign-off on the financial statements, and Mr. Trump admitted on the witness stand that he had a role in drafting them.

Still, her ability to extract further punishments based on those other violations is also a product of 63(12), which grants the attorney general the right to pursue those who engage in “repeated fraudulent or illegal acts.”

In other fraud cases, authorities must persuade a judge or jury that someone was in fact defrauded. But 63(12) required Ms. James only to show that conduct was deceptive or created “an atmosphere conducive to fraud.” Past cases suggest that the word “fraud” itself is effectively a synonym for dishonest conduct, the attorney general argued in her lawsuit.

Once the attorney general has convinced a judge or jury that a defendant has acted deceptively, the punishment can be severe. The law allows Ms. James to seek the forfeit of money obtained through fraud.

Of the roughly $355 million that Mr. Trump was ordered to pay, $168 million represents the sum that Mr. Trump saved on loans by inflating his worth, she argued. In other words, the extra interest the lenders missed.

The penalty was in the judge’s hands — there was no jury — and 63(12) gave him wide discretion.

The law also empowered Justice Engoron to set new restrictions on Mr. Trump and his family business, all of which Mr. Trump is expected to appeal.

The judge also ordered a monitor to assume more power over Mr. Trump’s company, who will appoint an independent executive who will report to the monitor from within the company.

Even before she filed her lawsuit against the Trumps in 2022, Ms. James used 63(12) as a cudgel to aid her investigation.

The law grants the attorney general’s office something akin to prosecutorial investigative power. In most civil cases, a person or entity planning to sue cannot collect documents or conduct interviews until after the lawsuit is filed. But 63(12) allows the attorney general to do a substantive investigation before deciding whether to sue, settle or abandon a case. In the case against Mr. Trump, the investigation proceeded for nearly three years before a lawsuit was filed.

The case is not Mr. Trump’s first brush with 63(12). Ms. James’s predecessors used it in actions against Trump University, his for-profit education venture, which paid millions of dollars to resolve the case.

The law became so important to Ms. James’s civil fraud case that it caught the attention of Mr. Trump, who lamented the sweeping authority it afforded the attorney general and falsely claimed that her office rarely used it.

He wrote on social media last year that 63(12) was “VERY UNFAIR.”

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney's office, state criminal courts in Manhattan and New York City's jails. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

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Computer Science > Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Title: screenai: a vision-language model for ui and infographics understanding.

Abstract: Screen user interfaces (UIs) and infographics, sharing similar visual language and design principles, play important roles in human communication and human-machine interaction. We introduce ScreenAI, a vision-language model that specializes in UI and infographics understanding. Our model improves upon the PaLI architecture with the flexible patching strategy of pix2struct and is trained on a unique mixture of datasets. At the heart of this mixture is a novel screen annotation task in which the model has to identify the type and location of UI elements. We use these text annotations to describe screens to Large Language Models and automatically generate question-answering (QA), UI navigation, and summarization training datasets at scale. We run ablation studies to demonstrate the impact of these design choices. At only 5B parameters, ScreenAI achieves new state-of-the-artresults on UI- and infographics-based tasks (Multi-page DocVQA, WebSRC, MoTIF and Widget Captioning), and new best-in-class performance on others (Chart QA, DocVQA, and InfographicVQA) compared to models of similar size. Finally, we release three new datasets: one focused on the screen annotation task and two others focused on question answering.

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Zara Company’s Business Model Essay

Business model of zara, fashion industry traditional business model, zara business model, disruptive innovation, works cited.

Zara is one of the leading fashion brands that compete with other major fashion retail brands such as H&M, Benetton, etc. It is one of the largest holdings and revenue earners of Inditex. In 1963, Inditex started its operations in La Coruna as garment wholesalers (McAfee, Dessain, & Sjoman, 2007). However, it was not until 1975, when a German customer cancelled a sizable order, that Inditex opened its own retail store and named it Zara (Berfield & Baigorri, 2013).

Initially, the aim of the company was to have a retail outlet for their cancelled shipments but soon they realized the importance of the alliance between retail and manufacturing. This initial experience brought forth the philosophy on which the whole business model of Zara is based on – customer base and manufacturing base should be closely mixed in order to achieve optimal success.

The brand enjoys international presence and is the largest selling brand in Spain. The business model of Zara is different from most of its competitors and its strategic decisions and competitive advantages have been a question of curiosity for academicians. This essay is an exploration of the business model, strategy, and competitive advantages of Zara. Most importantly, the paper strives to answer the question, what is the business model of Zara?

Zara caters to an extensively competitive fashion retail industry where consumer demand and preference fluctuate considerably. The main aim of Zara is to control the tastes and preferences of the customers and change their styles before their taste and preferences change (Hansen, 2012). In order to achieve this, Zara ensures that its stores are up to date in their clothes selection and they have to order at least twice a week to revamp their stock.

The case study on Zara shows that the company has almost no promotion and advertisement cost as opposed to other retail chains like Gap or Benetton who spend heavily on advertising their products and they believe in owning the best retail space (McAfee, Dessain, & Sjoman, 2007). Retail location is an important element of Zara’s business model as it allows the company to reach its target market more easily (McAfee, Dessain, & Sjoman, 2007).

Instead of advertising its products, Zara conducts market research to identify the right locality where they may find the largest pool of their target market in the market segment (Hansen, 2012; McAfee, Dessain, & Sjoman, 2007). This strategy makes opening a store in a new location financially viable.

The business mode followed by Zara is essentially called the disruptive innovation model, which is unlike the traditional business model followed by the traditional retail companies. Therefore, before studying the business mode of Zara, the paper discusses the traditional business model of the fashion industry.

The business mode of the traditional fashion industry is essentially based on designing of clothes and retailing them. However, the time lag that prolongs the designing process and availability of finished products in-store are acute in most of the cases. Fashion brands concentrate more on creating designs for a specific season and making them available in a period of 4 to 5 months. Hence, a fashion brand revamps its design offerings only in 4 months:

The traditional fashion industry calendar introduces two new collections per year. One is the spring/summer collection unveiled in January and February and the other is the fall/winter collection, which unveiled in August and September. The actual design work often takes place a full year before the launch. (Ireland, 2013, para. 4)

The advantages of the traditional model are that it allows considerable time to plan and execute the strategy. It allows companies to book a manufacturing plant in advance at a cheaper cost and help in developing the designs. However, the disadvantages of the traditional model are that the designs have to be perceived in advance and the whole order is locked earlier in advance. Hence, any changes in trend of fashion cannot be incorporated in the fresh seasons’ style.

For instance, after the order has been placed if the company realizes that it has gone ahead with a set of design that are not in fashion then they might have to reduce the prices to clear the stock. Retailers like The Gap have to offer their products at reduced prices as they have a high inventory of products that were not in demand, often face this problem.

Gauging the right trend of the season is also a problem for designers and if they are unable to the products become redundant. Hence, it can be asserted that the traditional business mode of fashion industry often creates supply chain bottlenecks and increases inventory costs (Özlen & Handukic, 2013 ). Further, obsolete style show the fashion brand negatively among the upbeat, fashion conscious customers who easily tire away from older fads.

The main contention of Zara is to sell fashion and not clothes and hence, the company strives to change its product offering as early as possible so that every time a customer enters their store, they are offered something new:

Zara’s strategy requires the generation of a great deal of product variety throughout the year… As part of this fashionably exclusive (yet low cost) image, stores hold very low levels of inventory – typically only a few pieces of each model – and this often means that a store’s entire stock is on display. Because of the low inventory, policy it is not unusual to find empty racks by the end of a day’s trading and therefore stores are completely reliant on regular and rapid replenishment of newly designed products. (Ferdows, Lewis, & Machuca, 2003, p. 63)

The supply chain process of Zara consists of four broad categories – designing and order administration, production, distribution, and retailing. However, the process followed is less generic as it may sound.

supply chain model of zara

Designing is one of the cornerstones of Zara’s success (Ferdows, Lewis, & Machuca, 2003). The process of effective, profitable designing of products that sell within a short time, is possible only if the products are replenished with new designs and fashion to the stores in a short time. The focus of the company is to hire designers who can come up with design ideas in a very short time. Hence, Zara has dedicated teams for designing and product management (Ferdows, Lewis, & Machuca, 2003).

There are focused teams to look into specific areas of their products (Zara’s Secret To Success: The New Science Of Retailing, 2013). For instance, the company has a dedicated team for the women’s sportswear division (Zara’s Secret To Success: The New Science Of Retailing, 2013). The product team is also responsible for collecting trend data on the in-season fashion and fad and accordingly presents it in their product designs. Thus, Zara has a short-term policy of replenishing its fashion line:

Zara is renowned for its ability to deliver new clothes to stores quickly and in small batches. Twice a week, at precise times, store managers order clothes, and twice a week, on schedule, new garments arrive. To achieve this, Zara controls more of it’s manufacturing than do most retailers: About half its clothes are made in Spain or nearby countries. For Zara, its supply chain is its competitive advantage. (Berfield & Baigorri, 2013, para. 2)

The short designing and production cycle provided the strategic competitive advantage for the company to revamp its fashion line very two weeks while the company’s competitors replenishes their line in three or four months.

Zara, unlike its competitors, does not spend on advertising its products. The business model of Zara is solely dependent on logistics and designing. Zara believes in setting up shops in prime locations in large cities where the market segment represents its target customers, thus, making the need to advertise redundant.

The financial model of Zara is also different from its competitors (Ireland, 2013). Usually fashion retailers make payment to the vendors when giving them contract for manufacturing a particular batch of products, thus, restricting their cash. Zara follows similar model for its Asian vendors who supply their steady, basic garments, while the more trendier and short-term designer clothes are delivered by the Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish vendors. Hence, the level of restricted cash for Zara is much less than its competitors.

The business model of Zara is popularly known as the disruptive business model that allows companies to create a fresh market along with their value network. The model is a self-sustaining mechanism that in future moves ahead to disrupt the market and the new technology simply displaces the older ones.

Usually, the mistake that companies make is to counter competitive forces, upgrade their product offering, and trying to increase their market share. Zara created a niche in the fashion retail market where its competitors were not catering. For instance, Zara catered to the customers that its competitors like H&M, Gap, and Benetton were not supplying. Thus, it whittled a market for itself in the existing market.

The competitive advantages of a company following a disruptive model are selling to customers and just-in-time production. Zara followed these two strategies completely. Direct selling to the customers allows Zara to understand the taste and preference of its customers and the probable changes that it may face and just-in-time production allows the company to replenish its offerings at a very short time, reducing inventory cost considerably (Levine, 2013). Levine therefore points out:

Zara focuses on understanding the items that its customers actually want. This differs from traditional prediction of seasonal trends, and then promoting the line. Inditex does not advertise. Instead, the company invests heavily in the beauty, historical appeal, and location of its shops…The company monitors customer reactions carefully. It notes what they buy and don’t buy. It records their feedback to the staff and is reported to headquarters daily. It is transmitted to a vast team of in-house designers, who quickly develop new designs. (2013, para. 4)

Demand from customers, therefore, is the chief driver for the deliveries to the stores. Usually Zara ships limited pieces to its stores initially, and follows up quickly if the product fetches good response from the customers.

Though most of the fashion retailers rely on vendors from South Asia where labor cost is cheap, Zara relies on making of the trendiest of its fashion attires from costly local vendors as it reduces its response time to just 2 to 3 weeks. This allows great flexibility to the company reducing its inventory cost considerably and enabling faster turnaround (Levine, 2013). Thus, the business model of Zara relies mostly on its logistics and value chain, which helps it to manage and cater to customer preference and demand.

Berfield, S., & Baigorri, M. (2013). Zara’s Fast-Fashion Edge from Bloomberg Businessweek.

Ferdows, K., Lewis, M., & Machuca, J. A. (2003). Zara. Supply Chain Forum , 4 (2), 62-66.

Hansen, S. (2012). How Zara Grew Into the World’s Largest Fashion Retailer from The New York Times.

Ireland, P. (2013). Zara’s Disruptive Growth Strategy from Tycoon Playbook.

Levine, S. R. (2013). How Zara took customer Focus to New Heights from Credit Union Time.

McAfee, A., Dessain, V., & Sjoman, A. (2007). Zara: IT for Fast Fashion. Harvard Busienss Review , 1-23.

Özlen, M. K., & Handukic, I. (2013). Fashion Industry Supply Chain Issues: Zara. European Researcher , 47 (4), 999-1008.

Zara’s Secret To Success: The New Science Of Retailing . (2013) from Forbes.

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IvyPanda. (2021, August 30). Zara Company's Business Model. https://ivypanda.com/essays/zara-companys-business-model/

"Zara Company's Business Model." IvyPanda , 30 Aug. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/zara-companys-business-model/.

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  1. Types Of Business Model Discussion in this Video // Business Model Discussion

  2. Types Of Business Model Discussion in this Video // Business Model Discussion

  3. ET 2023 Model Essay Paper

  4. TYPES OF BUSINESS MODELS WITH EXPLANATION AND EXAMPLE

  5. Types Of Business Model Discussion in this Video // Business Model Discussion

  6. Types Of Business Model Discussion in this Video // Business Model Discussion

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  1. Why Business Models Matter

    Joan Magretta From the Magazine (May 2002) Post Post Save Buy Copies Print "Business model" was one of the great buzzwords of the Internet boom, routinely invoked, as the writer Michael Lewis...

  2. Why is a business model important?

    29/05/2019 A business model may seem like a straightforward concept. But the term has shifted and changed over time. Today, if a company is incapable of creating an innovative and flexible business model, that could be its downfall. Today, technology and innovation are the main players in how successful businesses are run and reinvented.

  3. What is a business model and why is it important?

    It is essential for new companies to define their business model, as it allows them to attract more investors and talent, as well as develop effective strategies. However, it's equally important that established businesses regularly review and update their business model in the face of changing market trends and as their company grows.

  4. PDF The Business Model: Nature and Benefits

    This essay considers what a business model is, locates the pursuit of 'ambivalent value' in the strategy literature, and proposes a new strategic role for the business model - as a means of negotiating for a portion of that 'ambivalent value'.

  5. Business Models

    Importance of Business Models Business Model Examples What are Business Models Types? 1. Business -To- Business Models (B2B) 2. Business -To-Consumer Models (B2C) 3. Subscription-Based Models 4. On-Demand Business Model Advantages of Business Models Disadvantages of the Business Model: Bottomline Frequently Asked Questions

  6. PDF The Business Model: Theoretical Roots, Recent Developments, and ...

    Specifically, 1) the business model is emerging as a new unit of analysis; 2) business models emphasize a system-level, holistic approach towards explaining how firms do business; 3) organizational activities play an important role in the various conceptualizations of business models that have been proposed; and 4) business models seek to

  7. IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS MODEL FOR ENTREPRENEURS

    The business model is a critical aspect for entrepreneurs, as it serves as the blueprint for how a company creates, delivers, and captures value. Here are some reasons why a solid business...

  8. Business model innovation: a review and research agenda

    The aim of this paper is to review and synthesise the recent advancements in the business model literature and explore how firms approach business model innovation.,A systematic review of business model innovation literature was carried out by analysing 219 papers published between 2010 and 2016.,Evidence reviewed suggests that rather than ...

  9. Why Business Models Matter

    Learn More Personal computers have played a vital role in improving the way business plans are designed. Spreadsheets enable managers to have some foresight in the expected performance of a business venture because of their effectiveness in numerical analysis.

  10. (PDF) The Importance of a Business Model

    The Importance of a Business Model Publisher: SAP PRESS Authors: Mark von Rosing Ann Rosenberg Abstract and Figures A central question in both theory and practice is: What explains the difference...

  11. Business Models And Its Managerial Implications Business Essay

    The essence of a business model is that it defines the ways by which the business enterprise delivers value to customers, entices customers to pay for value, and converts those payments to profit: it thus reflects management's intention of what customers want, how they want it, and how an enterprise can organize to best meet those needs, get pai...

  12. The Business Models Significance

    The business model is proposed as a unifying mechanism describing the "content, structure, and governance of transactions" (Zott & Amit 2001, p. 511). Firm performance is a function of specific business model characteristics (Zott & Amit, 2007) and the fit between business models and strategy (Zott & Amit, 2008).

  13. Importance of business models to the process of project management Essay

    Importance of business models to the process of project management Essay Exclusively available on IvyPanda Updated: Dec 9th, 2023 Table of Contents Introduction For a very long time, the general consensus was that business models and project management were separate disciplines.

  14. Innovation in Business: What It Is & Why It's So Important

    The Importance of Innovation. Unforeseen challenges are inevitable in business. Innovation can help you stay ahead of the curve and grow your company in the process. Here are three reasons innovation is crucial for your business: It allows adaptability: The recent COVID-19 pandemic disrupted business on a monumental scale. Routine operations ...

  15. The Business Model: What Is A Business Model?

    Importance of understanding business objectives is to describe what a company expects to raise its standard's in particular year. Company outlines their goals and objectives in their business plans which are the part of their whole development, departments, employees, customers and even marketing efforts.

  16. Literature Review on the Importance of Business Models

    A business model, no doubt, play an important role in the success of an organization, but considering it everything like Magretta states, is what leads an organization to failure. Strategy is equally important, it forms the basis for an effective model.

  17. Business model

    Business strategy is an essential component to a firm's business model and is a vital player in aiding the firm drive itself to achieve its mission. Through a clear business strategy a firm can derive its position in the long term and create a competitive advantage in the market for itself. In this essay we explore the business model of ...

  18. The Importance of a Strong Business Model

    To define a business model, it is first necessary to have a good understanding of what a business is. In the article What Is a Business Model, Andrea Ovans gives different definitions of business models, which are universal for different types of companies (2015).As a result, the author concludes that one of the key elements of a business model is a value proposition.

  19. Essays on Business Model

    Words: 3984 (16 pages) The internet's ability to supply entree to information has improved existent estate communications and concern ( Aalberts and Townsend. 2002 ) . Business theoretical accounts represent the concern logic of companies. They are executed by company web sites and are of import to the success of companies.

  20. BUS 313

    In this document, we will discuss the clear and concise way of picturing how a particular business operates is called a Business Model.A business model is how the value proposition of the business is translated into the potential to achieve rapid growth of revenue and earn huge profits. The essay discusses the importance of a business model for a business.

  21. Why Collaboration Is Critical in Uncertain Times

    Summary. Recent research suggests that when resources become limited, many business leaders' inclinations are to become risk-averse and protect their own interests, fostering a culture of ...

  22. The Business Model Canvas

    Updated: Dec 20th, 2023 The Business Model Canvas (BMC) can be defined as a tool that is used in the generation of a business model. "The BMC is made up of nine building blocks forming a chart that describes a firms value proposition, infrastructure, customers, finances, resources, channels, revenue streams and cost structure" (Shaw 2011).

  23. The Importance Of Hofstede's Theory Of Cultural Dimensions in Business

    According to the Hofstede's model of Cultural Dimensions, Individualism on the one side against its opposite, Collectivism, as a social, not an individual characteristic, is the degree to which people in a society are united into groups. On the nonconformist side, we find cultures in which the ties among persons are loose.

  24. Retailers and Health Systems Can Improve Care Together

    Drawing on real-world examples, the authors outline four key actions that retailers and health systems should take: (1) They must move beyond convenience to offer comprehensive care. (2) They ...

  25. Trump's Harsh Punishment Was Made Possible by This New York Law

    On Friday, the law enabled Ms. James to win an enormous victory against Mr. Trump. Along with the financial penalty, the judge barred Mr. Trump from running a business in New York for three years ...

  26. 5 important things happening in South Africa today

    Here's what is happening in and affecting South Africa today: Godongwana to deliver the Budget Speech: Finance minister Enoch Godongwana will present the budget allocation for 2024 to Parliament ...

  27. Title: ScreenAI: A Vision-Language Model for UI and Infographics

    Screen user interfaces (UIs) and infographics, sharing similar visual language and design principles, play important roles in human communication and human-machine interaction. We introduce ScreenAI, a vision-language model that specializes in UI and infographics understanding. Our model improves upon the PaLI architecture with the flexible patching strategy of pix2struct and is trained on a ...

  28. Zara Company's Business Model

    The business mode of the traditional fashion industry is essentially based on designing of clothes and retailing them. However, the time lag that prolongs the designing process and availability of finished products in-store are acute in most of the cases.