The Ontology of the OSS Business Model

Journal of Entrepreneurship and Management , 2016

Defining business model constitutes a major challenge. This is primarily because there are many different aspects to a business, hence when we talk of business models; it means different things to different people. Difference lies in the very concept of what constitutes a business (key aspects) and how such a concept can be represented using a common notation. One solution to the problem is to use ontology to communicate. Ontologies are agreed upon frameworks for representing concepts in any domain area. Hence, ontologies are used to represent knowledge, processes, business motivations, business strategies,enterprise structure, and more including business models. The Business Model Ontology (BMO) is one such ontology. Designed and developed by Alexander Osterwalder, it is aimed specifically at representing, understanding, communicating and analyzing business models. This paper is an evaluation of the Business Model Ontology (BMO).The paper consists of two parts. In the first part the researchers describe the four pillars, the nine elements and their sub-elements comprising the ontology. In the second part the ontology is reviewed and evaluated using nine criteria. The fundamental aim is to examine the ontology capabilities – its strength and weaknesses.

IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing

It is important for stakeholders to understand business potential and feasibility before investing in designing and implementing Information Technology services that support the enterprise operation. Ontologies for Business Models capture the essential elements and their relationships that contribute to provide value to all parties to validate the underlying rationale of the business opportunity. This paper presents a template and methodology to capture the elements and their relationships in a Business Model for Collaborative Networked Organizations. The template is a skeleton based on an ontological approach, and the methodology describes how the skeleton could be used to explain and illustrate the business models. Results and experiences of a real study case using this methodology are described.

Institut d'Informatique et Organisation. Lausanne, …, 2004

The business model concept is gaining traction in different disciplines but is still criticized for being fuzzy and vague and lacking consensus on its definition and compositional elements. In this paper we set out to advance our understanding of the business model concept by addressing three areas of foundational research: business model definitions, business model elements, and business model archetypes. We define a business model as a representation of the value logic of an organization in terms of how it creates and captures customer value. This abstract and generic definition is made more specific and operational by the compositional elements that need to address the customer, value proposition, organizational architecture (firm and network level) and economics dimensions. Business model archetypes complement the definition and elements by providing a more concrete and empirical understanding of the business model concept. The main contributions of this paper are (1) explicitly including the customer value concept in the business model definition and focussing on value creation, (2) presenting four core dimensions that business model elements need to cover, (3) arguing for flexibility by adapting and extending business model elements to cater for different purposes and contexts (e.g. technology, innovation, strategy) (4) stressing a more systematic approach to business model archetypes by using business model elements for their description, and (5) suggesting to use business model archetype research for the empirical exploration and testing of business model elements and their relationships.

Modern enterprises are currently experiencing volatile and rapid information and communication technology (ICT) change. A key challenge for business leaders is to ensure their organisations are ready for that change. This is particularly challenging when it comes to emerging ICT that may disrupt the management of existing enterprise information systems or business processes. The business model has been cited as an effective tool which organisations can use to prepare for ICT related change. However, there is evidence to suggest that the business model remains largely a nebulous concept to most organisations. This is compounded by the siloed nature of existing business model research. Using a content analysis research approach, this paper provides a holistic review of contemporary academic literature to ascertain and classify the various approaches to the study of ICT enabled business models. The literature examined is classified into nine specific thematic descriptors which underpin these specific business models. A comprehensive definition is also developed for ICT business models. This paper therefore extends our understanding of the business model concept and can be used to guide and coalesce future research on illuminating how organisations can operationalise effective business models in order to leverage new digital ICT.

16th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

Organisations operate in an increasingly dynamic environment. Consequently, the business models span several organisations, dealing with multiple stakeholders and their competing interests. As a result, the enterprise information systems supporting this new market setting are highly distributed, and their components are owned and managed by different stakeholders. For successful businesses to exist it is crucial that their enterprise architectures are derived from and aligned with viable business models. Business model ontologies (BMOs) are effective tools for designing and evaluating business models. However, the viability perspective has been largely neglected. In this paper, current BMOs have been assessed on their capabilities to support the design and evaluation of viable business models. As such, a list of criteria is derived from literature to evaluate BMOs from a viability perspective. These criteria are subsequently applied to six well-established BMOs, to identify a BMO best suited for design and evaluation of viable business models. The analysis reveals that, although none of the BMOs satisfy all the criteria, e3-value is the most appropriate BMO for designing and evaluating business models from a viability perspective. Furthermore, the identified deficits provide clear areas for enhancing the assessed BMOs from a viability perspective."

The importance of the business model concept has been risen since the emergence of e-business companies in the beginning of this millennium, who used it as an instrument to convince potential investors of their promising future . However, the underlying economic concepts have a broader applicability as the business model concept is a representation of the way in which a company implements its strategy, which is aimed at creating value for both the customer and the enterprise. In other words, the business model concept reflects the strategic choices made by a company, their consequences for the way the enterprise is doing business and what is required hereto.

Conceptual Modeling—ER 2002, 2003

The m-business landscape never stops to change and the impacts on the mobile market are constant as players reposition themselves on the market according to the new opportunities and threats brought by rapid technological developments. This paper proposes a conceptual tool to better understand this player arena. Its objective is to provide the researchers with an ontology for analyzing and assessing the business models adopted by these players.

The open source software movement is traditionally not affiliated to profit-oriented business behaviour. However, commercial activity has become increasingly common, and, business models have institutionalized in the field of open source software. The aim of this research paper is to explore the determinants of profitable revenue models for businesses based on open source software. Therefore, the study focuses on analysing different revenue options of open source software businesses as a part of more comprehensive open source software (OSS) business models. We explore other business model elements as the potential determinants of firm-level revenue model choices. This study draws on a qualitative research approach on the issue through two analytical business cases -MySQL and Red Hat -both of which illustrate the complexity and heterogeneity of solutions and options in the field of OSS. Thus, we analyse the business models of the selected case companies and identify the underlying endogenous elements, i.e. offerings, resources and relationships within them. Finally, we discuss the managerial implications derived from the cases to describe how these business model elements affect the development of successful revenue models in the field of open source software.

UBC Workshop, http://inforge. unil. ch/yp/TALK/slides/ …, 2004

In this paper we demonstrate why executives and academics should consider thinking about e-business models. We show that the business model concept is an interesting tool for understanding, designing, sharing, measuring, changing and even simulating businesses. Based on an extensive review of e-business and business model literature we develop an e-business model ontology or framework. This ontology defines the concepts in e-business models and the relationships between them and shall be the foundation for a variety of management tools that facilitate business decisions. Our e-business model ontology outlines what value a company offers to which customer segments. It describes the architecture of the firm and its network of partners for creating, marketing and delivering value and relationship capital, in order to generate profitable and sustainable revenue streams.