Improving Business Model Configuration through a Question-based Approach

Abstract

In the competitive context of agile innovation cycles, it is necessary for companies to construct their business model leading them to a creative strategy innovation. There already are a number of methods to create business models, many of which are also implemented in software. However, these are often unstructured, unguided and static, resulting in diverse and heterogeneous business models. This complicates automated evaluation allowing recommendations. The aim is to develop a question-based tool yielding for comparable and, thus, analyzable business models based on a developed standardized taxonomy. The questions guiding through the configurator were derived from this taxonomy. A tool was developed implementing the question-based concept. User tests were conducted as part of an evaluation showing promising results concerning usability in addition to the already achieved standardization.