Business models as service strategy

Abstract

It is widely recognized that business models can serve as important strategic tools in innovation and market formation processes. Consequently, business models should have a prominent position in the marketing literature. However, marketing scholars have, so far, paid little attention to the business model concept, perhaps because it lacks an established definition and clear theoretical foundation. This article offers a definition for the business model concept that, using a fractal approach, connects business models to technological and market innovation. Furthermore, the article questions several cornerstone strategic concepts by reconceptualizing business model development from a firm-centric activity that promotes owning key resources and altering sets of decision variables to one that highlights the facilitation of broad institutional change processes. As such, it takes the potentially controversial position of advocating a service-strategy-based understanding of business models for all of marketing strategy.