Authors:
Markus Schief
1
;
Amir Bonakdar
2
and
Tobias Weiblen
2
Affiliations:
1
CEC Darmstadt, Germany
;
2
CEC St. Gallen, Switzerland
Keyword(s):
Business Model, Software Industry, Business Process, Strategy, Implementation, Software-as-a-service.
Abstract:
Changed business models, such as induced by Software-as-a-Service, require an effective implementation in a firm’s organization. This study clarifies the relation between business models as an implementation of a company’s strategy, and business processes, as an abstraction of a company’s operations. The presented transformation framework provides specific meaning to the industrial setting of a software vendor morphing to a SaaS model. Both underlying concepts, the business model and the value chain, as a coarse-grained view on business processes, stem from software industry research. The explorative findings cover a detailed description of the transformation framework as well as an exemplary expert survey that can serve as a refer-ence for software firm decision makers. Thus, the study provides profound insights into the potential opera-tional impacts of business model changes.