Although a business model consists of smaller
elements as roles, actors, activities, value streams,
etc., this is much too high level to estimate costs,
revenues, losses or profits. Traditional cost benefit
analysis, on the other hand, takes a closer look at the
economics of a new investment, starting from
dedicated calculations (Analysys Mason, 2008) in
isolated cases and working with generic and reusable
cost modeling languages and calculations (Van der
Wee et al, 2012). Making dedicated calculations
requires every researcher to redo the modeling if
they have no access to the original model.
Additionally, it does not allow extending and linking
to other models. Building complex models will
benefit from reusability, verification, exchange
between researchers and business experts and
linking to other models. Additionally using domain
specific languages as opposed to grand tools with
many parameters, will increase the transparency and
ease of reading and understanding. Combining both
approaches by working with standardized, reusable,
domain specific languages will increase the strength
of the business models.
On the one hand business experts (e.g. CEOs,
entrepreneurs) talk about the roles and interactions
of the different actors in a business model when they
want to introduce a novel product or service on the
market. On the other hand, a cost-benefit analysis is
typically built for an isolated business case (one
actor only), using dedicated, purpose-built models. If
both approaches can be captured with the right level
of detail and domain specific intuitive models and
linked to each other, this will lead to additional
information on the full business model, as well as on
the isolated business cases. The combination of
approaches will allow business experts to work on a
higher level and design the business model as links
between more detailed cost-benefit models, e.g.
cloud infrastructure, network installation, etc. These
models are then delegated to technical experts and
more detailed modeling languages. A repository of
models and fragments at both levels will increase the
applicability of the approach and the speed of
prototyping business models. This paper presents the
combined approach, which is under active research
and development and is called hereafter the BEMES
(Business Modeling and Simulation) approach.
In this paper, the BEMES approach is applied to
a prototype business model for a fiber to the home
(FTTH) case, where one physical infrastructure
FTTH provider is installing a new FTTH network
and opening up this network in a non-discriminatory
way to all available network and service providers.
The multi-level business modeling approach allows
visualizing the main business interactions rapidly,
and learns about the profitability of all actors at the
same time. It also shows the ways one firm’s failing
business case can be made viable within the group of
actors in the full business model.
In section II, the BEMES business modeling tool
is rapidly introduced and then compared to some of
the main existing business modeling approaches.
As mentioned above, the business models need
to be complemented with a cost-benefit analysis in
order to get correct and useful advice and
information from the business model. Building a
reliable cost-benefit analysis also benefits from
using problem specific modeling languages. In
Section III, an overview of existing and novel cost
modeling languages (technical expert tools) is
presented.
In Section IV, both levels of modeling are linked
to each other. As a proof of concept, a multi-level
model for an open access FTTH network is built and
the results of this model are inspected.
Finally, Section V concludes by summing up the
main findings of this work and by presenting future
steps in the development and extension of this multi-
level business modeling and simulation approach.
2 BUSINESS MODELING
People use business modeling with the aim to
analyze the current functioning of a firm or an
industry, identify challenges, and possibly propose
better business configurations. When building the
business model, users need a highly interactive tool
for drawing and discussing on their view of the
industry actors and their interactions. It should be
sufficiently high level, and no detailed cost and
revenue discussions or simulations should be
necessary at this level. The BEMES Business
Modeling, proposed in this paper, is based on the
SIMBU method (Coenen et al, 2009). It features a
value-flow based approach, and uses a simple and
intuitive ontology specifically designed to allow for
collaborative business modelling.
With BEMES, building a business model
consists in identifying every actor, their activities
and the interactions between their activities. A
business model configuration corresponds to a given
business model with specific values (e.g. cost
amounts, revenue percentages, etc.). It is easy to
compare different configurations or scenarios by
playing with these values within the given business
model. It is also possible to compare different
approaches in setting up a working business model
Multi-Level Business Modeling and Simulation
173