This master’s thesis explores the role of the facilitator in business model innovation [BMI]. In the last 15 years BMI has gained increasing importance for companies to establish a competitive advantage. Yet, BMI is considered to be marked by high complexity and phases of uncertainty in the process of creating it. Equipped with the skills and characteristics, a facilitator may support groups in their endeavor to create BMIs. As a result of a qualitative study including expert interviews and observations of facilitated workshops, five aggregated dimensions describing the role of the business model facilitator are identified. The results suggest that a facilitator may contribute to BMI by leading and navigating the process, supporting the group to generate knowledge and taking ideas to actions, sharing his or her own knowledge with the team, and by providing mental support and stability. Thereby, the facilitator may contribute to BMI on three levels: the team level, the process level, and the new business model.

In recent years the world has witnessed an increased attention to matters concerning sustainable development; consumers today put higher pressure on organizations to change their old unsustainable practices for newer, more sustainable ones. Within scholarly business literature, the concept of business models has gained more traction over the past two decades, however there is still some disparity in the views of what a business model really is. So far three perspectives on business models have emerged: business models as attributes of real firms, business models as cognitive schemas, and business models as formal conceptualizations. In this thesis, we adopt the perspective of business models as attributes of real firms, more explicitly, we view them as systems of activities that allow firms to create value for everyone involved. As the stream of business model research as expanded, so has the literature on how they change, also referred to as business model innovation. Here the three dominant perspectives are the rational positioning view, the evolutionary view, and the cognitive view; we argue in line with the rational positioning view that business models may change as a response to a change in the environment in which it is embedded. Knowing that our planet is changing, the question then arises: what can be done? We believe that changing the business model of a firm toward sustainability may be part of the answer. Hence, in order to generate more knowledge about how this can be done, we set out to answer the research question:  what are the motivators of – and how do they influence – business model innovation for sustainability?  We do this by investigating three firms that have changed their activity systems to incorporate sustainability. Our findings indicate that there are some motivators and influencers to the process of business model innovation for sustainability: we identify the motivators zealous leadership, sense of obligation, future hygiene factor, employer branding, goal-setting, synergy, and competitive advantage; and the influencers financial barriers, technological barriers, and cultural barriers. Further, we give practical suggestions to managers on how they can enhance the motivators and lower the barriers; we discuss the societal implications of our findings, and propose avenues for further research.

The Investment bank industry is considered to be an essential element of not only the financial system but also the whole economy. Understanding multiple business models employed by multi-services industry such Investment bank is a matter of great significance for Investment banks’ executives, regulators and analysts. In 2008 the business model that had been employed by investment banks for almost two decades vanished due to the global financial crisis. Investment banks were forced to change and innovate their traditional business models. This research intends to develop a conceptual framework which helps to realize and study investment banks’ business models with the core components and related activities. Multiple business models mapping for investment banks is developed to give seniors executives core and possible activities and alternatives to innovate and change various business models for different lines including asset management, brokerage, investment banking and custody services. In addition, the business model (innovation) drivers are investigated to empirically explore the most powerful drivers on investment banks’ multiple business models (innovation), potential changes and degree of alteration on its activities for each business line. For these aims, a systematic literature review was carried to synthesise the recent advancements in the business model literature and explore how firms approach business model innovation. As result, a conceptual framework for business model (innovation) was developed, which encompasses four components value proposition, operational value, human capital and financial value. This framework can be utilized by practitioners as a 'navigation map' to determine where and how to change their business models. By using the qualitative methodology through semi-structured interviews with 29 senior executives from 10 fully-licensed investment banks in Saudi Arabia and secondary data including financial statements, annual reports and pillar III disclosures, the empirical study mapped the investment banks’ multiple business models and identified a business model for each business line. Sixteen activities for each business line were determined to provide core and possible activities and alternatives. This research contributes to our understating of managing and innovating multiple business models in the industry when investment banks should run these multiple business models. The Investment banks’ business models are different in terms of business lines, core offerings, clients, key assets, key process, revenue streams and costs structure. Over and above, each line shows diverse business models applied by investment banks. Furthermore, unlike other studies, this research contributed by investigating drivers that force investment banks to change their existing business models, the degree of changes and which activities did investment banks consider when responding to particular drivers. This study found that clients, crisis and economic changes, rivalry, top management and regulations are the five drivers forcing investment banks to not only embark on change events, but also carry out business model changes in most investment banks’ business lines.

In today’s competitive market, a well-integrated business model can play an important role for a competitive advantage. One tool to create business models is the business model canvas. This method is used by many big organizations, and among these users is Communication Ltd. They are currently working on changing their focus from product to service. This change requires some big changes in the company´s business models, revenue streams and in their value proposition. The goal of this thesis is to analyse new possible revenue streams and also investigate if these could be of use for Communication Ltd. To reach this goal this thesis uses a theoretical base along with empirical data such as interviews, secondary data and a study of revenue streams in external markets. The conclusion reached in this thesis is that going from a product focus to a service focus requires structural changes in revenue streams, but also a clear communication of the value an organization is offering their customers. Furthermore for an organization to meet future customer needs, new types of revenue streams must be implemented. One solution to this could be for an organization to offer different types of memberships where different values are bundled together deepening on what the customers’ demands.

Most companies have some sort of business model showing how they operate their activities,resources, cost and revenues etcetera. What is becoming increasingly emphasised in today'sbusiness is however to integrate sustainability within the business model. Our research willtherefore investigate how companies are attempting to make their business model moresustainable. We have chosen to focus on the mobile phone industry as reports have shown thatthey are a significant contributor to carbon emissions and electronic waste. With this in mind ourresearch question is formulated as follows:"How is the mobile phone industry attempting to innovate their business models towardssustainability?"As we attempt to understand how the mobile phone industry is attempting to innovate towardsgreater sustainability, we have chosen to perform a qualitative study. The material we usedconsisted of reports and web pages as well as interviews with manufacturers of mobile phonesand MNO’s. To analyse the material we had collected, we chiefly utilised a list of materialconcerns specific to the aforementioned mobile phone industry stakeholders, a proposedarchetype system for classifying attempts to innovate the business model to become moresustainable and finally a tool for graphically presenting a business model and its inner workings.Our conclusions show what the companies we have interviewed are attempting to innovate intheir business model. The innovations focus mainly on their partnerships, activities, resourcesand value propositions. By performing this study we contribute to the still young research area ofsustainable business model innovation through providing a snapshot of what our interviewedcompanies are attempting to innovate at the time of our study. Furthermore it also contributes tothe empirical use of the proposed sustainable business model innovation archetypes as we applythem to empirical data in an attempt to classify the data. Through performing both of theseactions we also contribute a proposed way of classifying sustainable business model innovationwithin a business model through the combining of the archetypes and the business model canvas.

Industries want to add value to their offerings but to do this, rather than just accepting customer requirements, they now need to know how their products and/or services have been embedded within their customer’s process to achieve a goal that the customer has; any gaps within the process then present an opportunity for the provider to fill these gaps. The System-In-Use (SIU) Methodology presented in this thesis facilitates customer issues in “pulling” the supply chain into creating new solutions as well as the supply chain “pushing” new value propositions into improving customer processes. It does this by drawing on a detailed theory of value and capability which was developed as part of this research. The method has been applied in five industries in processes encompassing high value-assets with very positive outcomes for each of the stakeholders involved: notably, three solutions have been adopted in industry for which a KT-Box award was granted by Cambridge University. Cont/d.

Industries want to add value to their offerings but to do this, rather than just accepting customer requirements, they now need to know how their products and/or services have been embedded within their customer’s process to achieve a goal that the customer has; any gaps within the process then present an opportunity for the provider to fill these gaps. The System-In-Use (SIU) Methodology presented in this thesis facilitates customer issues in “pulling” the supply chain into creating new solutions as well as the supply chain “pushing” new value propositions into improving customer processes. It does this by drawing on a detailed theory of value and capability which was developed as part of this research. The method has been applied in five industries in processes encompassing high value-assets with very positive outcomes for each of the stakeholders involved: notably, three solutions have been adopted in industry for which a KT-Box award was granted by Cambridge University. Cont/d.

Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) retail businesses in many countries, including Thailand, are facing challenges of high competition, as modern retail formats have grown rapidly in many Asian countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, China and Thailand (Howard, 2009). Thus, SME retail Businesses are facing an "innovate or die" situation, as non-adapting retail firms have always been and will continue to be driven out of the business (Evans, 2011). A new critical capability of retail business is the ability to configure and reconfigure its processes into a coherent blueprint - known in other words as a Business Model (Sorescu et al., 2011). The research question becomes "How can SME retail Business in Thailand successfully compete through Business Model Innovation?" Business Model Innovation requires system wide changes, since modifying one component always has network effects on other components (Tikkanen et al., 2005). There is no fixed method or successful formula that all companies will adopt; therefore disciplined experimentation and adaptation is recommended (Berman, 2011; Chesbrough, 2010; McGrath, 2010; Mitchell et al., 2003; Teece, 2010). However, most past studies on innovation are about large companies (Tim, 2004) and not many articles cover empirical studies on Business Model Innovation. In particular, few studies address the dynamic view (Demil and Lecocq, 2010; Svejenova et al., 2010; Sosna et al., 2010).This research focuses on the implementation of Business Model Innovation within SME retail business. The research uses a methodology called Action Research, and was conducted within the researcher's organization, which is a SME retail business in Thailand. This overcomes the practical challenges of studying SME business, which is related to limited opportunity to conduct empirical research. The study was conducted over the 4 year period from October 2010 to August 2014 by implementing Business Model Innovation in order to exploit opportunities in rural areas. Business Model concepts were employed as sources of innovation and units of analysis. Action Research consists of multiple cycles of changes and adaptation. It was found that Business Model concepts can be represented at different levels of abstraction from reality. At a high level of abstraction, the Business Model Canvas helps to understand the overview of the firm's business logic in a broad way, and provide ideas about what can be adapted. At the operational level, the Retailing Business Model provides a structural approach to the conceptualisation, planning and implementation of activities that support high level changes. In all, Business Model Innovation can be conceptualised as an ongoing learning process similar to the iterative cycles of Action research. These cycles consist of constructing actions, planning, taking actions and evaluating actions. The Business Model concepts at different levels of abstraction can be used for understanding and planning, as well as to capture learning experiences, both on the high level and on the operational level. Therefore, Business Model Innovation is a dynamic process where changes and learning happen continuously. Such a process enables SME retail businesses to improve their understanding of their Business Model and thus improve their chances of success?

This study adopts a dynamic capabilities perspective to explore the activities and processes through which business model innovation arises in established organisations. New and innovative business models are fundamental to the commercialisation of latest technologies, performance, competitive advantage, as well as the creation of value for customers, the focal company and its ecosystem. Yet, our current understanding of how established companies design and implement new business models is limited by a lack of empirical research. The dynamic capabilities perspective offers a promising route to investigate the managerial and organisational activities and practices through which business model innovation is enacted. Based on a review of the business model, business model innovation and dynamic capabilities literatures, business model innovation is framed as a dynamic capability and research questions are developed. These questions are investigated using grounded theory methodology, collecting and analysing data from five case studies from the manufacturing, financial services, media, consulting, and healthcare industries. Findings from an initial sample suggest a business model innovation process consisting of an inception, evolution and diffusion phase, encumbered by cognitive, emotional and behavioural challenges. Linking the findings to the dynamic capabilities perspective, three micro-foundations, namely, process orchestration, learning, and deployment mechanisms are identified. Findings from a subsequent theoretical sample not only unravel the underlying managerial and organisational activities of these micro-foundations, but also reveal further details on the challenges faced, as well as the key role of senior management for orchestrating and enacting this process and its underlying activities. Considered collectively the findings offer a novel understanding of how business model innovations come about in established organisations, a practice labelled ‘crafting business models in statu nascendi’. The dissertation closes with a discussion and synthesis of the findings, the theoretical contribution and managerial implications, as well as limitations of the present study and areas for future research.

The thesis covers the phenomenon of business model innovation. It provides with theoretical background of the concept based on the works of several scientists who stand at the beginnings of the discipline. The paper also introduces the principles of design thinking applied to business model innovation in order to get superior results and serve as a guideline for ideation processes and presenting enhancements to existing business models. The practical part is devoted to applying the described concepts on examples from real life, which can especially help small companies in their battle with incumbents. Three industries are analyzed to see the flaws with the current state of things. New business models that can disrupt corresponding industries are offered at the end of each case.