1. Business Models Components

2. Determinants of Business Performance
Business Model
Components and linkages
Dynamics
Internet
Performance
Environment
Competitive
Macro

3. Overview of Internet Properties
Properties of Internet
Impact of the Internet on the 5-Cs
Limitation to transactions over the Internet

4. Properties of Internet
Mediating technology: Internet facilitates exchange relationships among parties distributed in time and space
4 types of interconnection:
B2B: Business-to-business
B2C: Business-to-consumer
C2C: Consumer-to-consumer
C2B: Consumer-to-business
Universality: anybody anywhere in the world can potentially make his products available to anyone else in the world.
Network externalities: the more people connected to Internet, the more valuable it is.

5. Properties of Internet
Distribution channel: Internet allows to distribute music, news, video, software, tickets, and so on.
Time moderator: Internet makes possible to obtain information 24 hours a day.
Information Asymmetry Shrinker: Internet reduces the difference of information available to parties.
Infinite virtual capacity: using the advances to storage and network technologies, customers feel that Internet has infinite capacity to serve them.

6. Properties of Internet
Low cost standard: everybody uses the same protocol. As there is only one standard, costs for users are lower.
Creative destroyer: the low entry costs, flexibility and unlimited possibilities allow entrepreneurs to create new businesses.
Transaction-cost reducer: Internet reduces the costs of searching for sellers and buyers, collecting information on products, negotiating contracts and transportation.

7. Impact of the Internet on the 5-Cs
Properties of Internet have a huge impact on the 5 main activities that rest on information exchange: coordination, community, content communication and commerce:
Impact on Coordination
Internet reduces the cost of transactions
Internet improves product-service features and quality
Impact on Community
Internet redefines communities, making them larger and much more valuable
Distance and time are no drawbacks to join a community

8. Impact of the Internet on the 5-Cs
Impact on Content
Information, entertainment and other products are delivered over the Internet to more people
Impact on Communication
People can exchange electronic messages real-time, to many people and with high content
Every user has the capacity to broadcast messages

9. Impact of the Internet on the 5-Cs
Impact on Commerce
B2B: businesses buy and sell goods and services to and from each other.
Internet provides access to sellers and buyers from all over the world
Internet can create B2B hubs, to provide a central where sellers and buyers can go to find each other
B2C: businesses sell to consumers.
Access to e-shops 24 hours a day
Almost no limit to the number of goods an online retailer can display
Firms can collect data and offer personalised service
Some goods can be received instantaneously
When the cost of finding a seller is high, the exchange can involve an intermediary (e.g. Amazon.com)
C2C: consumers sell to other consumers.
Usually, this involves an intermediary, such as an action house.
C2B: consumers state their price, and firms either take it or leave it.
Usually, intermediaries play an important role

10. Limitations to Transactions over the Internet
Internet cannot transmit tacit knowledge (that is, knowledge uncoded and nonverbalised).
Individuals and organisations are cognitively limited. So, they may not be able to encode their knowledge into a form that can be transmitted over the Internet.

11. Overview of Business Models
Definition
A taxonomy of Business Models
Elements of a Business Model

12. Definition
An Internet business model is a set of Internet and non-Internet-related activities – planned or evolving – that allows a firm to make money using the Internet and to keep the money coming.
An business model should include answers to a number of questions:
What value offer to customers?
Which costumers to provide the value to?
How to price the value?
Who to charge for it?
What strategies to undertake in providing the value?
How to provide the value?
How to sustain any advantage from providing the value?

13. A Taxonomy of Business Models
Brokerage: firms act as market makers who bring buyers and sellers together and charge a fee for the transaction they enable.
Examples: travel agents, online brokerage firms, online auction houses.
Advertising: the owner of a website provides some content and services that attract visitors, and makes money by charging advertisers fees.
Examples: Yahoo, Altavista.
Infomediary model: a firm collects information on consumers and their buying habits and sells it to firms.

14. A Taxonomy of Business Models
Merchant: wholesalers and retailers sell goods and services over the Internet.
Manufacturer: manufacturers try to reach end users directly through the Internet.
Affiliate: a merchant has affiliates whose websites have click-through to the merchant, which pays a fee to the affiliates each time a visitor to an affiliate’s site clicks through to the merchant’s site and buys something.

15. A Taxonomy of Business Models
Community: users have invested in developing relationships with members of their community and are likely to visit the website frequently.
Example: iVillage
Subscription: members pay a subscription price and receive high-quality content.
Utility: users pay for the services they consume.

16. Elements of a Business Model
Customer value
Customers would buy a product from a firm only if the product offers them something competitors’ product do not. This something can take the form of differentiated or low cost product.
Differentiation: a firm can differentiate its products in eight different ways:
Product features
Being the first to introduce it
Ease of access to the products
Service
Product mix
Association with another firm
Brand-name reputation
Low cost: products or services cost customers less than those of its competitors

17. Elements of a Business Model
Scope
Scope deals with:
Market segments or geographic areas to which the value should be offered
How many types of products that embody versions of this value should be sold
Revenue sources
Determination of the sources of a firm’s revenues and profits.
It allows to make better strategic decisions

18. Elements of a Business Model
Price
To profit from the value that firms offer customers, they have to price it properly
Types of pricing:
Menu pricing: sellers sets a price and buyers can take or leave it.
One-to-one bargaining: seller negotiates with a buyer to determine at what point the buyer considers the price appropriate for the value he is getting.
Auction: seller solicits bids from many buyers and sells to the buyer with the best bid.
Reverse auction: sellers decide whether to fulfil the orders of potential buyers.
Barter: swap of goofs for goods, or goods for services.

19. Elements of a Business Model
Connected activities
A firm must perform the activities that underpin the value (value chain).
The activities should be consistent with the value the firm is offering, reinforce each other, take advantage of industry success drivers and make the industry more attractive to the firm.
The activities a firm performs are a function of where the technology is in that industry’s life cycle, the technological evolution of the customers and what competitors are doing.

20. Elements of a Business Model
Implementation
The way of carrying out the decisions depends on several factors:
Structure of a firm.
Systems that allow information flow in the shortest time to the right target for decision making.
Motivation of employees, and capability of making the right decisions with the available information.
Recognizing the potential of an innovation.
Organisational culture.

21. Elements of a Business Model
Capabilities
Firms need resources to perform the activities
Firms need the capacity to turn the resources into customer value and profits: competence.
The competitive advantage allows the firm to offer its customers better value than competitors.

22. Elements of a Business Model
Sustainability
To sustain a competitive advantage a firm can pursue some subset of three generic strategies:
Block strategy: a firm tries to erect barriers around its business model to prevent others from imitating it.
Run strategy: a firm must keep innovating its business model.
Team-up strategy: a firm can pool others’ resources to strengthen its business model.