Deriving Collaborative Business Model Design Requirements from a Digital Platform Business Strategy

Abstract

The widespread deployment of digital technologies has resulted in a hyperconnected context for business organizations. Currently many ventures, both start-ups and incumbents, consider engaging in a Digital Platform Business Strategy to create and capture value in collaborative ecosystems. This type of strategy strongly differs from a conventional Business Strategy in speed, scale, scope and interaction with the ecosystem. Business Models are used to realize a strategy, but little guidance and support exists for the specification of business models realizing a Digital Business Platform Business Strategy. This affects an organization’s responsiveness to digital opportunities. To address this gap, this paper proposes a novel method to support the derivation of Business Model Design Requirements from a Digital Platform Business Strategic Objective. The method uses a Catalogue of Strategy Elements as a starting point to generate Subobjectives and Business Model Design Requirement Specification Cards as a structuring tool to facilitate the transformation of these Subobjectives into Business Model Design Requirements. The method is demonstrated using a historical platform case study. We show that our approach generates Business Model Design Requirements in a structured way and in line with Business Strategy. As a positive by-product the method creates options for business model evolution.