Business model elements in different types of organization in software business

Abstract

The business model concept has been discussed widely during the current millennium. On one hand most of the discussion is not academic in nature and on the other hand the industry practitioners have been rarely included nor have their voice been heard in the academic studies. This has lead to differences in definitions of the business model concept between academic studies and the thinking of industry practitioners. In this study we dive into practitioners’ views and investigate how they fit to business model canvas, a tool that is now popular in business practice. We also investigate how different types (in terms of age and size) of organizations working on different software business fields utilize the business model concept in their own ways. The findings showed variation in how different organizations promote different elements of the business model as more important and how the elements included different content even within the software business domain. We also demonstrate some of the similarities that prevail in software business, such as people being the key resource, regardless of the field or type of business.