توسعه استراتژیک مدل های کسب و کار : مفاهیم وب 2.0 برای ایجاد ارزش در اینترنت

There is virtually a consensus that, to remain competitive, firms must continuously develop and adapt their business models. However, relatively little is known about how managers can go about achieving this transformation, and how, and to what extent, different types of business models should be adapted. To illustrate the differential effect of environmental changes on different business model types, this article draws from the ‘4C’ Internet business model typology to elaborate on how a recent wave of changes on the Internet – the emergent Web 2.0 phenomenon – is affecting each of its four business model types. We argue that Web 2.0 trends and characteristics are changing the rules of the ‘create and capture value’ game, and thus significantly disrupt the effectiveness of established Internet business models. Since systematic empirical knowledge about Web 2.0 factors is very limited, a comprehensive Web 2.0 framework is developed, which is illustrated with two cases and verified through in-depth interviews with Internet business managers. Strategic recommendations on how to what extent different Web 2.0 aspects affect each business model type are developed. Executives can use the ideas and frameworks presented in the article to benchmark their firm's efforts towards embracing the changes associated with the Web 2.0 into their business model.

Developing and adapting their firm's business model has become a major task for many executives in their efforts to cope successfully with technological progress, competitive changes, or governmental and regulatory alterations.1 So researchers are increasingly interested in how environmental turbulence interacts with business model change, and in investigating the effect of volatile markets on the processes by which firms seek to adjust their operations and adapt their product portfolios to remain competitive.2 As one of the most influential environmental changes within the last two decades, the introduction and proliferation of the Internet provides an ideal setting for studying business model development. Although research on the effect of Internet developments on business model change is still in its infancy, a key insight from this literature is that the Internet is prototypical of the kind of ‘high velocity environment’ in which successful business models need to be frequently adjusted to new challenges.3 Despite this important finding, guidance for managers on how to go about assessing the relevant aspects of environmental change, and their specific effects on their own business models, has been very limited. Most extant studies have remained rather abstract in their recommendations on how to approach environmental analysis and how to match it to firms’ business models: this is where our article aims to make its contribution. We discuss the relative impact of various Internet changes for different types of business models, providing concrete managerial implications on how various Internet business models are affected by specific shifts in the competitive and technological landscape. As an empirical context, we focus on the Web 2.0 phenomenon, a new wave of Internet developments that is likely to lead to fundamental changes in how both Internet and traditional business models function. Recent Web 2.0 developments include, for example, the increased pervasiveness of social networks and relevance of user-generated content, facets on which this article elaborates. A reconfiguration of established Internet business models seems advisable in order to meet the needs of new and radically shifting Internet user behavior.4 This paper seeks to address this managerial challenge by developing a comprehensive framework of Web 2.0 characteristics and success factors that allows managers to identify key trends for their own Internet business model. In order to provide more fine-grained and managerially useful findings, the main objective of this article is to illustrate the differential effect of the Web 2.0 on various Internet business model types, and to give managers clear guidance on how to adapt them in response to changing technology and user behavior.

Clearly, a firm's environment has a fundamental bearing on the kinds of business models that can create value in a given market context. As many industries continue to be in constant flux, it is important for managers to understand how they can address environmental changes and adjust their business model so that their firm can gain - or sustain - a competitive advantage. A large body of academic literature has emerged devoted to improving our understanding of how environmental changes interact with business model modification. Our article is intended to add to this stream of literature in two ways: on the one hand, we contribute specifically to the understanding of the Web 2.0 phenomenon and its distinct effects on the functioning of Internet business models; on the other, we believe our findings also have important implications for the study of business model adaptation in a more general sense. Implications for understanding the Web 2.0 This article is embedded in the specific context of the recent wave of changes in how the Internet functions and is used, the emergence of which has been labeled ‘Web 2.0’. While this phenomenon has received much attention in the practitioner literature, it has remained under-investigated in scholarly strategy research: specifically, the question of how established Internet firms need to adjust their business models as a consequence of the Web 2.0 has remained largely unanswered. In response to this research gap, this article has focused on four specific Web 2.0 characteristics and how they affect the logic of existing Internet business models. This is the first study (to our knowledge) that aims to derive a comprehensive set of key Web 2.0 features in a systematic fashion, and examine them empirically. Since there is considerable ambiguity about what the term Web 2.0 actually refers to, we believe we make an important contribution by conceptualizing and validating this highly relevant practical phenomenon. Perhaps even more importantly, we analyze the relative impact of different Web 2.0 trends and characteristics on different types of Internet models, which should help Internet firm managers assess the relevance of each factor for their own firm and ensure they can initiate the actions required to making their business model Web 2.0-capable. We also outline two cases of ‘pure’ Web 2.0 players, describing their origins, operations and novel features, and showing how their business models are representative of the Web 2.0 factors put forward in this research. We hope these details both help to illustrate the Web 2.0 characteristics we identify, and also highlight some of the factors behind the success of these prosperous players, enabling other firms to adopt some of their features. Implications for business model adaptation Apart from the implications pertaining to the specific Web 2.0 context, we also provide some important general insights into how environmental changes necessitate business model modifications. In particular, the various steps involved in adapting business models noted in this study could serve as a valuable blueprint for business model realignment in general. First, our study highlights the importance of starting by gaining a detailed understanding of all relevant facets of environmental change. As each context differs, firms need to possess strong sensing capabilities to identify the relevant changes in their environments, which require both investment in research and business development as well as the routine evaluation of customer needs and of technological possibilities.26 This implies that the entire firm, and not just the top management, needs to be involved in constant environmental scanning. In fact, not only organization-internal resources can contribute to an improved understanding of technological changes, but the firm's customers are becoming an increasingly important source of information about these changes, as evidenced by the growing relevance of user-added value and interaction orientation identified in our study. Our findings thus lend further support to the concept of ‘open innovation,’ which emphasizes the benefits of openness as a means of expanding value creation for organizations.27 Customers are becoming an increasingly important source of improving firms’ understanding of technological changes Second, once detailed knowledge about relevant aspects of environmental change has been acquired, the next step is to match these facets with different domains of the firm's business model so that market opportunities and challenges can be translated into action plans aimed at modifying specific parts of the firm's business model. This step requires in-depth knowledge about the firm's business model, and we believe frameworks such as the 4C typology advanced in our research can help managers gain a highly structured perspective on the key components of their business models, which in turn helps them to take advantage of environmental changes more swiftly. Finally, after successfully identifying important trends in their markets and redesigning their business model components accordingly, managers need to implement their new structure and establish modified organizational routines that best address the new environmental landscape. During this phase, managers need to act as change agents, promoting a positive attitude towards change and motivating employees to think of it as an opportunity for improving the firm's business model and achieving differentiation from competition.28 Following these three general steps can provide a valuable structure to approaching business model adaptation, and thus help reduce the ambiguity associated with this managerial challenge.