Forces: Analyzing an Organization’s Strategic Position Using a Model Based Approach

In networked value constellations, organizations jointly create value and satisfy complex customer needs by offering multi-supplier bundles of products. Increasingly these products are actually eservices, which can be ordered and provisioned via the Internet. A key problem is how to dynamically, and on-the-fly, compose constellations which provide e-service bundles. A prerequisite for each enterprise is that participation should be sustainable and attractive. Therefore, a participating organization should at least be able to find a strategic position in which the organization can execute its own chosen business strategy. To this end we propose the conceptual modeling technique e 3 forces, which enables us to analyze the “match” between an organization’s business strategy and strategic position in its environment. E 3 forces enables us to quantify the impact of environmental business forces on products/services acquired and offered by an organization. This analysis, based on Porter’s Five Forces framework, allows us to determine the match between an organization’s strategic position and business strategy. An e 3 forces model allows for a computational implementation, and therefore can be the first step in a (semi)-automated composition process for networked value constellations. We illustrate e 3 forces by a case study in the field.