Conceiving Adaptability for Business Models: A Literature-based Approach

A rapidly changing economy and peer pressure amongst competitors lead business to continuously reconsider and readjust their current business models. Thus, business models must be flexible and adaptive towards external changes and should be controlled and managed dynamically. This paper develops a conceptual framework for adaptive business models, which enables decision makers in strategy and IT management to intertwine business models with strategy and business processes, in order to analyze the complex relationships amongst these different description levels of an enterprise. Based on the core elements of business models, the interplay of these elements with aspects from enterprise strategy and business processes are investigated and potentials for IT innovations are being identified to live up to the vision of adaptive business models. For each of the innovations, key measures are considered and improvement possibilities within an enterprise’s IT infrastructure are being identified. The paper concludes with an outlook on possible implementations and future research.