The Business Model : A Means To Comprehend The Management And Business Context Of Information And Communication Technology

This paper presents a conceptual business model, which aims to improve the understanding of the business context of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). We argue that research into how ICT generates economic value is limitedly valid due to lacking comprehensive knowledge of strategy theory and lacking abilities to integrate strategy perspectives, and the fragmentation of strategy theory. We discuss the main strategy perspectives as well as ICT research within each of these perspectives and conclude that in order to improve the understanding of the ways in which ICT generates value, research must integrate different perspectives. We also review some of the new ebusiness texts that addresses business models. The business model is broader than any individual strategy perspective (such as Industrial Organisation, the Resource-Based View or the Strategy Process Perspective) and includes market factors, offering, activities, organisation and resource bases as well as longitudinal management processes. In addition, we illustrate how the management and business context of ICT (such as ERP and CRM systems) can be viewed through the business model.