e3-value : Design and Evaluation of e-Business Models

The purpose of e-business models is to show why an e-business case works from an economic perspective. e-Business models are also important to frame the business requirements that must be satisfied by IT systems and networks. They are usually represented by a mixture of very informal textual, verbal and ad-hoc graphical representations. This limits a clear understanding of the e-business issues that confront the various stakeholders, and maintains the gap between business executives, the main e-business model stakeholders, and the IT developers who deliver the information systems that operationalize the e-business model. We discuss a more rigorous, conceptual modelling approach called e3-valueT M for representing e-business models. A key aspect is that it is value-based, since an ebusiness model defines how economic value is created and exchanged within a network of actors. Our methodology is based on a generic value-oriented ontology specifying what’s in an e-business model. It furthermore offers a lightweight graphical approach that guides the definition, derivation, and analysis of the multi-enterprise relationships, e-business scenarios and operations requirements, in both qualitative and quantitative ways. Illustrated by experiences from e-business definition and roll-out projects, we show that our e3-value approach offers important benefits: (1) better communication of and decision making about the essentials of an e-business model by the stakeholders; (2) an upfront, sharper and more complete, understanding of e-business operations and requirements through scenario analysis and quantification.