Frameworks for Understanding and Describing Business Models

This paper provides in a chronological fashion an introduction to six frameworks that one can apply to describing, understanding and also potentially innovating business models. These six frameworks have been chosen carefully as they represent six very different perspectives on business models and in this manner “complement” each other. There are a multitude of varying frameworks that could be chosen from and we urge the reader to search and trial these for themselves. The six chosen models (year of release in parenthesis) are: • Service-Profit Chain (1994) • Strategic Systems Auditing (1997) • Strategy Maps (2001) • Intellectual Capital Statements (2003) • Chesbrough’s framework for Open Business Models (2006) • Business Model Canvas (2010)