The Vital Role of Business Processes for a Business Model : The Case of a Startup Company

The present study highlights the importance of alignment between a business model (BM) and business processes. The authors employ a case study method and analyze a young company focused on R&D in high technology. In order to explicate the observations, the researchers invoke the newly developed ‘VIP framework’ (Solaimani and Bouwman, 2012). The research reveals that the business processes (BP) carried out in the company must fit the stated business model. The case study demonstrates how some of the processes are not optimal and efficient, and that the two main requirements for achieving a higher level coherence and consistency between BM and BP are an enhancement in human resource management and information systems. This research fills a research gap in understanding the connection between BM and BP and contributes to the illumination of their significance. Besides, a newly developed BM/BP alignment framework is empirically applied for the first time