A Decision Support Tool for Business Models Analysis

The business model (BM) concept which has emerged in the scientific literature and business world over the past fifteen years is a new management concept that, although characterised by fuzzy boundaries, can be synthesized as “the rationale of how an organisation creates, delivers and captures value”. Many authors see the BM as an excellent tool for the strategic evaluation of business ideas, but the literature review shows a lack of efficient quali-quantitative tools for evaluating potential BM alternatives and selecting the best BM solution from among them. In this paper, we propose a Business Model Decision Support Tool (BM-DST) based on a quali-quantitative methodology of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) called Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and specifically based on a modified AHP procedure called Value-Analytic Hierarchy Process (V-AHP). A case study with a numerical example was carried out in the field of industrial plants, specifically in the context of the Industrial Product-Service Systems, in order to select the best BM solution from among three potential BM alternatives usually taken into account by an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Engineering-Procurement- Construction (EPC) company: Transactional Project Deliveries, Project Led Solutions and Life-Cycle Solutions.