Investigating the Performance of Digital Business Model Innovation in Established Firms

公司在商业模式上的竞争越来越激烈。差异化是基于创新的商业模式，而不是高质量的产品。例子表明，公司如何以不同的商业模式提供类似的产品并迅速获得成功：Nespresso以非常低的价格提供胶囊咖啡机，并销售所需的消耗品，即咖啡胶囊，其价格是普通咖啡的五倍。施乐推出了基于使用的租赁合同，而不是销售914型号。信息技术的进步进一步增加了商业模式获得竞争优势的潜力。创新的IT使数字化商业模式成为可能，并改变了整个经济。有几家公司利用具有多边市场商业模式的数字平台：eBay、亚马逊、Netflix、Apple iTunes、Google Play Store、Tinder或微信。其他公司利用数字商业模式免费提供服务，就像谷歌对其搜索引擎所做的那样。Skype通过建立VoIP和免费增值业务模式，成为没有网络基础设施的最大电信提供商。然而，研究只是对作为分析单位的商业模式及其对公司业绩的影响进行了轶事般的探索。许多研究都以战略为分析单位，主要有两种理论，即定位/市场观(MBV)和资源观(RBV)。尽管商业模式融合了这两个基本战略理论，并挑战了它们的假设，但关于商业模式选择和竞争优势的研究仍然很少。大多数研究都是定性的，可推广性有限，或针对创业型企业。然而，尤其是老牌公司难以从商业模式创新中获取价值，许多公司都失败了。原因在于商业模式选择和实验的不确定性，为了弥补这一研究空白，减少现有企业的不确定性，本文分析了商业模式选择对企业绩效的影响。以下研究问题指导了分析：实施新的商业模式如何影响老牌公司的业绩？为了检验这种关系，我专注于单个行业和单个商业模式创新。这样做的一个备选方案是，在软件行业从前期软件许可模式转变为具有持续收入流的订阅模式。各种成熟的软件公司，如Adobe、Microsoft、SAP和Salesforce，在订阅模式方面取得了巨大的成功。然而，研究没有充分探讨订阅模式对软件行业公司业绩的影响。现有的研究大多是定性的，缺乏较大范围的定量概括。因此，本研究项目旨在大规模定量研究商业模式创新，即从前期许可模式到订阅模式，对软件行业企业绩效的影响。

Firms increasingly compete on business models. Differentiation is based on innovative business models instead of high-quality products. Examples show how firms provided similar offerings with a different business model and quickly gained success: Nespresso offers a coffee maker for capsules at a very low price and sells needed consumables, i.e., coffee capsules, five times as expensive as regular coffee. Xerox introduced a usage-based leasing contract instead of selling their model 914. Advancements in information technology (IT) further increase the potentials of business models for competitive advantage. Novel IT enable digital business models and change whole economies. Several firms utilize digital platforms with a multi-sided markets business model: eBay, Amazon, Netflix, Apple iTunes, Google Play Store, Tinder, or WeChat. Other firms utilize digital business models to offer services for free, as Google did with its search engine. Skype became the largest telecommunication provider without a network infrastructure by building on VoIP and the freemium business model. Research, however, has only anecdotally explored the business model as a unit of analysis and its impact on firm performance. A wide range of research builds on strategy as the unit of analysis with the two main theories, i.e., the positioning/ market-based view (MBV) and the resource-based view (RBV). Although the business model incorporates the two fundamental strategic theories and challenges their assumptions, research on business model choice and competitive advantage remain scarce. Most studies are qualitative with limited generalizability or address entrepreneurial firms. However, especially established firms struggle to capture value from business model innovations, and many fail. Reasons are uncertainty concerning the business model to choose and resulting experimentation.To tackle this research gap and reduce uncertainties of established firms, I analyze the impact of business model choice on firm performance. The following research question guides the analysis:How does implementing a new business model impact the performance of established firms?To test this relationship, I focus on an individual industry and an individual business model innovation. A candidate to do so is the change from an upfront software licensing model to a subscription model with continuous revenue streams in the software industry. Various established software firms, such as Adobe, Microsoft, SAP, and Salesforce, having tremendous success with subscription models. Research, however, has underexplored the impact of the subscription model on firm performance in the software industry. Extant studies are mostly qualitative with lacking largescale quantitative generalizability. Therefore, this research project aims for a large-scale quantitative study on the impact of business model innovation, i.e., from the upfront licensing model to subscription, on firm performance in the software industry.