Business Models and Business Strategy – Phenomenon of Explicitness

The paper briefly provides the comparison of various business model approaches in terms of definitions, frameworks and ontologies, and then it discusses various characteristics of business model. On the basis of these characteristics, a framework termed as ‘Business Model Explicitness’ is proposed. The framework states that a business model can be made explicit to the outer world and it can be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness. In order to evaluate the practical implications of the proposed framework, evaluations of different e-business models are also presented in this paper. This is concluded from this evaluation that an organization's business model can be made explicit through its website. Since a business model has been considered as the blue print of money earning logic, therefore, it has a logical link with the strategy. The theoretical as well practical contributions of the proposed framework of BME are also discussed in this paper. Thus, the paper is an important contribution to the conceptual aspects of business models. It is also concluded that a company's website can be an important tool for companies to manage and develop their business models explicitly.