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ISBM Pulse: business models

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Modern Business Models

This article, focusing on AI, platforms, and network effects, distinguishes between products that are “like air” (that one needs continuously and is critical for survival) versus “like hair cuts” (that one needs only once in a while and can do without). The authors describe the notion of a ‘modern business model’, and demonstrates how these companies are more resilient. 

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McKinsey: Reskill Your Workforce to Emerge from the Crisis Stronger

As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, across industries, the workforce needs to adapt to changing conditions. Workers get new roles, activities change. The workforce need to be upskilled in order to deliver adapted business models. This article by McKinsey drafts how companies can develop a talent strategies that develops employees’ capabilities and resilience.

Disentangling the effect of services on B2B firm value: Trade-offs of sales, profits, and earnings volatility (Nezami, Worm, and Palmatier)

Many B2B manufacturers have moved from their previously successful product-centric strategies to more service-oriented business models. Yet despite their substantial investments in services, firms fail to understand the performance ramifications of these offerings. With a longitudinal data set of 227 B2B manufacturers listed in the S&P 1500 index, this study disentangles the simultaneous effects of financial-based mechanisms that link the service ratio (i.e., share of a firm’s revenue generated from selling services) to firm value.

Book: Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption

In his book ‘Unlocking the Customer Value Chain, Harvard Business School professor Thales Texeira describes how the disruption of an industry is driven by customer behavior rather than technologies. Innovative new business models allow startups to ‘decouple the value chain’ – picking one aspect of an incumbent’s business model and doing it better.