Leveraging Digital and Physical Dialogues for Open Business Model Innovation

Development of open innovative business models is often credited for the growth and commercial success of new ideas and technologies. Although the size of SMEs allows them to be very agile during the innovation process, the limited staff also inevitably means they have fewer skills and facilities to obtain or exchange external knowledge. None of the current open business model frameworks has the ambition of describing the process as a whole in the context of SMEs. In this paper, we offer the open business model innovation framework, a practical tool aimed at assisting SMEs in developing value creation activities to overcome their unmet needs. The business model framework has been developed iteratively (using an action research methodology) and is supported by evidence from literature t exploratory and pilot cases. This new tool is developed for use in multifunctional workshops and online platform settings. We believe that our framework provides SMEs with the ability to dynamically form and re-form their businesses in terms of technology management in response to internal and external stimuli and generate new business configurations as markets evolve.