Track 4: Designing Innovative Business Models

The very model of how to make business is at play in most innovation projects
today, in particular with the advent of Internet commerce. Even traditional manu-
facturing companies with conventional product sales are presently challenged to
consider alternative business models: Service design, project sales, direct sales etc.
Public organizations are under increasing pressure to consider themselves busi-
nesses, with all that this entails in terms of new terminology: Customers, offer-
ings, cash flow etc. In Participatory Innovation the core assumption is that people
outside the organization – especially users – can contribute to innovation. But is it
possible to open up the process of business modeling to participation from a wider
circle than those marketing managers that typically devise new business schemes?
Which opportunities does this provide? And what are the consequences of such a
move? To allow people without formal business education to take part in business
model discussions means moving beyond text and spreadsheets.
The authors in this track provides both insight and practical techniques for what we
might call Participatory Business Model Innovation. Five business cases describe a
variety of innovation challenges for single companies, for groups of companies, for an NGO, and for combinations of public and private organisations. Other authors
respond to these cases. Business researchers offer frameworks and perspectives
on value, business process and innovation platforms. Design researchers propose
ways of ‘designing’ business models by means of extreme sketching, tangible mod-
els, role-play, and even video games!
Altogether the papers outline a new and very promising approach to establishing
collaboration between design, business and management.