A Comparative Analysis of Business Model Notations

Abstract

Although there were many comparative literatures of Business Models, there were not clear comparison criteria. Therefore, these comparisons were fragmented based on different viewpoints. In general, questions on business models can be categorized by interrogatives. In other words, the interrogatives imply a set of key features of business model notations. The feature category of business models using the interrogative will provide a unified way to compare different business models.

The paper first defines the fifteen key features of Business Model Notations with five interrogatives. Then we concretely compare typical Business Model Notations based on the key features. The result clarifies the difference of Business Model Notations by using the proposed comparison framework. The result also implies a method to choose appropriate business model notations by using a set of interrogatives which correspond to important questions on business models.