What is indispensable in your business model?

You have to answer this question if you want to know whether or not you can combine your business model with other business models. If you have indispensable elements in your business model, then copying it will be very difficult. When you offer something different, other companies will want to work/ collaborate with you. However, if you don’t have unique solutions in your business model other companies can copy your products/services very easily.

Of course, one reason other companies might want to collaborate and work with you is if they like your products or services, which you offer at a low price. However, that arrangement will last only as long you have the lowest prices. Should they find a competitor that offers an even more attractive deal, they will desert you without hesitation.

If you want to combine business models successfully, you have to create a unique business model.You have to answer the question: How do I play the game? If you don’t create a unique business model, one that is different from those other companies either already have or can create, what game can you play? It could well be a losing game of low prices, low margins, and 0 profits. You could be constantly fearful for the continued existence of your business.

A necessary condition for successful business model combining is that companies have to combine business models with complementary and indispensable business model ingredients. Businesses collaborate because they have a vital need for each other in order to ensure the creation of substantial value.

The Wireless Future of Medicine and Sport

Can we combine the business models of the wireless future of medicine with a low- budget business model for athletes?

We can see from the video that is possible to monitor the vital functions of athletes with wireless technology. We can measure their heart rates, oxygen use, sleeping process, etc. Some Individual athletes can’t their have own medical teams, but they can do continuous measurements with apps on mobile devices. That service will enable better monitoring of athletes’ performance with a much lower budget. One medical team of specialists can monitor and advise more athletes or more teams of athletes online.  An athlete’s trainers can easily plan training phases, and individual athletes can be in top form for competitions,.

I think that business models of the wireless future of medicine could be combined with business models for the future of sport.

more about “YouTube – Eric Topol: The wireless fu…”, posted with vodpod

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Rule Number One: Stop Digging

A value network analysis can help to manage enterprises in boom times and recession. Value network positioning is important in the time of fat cows, but enterprises also have to assess risk especially in the time of thin cows.

The Slovenian construction industry is a huge value network.  Construction companies grew enormous in past years; contractors and subcontractors had large profits, so banks lent them money at very low interest rates.

A recession creates the opposite situation for value network participants. Now, the Slovenian construction market has a large surplus of dwellings and business buildings, all of which remain untenanted owing to the unfavorable economic climate.

Banks have stopped offering long-term loans to construction and real estate companies. In addition, they are raising interest rates for long-term real-estate loans for such purchases as family homes, flats and semi-detached houses.  Of course, this has reduced the demand for such properties, and, as a result, construction companies have less income and lack the funds to finance future projects.

Construction companies with suitable business models and the right position in value networks are much more likely to weather an economic downturn by their ability to assess all the risks presented by potential projects. I advise all other construction companies, the ones without viable business models and information-laden value networks, to lay down their shovels and shut down their bulldozers. After all, when in a deep hole, remember Rule Number One: Stop Digging.

A step into 2010

Last year, I found an interesting article “Can You Change Everything?,” published on the Seth Godin blog. His words from the west coast of the U.S. inspired me, caused me to start studying English through Skype with my teacher John Slattery and initiated a number of other changes in my daily life.I began to do what I love doing, and I started to connect intensively with people who have opinions similar to mine. Suddenly my life became full of unforgettable encounters and new experiences. What has impressed me the most is the global community, which is producing a world-wide, collective knowledge. I became part of a large network of connections, contacts, reservoirs of awareness and understanding. I attended an unforgettable Business Model Knowledge Fair in Amsterdam and participated in the Business Model Hub by co-creating, as one of more than four hundred and fifty contributors, the book Business Model Generation. In addition, on the topic of Business Model and Social Media, I organized and led several lectures and workshops  and was very heartened by the enthusiastic response.I never defined any of the main objectives but instead spoke spontaneously. In that year of 2009, during which I crossed the threshold, creating goals was not my objective; what I wanted to do was to spread the word to as many people as I could as quickly as possible.  I think I’m on the right track, having sent forth some waves, which will, I hope, now spread out upon the global ocean of knowledge. In the year 2010, I hope to further investigate the many possibilities and manifold connections that Business Models and Value Networks offer. Like an explorer who has discovered a new continent, I am tremendously excited and enraptured by the endless possibilities such an adventure promises.I had an experience very similar to this when I first encountered the monsoon in  Kathmandu in August of 1984. I was entranced by the mystery and enchantment of that exotic land whose strange landscape was drenched in a seemingly never-ending rainfall. When I first discovered Business Models and Value Networks, that feeling of  having come across an enigma, with all the fascination such encounters generate, came upon me again. And as I’ve learned more, that fascination has increased rather then diminishing.

Venture capital and Business Model Combo

I attended a conference on Open Innovation in Ljubljana last week where I listened to some very interesting lectures. I was particularly interested in a presentation which recounted the the story of a Slovenian entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. As I have previously worked in finance and therefore know well the difficulties and dangers involved in obtaining financial resources, a story about a business model combined with venture capitalism was one that held a particular attraction for me.

It was especially interesting since I got the feeling that because an asymmetrical access to information and combining business models had been utilized, all the stakeholders didn’t benefit. Venture capital stakeholders profited from the business not in a financial sense: they kept what they had invested. However, they gained a very valuable, intangible asset: knowledge.Those who came into the business with knowledge and money, invested that knowledge but lost out on all the profits, and, in addition, were saddled with heavy debts. The stakeholders who invested the venture capital took control of the story and ended it by their rules.

This cautionary tale has strengthened my belief that it is necessary to enter into transactions with a multidisciplinary team that has initiated clearly defined rules which prevent information asymmetry in business. Since forming a multidisciplinary group of specialists can be difficult to do within a single company’s business model, this can most often be best achieved by combining different business models in collaboration with other enterprises.The rules for the participation of multidisciplinary groups can be constructed on the basis of business model canvases.

SME Business Model Combining with Google

Small and medium-size enterprises (SME) that organize events can combine their business models with the Google business model. An event is written in the Google calendar application and it can be shared by choosing to make it public. If the exact address of the event is entered, it can be displayed on another application: GoogleMaps. With public accessibility anyone can see the shared events happening at the same location. These can be concerts, lectures, parties, trips and excursions, gymnastics, and so on.

Using web tools (such as Google, Yahoo and others) to upload events, users can promote Google, themselves and the local community where those events take place. After the event is over, they can also upload photos to Picasa (Google), Slideshare, and video (YouTube).  This is how images of the events can be shared with others.

All the input should be tagged by the user. That means employing the most popular words and phrases that a user then applies to a certain tool so that a higher place on web browsers can be achieved.

Users search for information with their web browsers in search engines using words or phrases that connect with tags (key words or phrases) imbedded in web pages. So, the owners of web pages, which can contain blogs or other text, photos, videos, music, etc., need to know the most popular words or phrases. If they put these as tags, there is a better chance that somebody will click on their web page, photo or video.

Google developed the Google Adwords application, which is a premium service; that means that you have to pay for it. Google offers you an advertisement called a “sponsored link” on Google. When people write a word into their web browsers that you have tagged, your advertisement appears. If a searcher clicks on your advertisement, you have to pay a certain amount per click. You can discover in Google Adwords application statistics how many times web searchers have written any tag into the search engine and how many searchers have clicked on your advertisement. You can insert what you learn are the most popular tags in other applications you use. That will help all your content on the web become more and more popular.

Picture taken by glaak.