Designing business models for mobile ICT services

Introduction The provisioning of mobile ICT services often requires firms with different resources (e.g. financial support and consumer base) and capabilities (e.g. telecommunication, payment, and security) that co-operate to create value for end users. Given the low success rate of inter-firm co operations (see e.g. Levine & Byrne, 1986; Harrigan, 1988; and Bleeke & Ernst, 1993) and the risks and cost involved introducing new technological innovations, it is not surprisingly that there is much attention of practitioners and academia for the concept of business models. We see a business model as the way a network of companies intends to create and capture value from the employment of technological opportunities. Designing business models is a complex undertaking because different requirements (e.g. technical, user, organisational and financial requirements) need to be accommodated and balanced. Design choices in one domain (e.g. technical domain) may effect those of the other domains (e.g. user domain). This interrelatedness of design choices complicates the design of viable business models for mobile services.