Which management and organizational capabilities determine the success of the process of Business Model Innovation?

The traditional balance between customers and suppliers has changed because of rapidly changing developments in the global economy. Those developments are pushed by increasing technology and more diversified demands from customers, which lead to a more customer-centric approach. As a company to respond to those developments management needs to be able to innovate its business model. Business model innovation takes place when: (1) new activities are added, (2) activities are linked together in a new way, or (3) one or more parties are changed that perform any of the activities. By changing one of these three elements, the business model is innovated. (Amit & Zott, 2012). Business model innovation gives rise to different challenges. One of these challenges is changing an existing business model into a new one; this appeals to the leadership when leading the change. But also organizational aspects such as how to allocate resources and how to cope with conflicts during business model innovation. The focus of this research is on the role of these leadership qualities and organizational capabilities during different stages of business model innovation process. This leads to the following research question: Which management and organizational capabilities determine the success of the process of Business Model Innovation? By addressing this question, this thesis makes three important contributions to the business model innovation literature. First, the thesis increases insight into the different stages of the business model innovation process. This strengthen the theory on business model innovation processes and by doing so it addresses a limited researched area of business model innovation. Second, this thesis addresses the role of leadership qualities and organizational capabilities in the different stages. Third, the momentum of management skills in the process of business model innovation is uncovered. In doing so, this thesis answers pleas from experts who argue that the “process of business model innovation and their identification, design and evaluation is under examined. (Schneider and Spieth, 2014). And addresses a significant gap in empirical research in business model innovation (Spieth, Schneckenberg & Ricart, 2014). Björn Zaadnoordijk – Part-time Master Business Administration 2017-2019 7 During this research the management and organizational capabilities of business model innovation are explored within a firm making use of a single-case study. The prime source of data is semi-structured interviews. By interviewing several people within the organization with a different set of experiences and viewpoints, the data is enriched. The researched business model is in the beverage industry and is known as the world's largest independent bottler with the production, trade and distribution of beverages to food retailers, wholesalers and brand owners. The process of business model innovation is based on the last three years whereas the focus from make-to stock towards make-to-order customers led to a change in the business model. This affected the structure and thus activities were linked together in a new way. This had a huge effect on the way the business model was carried out in term of management and organizational capabilities. The results are organized based on the four stages of the business model innovation process, whereas the highlights are viewed in a timeline. During every stage the challenges are mentioned and the constructs of the conceptual framework with concepts which influence this stage are shown. The summary of the constructs of the conceptual framework with concepts which influence this stage are the following. The initiation stage is about acceleration on renewal while getting alignment on the needs as well as the coordination and integration of change drivers. During the ideation stage reconfigurate the business model while coordinate and integrate the process and manage tension and get alignment on ideas are important. Furthermore during the integration stage the integration of different components while managing tension and get loyalty and commitment on resources are important. During the last stage which is referred to as the implementation stage, manage tension and get loyalty and commitment on resources while coordinate and integrate (right) on time seemed to be the most important aspects. In the chapter discussion and conclusion the process model shows the (mutual) relations from organizational capabilities and leadership in the different stages of the business model innovation process and the propositions are formulated. Finally the process of business model innovation and its results within the researched object are shown in the conclusion.