10 Guidelines for Business Model Innovation in Established Companies

Developing new and viable business models has become a serious challenge for large incumbent firms, despite their resources, know-how, and key technologies. This article provides 10 guidelines for mastering business model innovation challenges in established companies, based on extensive empirical research on business model innovation processes in incumbent firms. The guidelines include the importance of top management involvement, proactive discovery of new business models, monitoring of business model environments, focus on organizational learning and an iterative approach, development of new organizational capabilities and structures, acceptance of failure, supporting collaboration in business model design projects, use of templates, analogies for learning from proven patterns, and expectations of positive side effects.