A Methodology for Analysing Business Model Dynamics for Mobile Services Using Control Points and Triggers

This paper outlines an ongoing programme of research, which concerns a methodology for the development and analysis of business models concerning mobile service platforms. These platforms result from the generative system that is the mobile Internet combined with mobile devices, further enhanced by advanced user interaction modalities. The mobile telecoms industry seeks to control the mobile Internet for profit, whilst maintaining its capacity for innovative and appealing content and services. The methodology introduced in this paper, which attempts to address the need to balance the need for control in business models, whilst maintaining the mobile internet?'s generativity, consists of three parts. First it builds potential business models for future services within the mobile telecoms industry using value networks. Second, it identifies positions of sustainable economic power for industry players using control points. Third, it examines how external factors may lead to changes within those future business models using triggers. In so doing the paper brings together a methodology, developed by the Value Chain Dynamics Working Group (VCDWG), part of the MIT Communications Futures Program (CFP), and state of the art business modeling literature, which is emerging from European universities. This paper presents an example using mobile service platforms as a focus of analysis, after which an agenda for further research is outlined. The work covered in this paper is part of a current research programme, namely the User Interfaces for Breakthrough Services work area of the Core 5 Research Programme of the Virtual Centre of Excellence in Mobile & Personal Communications (Mobile VCE). The programme is jointly funded by the Mobile VCEs' industrial member companies and the UK Government, through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).