Companies today face volatile environments, short product life cycles, and changing udcustomer requirements, which is especially the case in high-technology fields. In udsuch environments, concentrating only on technological and product innovations is udnot sufficient to gain competitive advantages. Instead, companies need innovative udbusiness models in order to stand out from their competitors. To successfully udchange business models, companies require appropriate competencies. Thus, the udobjective of this research is to identify how companies can prepare their business udmodel(s) to counteract environmental changes flexibly. With the aid of the chosen udexploratory, qualitative research design, we investigate companies operating in high-udtechnology branches. In total, 20 companies participated in our study. The interviews udwere conducted with CEOs, vice-presidents, product managers or other managers udresponsible for business model developments. The research revealed that companies udcan prepare the business model and its elements ex ante through developing udcapabilities in order to raise the flexibility of the business model. These capabilities udhave to be developed with regard to several internal and external issues driving these udchanges.
展开▼
