Riassunto analitico
The Internet and the advancement on computing, information and communication technology have caused disruptive changes in many industries, and in particular in those industries where the core product has been digitalized, such as in the music industry. As discussed by Chris Anderson in his two best selling books, the Long Tail and Free, every product that is digitalized will, sooner or later, inevitably becomes free. Therefore, in order to survive, firms operating in those industries where their core product has been digitalized (for instance, the CD in the music industry in the late 90’s) will need a radical change in their business model. Thanks to the technological advancement and the democratization of production and distribution means, the world we live in today is the most competitive, rapidly changing, and uncertain that has ever existed. Today, everyone can be a producer, record music, write a book or article, create a digital service and then distribute its value proposition through the Internet with almost zero or a very low investment. The consequence is that traditional business models becomes obsolete, positions of competitive advantage now last for a much shorter period of time, and the product life cycle of many products is also shorter than ever. These developments have enabled firms to fundamentally change the way they “do business”; in particular, the ways they organize and conduct exchanges and activities across firm and industry boundaries with customers, vendors, partners and other stakeholders. As a consequence, the scale and speed at which innovative business models are transforming industry landscapes today is unprecedented.
The purpose of the thesis is to introduce the overall concept of business model with the several definitions and different perspectives provided by many authors. After analysing some of them, we will focus on the framework business model canvas proposed by Osterwalder and Pigneur. From this practical tool we will analyse its usage combining it with the classical strategy tool at hand, such as the Porter’s 5 forces, the SWOT analysis, and the PEST analysis; we will analysis the different environment a business model can face, and which changes are needed to compete and survive with the given contingencies; we will analyse the various stages of evolvement of a general business model, so the dynamics involved in the process from the idea to the conceptualization of the model; then, we will introduce some techniques to innovate around the conceptualized business model, the most important resources coming from the world of design thinking to enhance a creative attitude toward problem solving, and finding novel solutions; finally, we will analyse one of the industry that has been the most revolutionized by the digital revolution of the 2000’s, the music industry. By analysing the evolvement of the business model of incumbent firms, the majors, we will see also see the business model of some new established players, that have been able to exploit the opportunities emerged from the changing paradigm. The focus of this last part of the thesis will be mostly in understanding how the incumbent firms approached the treats and the opportunities emerged from the changed digitalized environment, and how the business model has been changed toward incremental innovation, or by trying to operate with a radical new one.
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