PLATFORM CONFIGURATIONA IN E-BUSINESSES: NEW PARADIGMS AND DIMENSIONS.

The purpose of the study is to investigate and describe the most innovative form of business models. Therefore the main objective of the study is to, firstly, clarify the term and its role within the company and then to evaluate what are the main elements that characterize such models. To achieve the research’s objectives, a framework is developed which enables the author to identify and describe the most significant dimensions and characteristics of a disruptive businesses. The framework provides a specific description of business model’s characteristics in the literature review and allows the data collection process in the empirical part. It is composed by four categories (Product or Service; Infrastructure Management; Customer Relationship; Financial Structure) and 11 subcategories (Value Proposition, Target Customers, Capabilities; Value System Configuration, Resources, Networks; Information System, New Channels, Trust; Revenue Model, Cost Model). These dimensions are based on the previous literature and are supposed to provide a clear and consistent view on how innovative and traditional business model differ from each other. The research is carried out as a qualitative study. The methodology used in the empirical part is interviews. The interviews were conducted through semi-structure and unstructured interview and the questions were designed in relation to the framework previously presented. Twelve interviews are collected with CEOs and founders of innovative new companies. The content analysis was chosen as method of investigation due to its accuracy and efficiency in analyzing qualitative findings. The all study is scheduled and arranged to answer to the research’s objectives. After describing, in the introductive chapter, the business model’s origins and its evolution along the years, the author presents the Literature Review in order to better define the concept in relation to the company’s strategy and to the technological advancements. The Empirical Part, instead, aims at exploring the framework’s parameters and their impact on businesses thanks to the data collected during the interviews. In the last section, Summary, Discussion and Implications, the author concludes that all the new forms of businesses have a different conception on three traditional aspects like: the product, the company’s organizational structure and the creation process. Based on this arrangement, the research fully satisfies the study’s objectives along with its assumptions.