Guillaume Do Vale, Isabelle Collin-Lachaud and Xavier Lecocq
To cope with online competitors and new consumer behaviors, retailers need to hybrid digital and physical offerings to implement an omni-channel business model. This constitutes a…
Abstract
Purpose
To cope with online competitors and new consumer behaviors, retailers need to hybrid digital and physical offerings to implement an omni-channel business model. This constitutes a digital transformation of the traditional business model. However, business cases on how traditional retailers are shifting from multi-channel to omni-channel retailing are lacking. This paper aims to explore the different issues and organizational paths during the transformation of a business model.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a qualitative multiple case study of five retailers with a global reach currently implementing an omni-channel business model.
Findings
This research sheds light on three main issues encountered by retailers and the different underlying decisions when moving toward an omni-channel business model. The first relates to revenue attribution across channels, which involves rethinking traditional key performance indicators to give incentives to stores when promoting digital offers. The second issue concerns the supply chain decisions associated with cross-channel operations. The third issue relates to the delicate balance between global reach (digital channel) and local reach (specific store) for communication on social media and marketing decisions on pricing. This study provides empirical evidence about the variety of choices that retailers make to cope with the issues during the implementation of an omni-channel business model.
Originality/value
This work explores the issues faced by established firms when moving toward a new business model that is the hybridization of two existing business model managed separately. It provides comprehensive and clear illustration of how to manage such a business model transformation process that can be used by both business strategy practice and academic research.
Details
Keywords
Benoît Demil and Xavier Lecocq
Business models can be considered as cognitive models that managers or analysts can use to describe, understand, or test business activities. However, the emergence of a new…
Abstract
Business models can be considered as cognitive models that managers or analysts can use to describe, understand, or test business activities. However, the emergence of a new business model requires not only cognitive operations but also concrete modifications to the realities of a company’s operations and structures. In this paper, we adopt a sociomaterial view of organizational change based on actor-network theory, and underline the role of artifacts in the emergence of new business models. We base our discussion on a case study of a French leader in kitchen electric appliances. Despite the fact that the building of its new business model is still in progress, this empirical study provides important suggestions concerning the role of artifacts.
Details
Keywords
Vanessa Warnier, Xavier Weppe and Xavier Lecocq
The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: how to extend resource-based theory to take into account the contribution of all kinds of resources (including the less…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: how to extend resource-based theory to take into account the contribution of all kinds of resources (including the less regarded ones) to performance? While recognising the importance of strategic resources in building and sustaining a competitive advantage, the authors contend that a symmetric analysis of more available resources can shed new light on the sources and mechanisms of superior performance. Thus, they aim to contribute to an extended theory of resources.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on literature review and theorization process, the authors introduce alongside strategic resources, the concepts of “ordinary resources” and “junk resources”, showing how they may contribute to performance with an appropriate business model. Several illustrative cases are discussed to demonstrate that such resources need to be studied by resource-based theory (RBT).
Findings
The authors propose shifting the focus of RBT from the study of strategic resources alone in order to consider other types as well: ordinary and junk resources. Such an approach involves significant implications for strategic management theory and management practices.
Practical implications
The paper describes the conditions under which ordinary and junk resources (more available to most firms than strategic resources) may generate a competitive advantage. The extended resource-based theory can have implications for society as it may influence managers ' and public attitudes towards underestimated resources and lead to new business models.
Originality/value
The approach developed in this article also goes beyond traditional critiques of RBT. Specifically, the authors ' analysis avoids tautological reasoning, distinguishing between: resources; perceptions of their attributes by firms; the services these resources render; the business model implemented to deploy these resources; and the effects in terms of performance. The authors build an extended resource-based theory, allowing the contribution of various kinds of resources to firm performance to be explained.
Details
Keywords
Researchers and practitioners usually consider that integrating customers in firms’ business models comes with positive consequences. However, customer integration may also…
Abstract
Purpose
Researchers and practitioners usually consider that integrating customers in firms’ business models comes with positive consequences. However, customer integration may also detrimentally influence firms by limiting their strategic and operational latitude, which, in this context, refers to the degree of freedom companies possess over their strategic and operational decisions and actions. Being aware of that would enable companies to limit this potentially harmful influence.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper that relies on recent business cases. It is suggested that the negative influence of customers on firms’ latitude occurs through the three dimensions of their business model, namely, resources and competences, value propositions (i.e. the firm’s offer) and the organization.
Findings
By influencing the use of resources and competences, the design and evolution of the value proposition or the functioning of the organization, customers may constrain firms’ strategic and operational moves and thus have detrimental effects on their performance and evolution. Three ways to counterbalance this potentially negative influence are proposed.
Research limitations/implications
A lack of prior research on the negative side effects of customer integration in firms’ business models is emphasized. Further studies are needed to help firms take these into consideration.
Practical implications
Being aware of the potential drawbacks associated with using customers as resources, firms are invited to balance the level of their strategic and operational latitude with the importance that they grant to their customers.
Originality/value
This paper introduces the concept of strategic and operational latitude. It is also one of the few to highlight the negative consequences of customer integration in firms’ business models.
Details
Keywords
Morality, resp. moral communication, undergoes substantial changes when it is computer‐mediated, i.e. cyberspace provides a different moral infrastructure. Firstly, there are…
Abstract
Morality, resp. moral communication, undergoes substantial changes when it is computer‐mediated, i.e. cyberspace provides a different moral infrastructure. Firstly, there are different conditions regarding the transaction costs that frame the relation between moral motivation and the expectation of the success of a moral act. Secondly, there is the transformation of ownership and property, which are the basic content of moral actions and communications. The personal accountability of one’s and somebody else’s own (property) is altered; a special ethic of virtual ownership is developing, which finds its expression in the manifold production of public goods in virtual networks. This development is reflected in the dialectics of digital commons and anti‐commons. Thirdly, there is the ludic structure of cyberspace. The medial conditions of cyberspace are analogous to the basic principles of play. Playing as a self‐motivated action is a reason for moral behaviour in cyberspace, especially for the production of public goods.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.
Design/methodology/approach
This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.
Findings
The impact of digitalization on the retail sector has prompted firms to modify existing business models to create a hybrid that focuses on both physical and online channels. Involving the entire company in the development of suitable approaches to revenue distribution, supply chain operations and communication activities can help ensure a successful transformation.
Originality/value
The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format