Arquitectura estratégica e modelo de negócio

O artigo "Business Model Design: An Activity System Perspective" de Christoph Zott e Raphael Amit, publicado no volume 43 da revista Long Range Planning é uma boa referência sobre o conceito de modelo de negócio. Seguem-se alguns recortes:

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"Each of these choices involves a fundamentally different business model, that is, implies a different set of activities, as well as the resources and capabilities to perform them - either within the firm, or beyond it through cooperation with partners, suppliers or customers. And each choice will have implications for the venture’s performance potential - it will affect what capital expenditures are necessary, what prices can be charged and what margins earned, and, perhaps most importantly, which customers and competitors the new firm will deal with. In other words, the design of the business model is a key decision for an entrepreneur who creates a new firm - and a crucial - perhaps more difficult e task for general managers who are charged with rethinking their old model to make their firm fit for the future.

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“the overall objective of a focal firm’s business model is to exploit a business opportunity by creating value for the parties involved, i.e., to fulfill customers’ needs and create customer surplus while generating a profit for the focal firm and its partners. That objective is reflected in the customer value proposition, and has been characterized by Magretta as ‘the value creating insight on which the firm turns’. An activity in a focal firm’s business model can be viewed as the engagement of human, physical and/or capital resources of any party to the business model (the focal firm, end customers, vendors, etc.) to serve a specific purpose toward the fulfillment of the overall objective. An activity system is thus a set of interdependent organizational activities centered on a focal firm, including those conducted by the focal firm, its partners, vendors or customers, etc.. The firm’s activity system may transcend the focal firm and span its boundaries, but will remain firm-centric to enable the focal firm not only to create value with its partners, but also to appropriate a share of the value created itself.

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Interdependencies among activities are central to the concept of an activity system, and provide insights into the processes that enable the evolution of a focal firm’s activity system over time as its competitive environment changes. (Moi ici: Esta interdependência organizada, orquestrada, arquitectada é um claro exemplo da evolução de mistério para algoritmo que Roger Martin tão bem explica) These interdependencies are created by entrepreneurs or managers who shape and design both the organizational activities and the links (transactions) that weave activities together into a system. Such purposeful design - within and across firm boundaries - is the essence of the business model. Some activities relevant to the focal firm’s business model will be performed by the firm itself, others by suppliers, partners and/or customers. The architecture of the firm’s activity system - shaped by the choice of activities, how they are linked, and who performs them - captures how the focal firm is embedded in its ‘ecology,’ i.e., in its multiple networks of suppliers, partners and customers, as well as defining who are the firm’s potential suppliers, partners and customers (and competitors) in the first place.
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These important consequences of the firm’s business model design choice have obvious ramifications for its ability to create and capture value. The stronger the competition implied by the choice of the business model, for instance, the more difficult value appropriation will be. The firm’s revenue model also plays an important role in value appropriation.
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A business model is geared toward total value creation for all parties involved. It lays the foundations for the focal firm’s value capture by co-defining (along with the firm’s products and services) the overall ‘size of the value pie,’ or the total value created in transactions, which can be considered the upper limit of the “firm’s value capture potential."

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Leio isto num artigo publicado em 2010 e faço o paralelismo para o livro publicado em 1994 por Hamel e Prahalad, "Competing for the Future":

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“Not only must the future be imagined, it must be built; hence our term, "strategic architecture." An architect must be capable of dreaming of things not yet created-a cathedral where there is now only a dusty plain, or an elegant span across a chasm that hasn't yet been crossed. But an architect must also be capable of producing a blueprint for how to turn the dream into reality. An architect is both a dreamer and a draftsman. An architect marries art with structural engineering.
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There seems to be, in many companies, an implicit assumption that the short term and long term abut each other, rather than being dovetailed together. But the long term doesn't start at year five of the current strategic plan. It starts right now!
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A strategic architecture identifies "what we must be doing right now" to intercept the future. A strategic architecture is the essential link between today and tomorrow, between short term and long term.
It shows the organization what competencies it must begin building right now, what new customer groups it must begin to understand right now, what new channels it should be exploring right nozu, what new development priorities it should be pursuing right now to intercept the future. Strategic architecture is a broad opportunity approach plan.”

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Aquilo a que Hamel e Prahalad chamaram "arquitectura estratégica" foi, IMHO, uma contribuição para a evolução de algo a que hoje chamamos "modelo de negócio".