Bussines model generation

African Journal of Business Management Vol.5 (7), 4 April, 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM ISSN 1993-8233 ©2011 Academic Journals

Book Review

Business Model Generation: A handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey (2010) Authors: Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur Reviewed by: ManuelAu-Yong Oliveira * and João José Pinto Ferreira
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INESC Porto, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal. Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal. *Corresponding author.E-mail: manueloliv@gmail.com. Tel.: 00 351 93 468 1128.Fax:00 351 22 615 2699.

INTRODUCTION The book entitled “Business Model Generation: A Handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers” though written by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) was also co-created by 470 practitioners from 45 countries. The book is thus a good example of how a global creative collaboration effort can contribute positively to the business and management literature andsubsequently to the advancement of society (Alam and Hoque, 2010; Alam et al., 2010a, b). Consisting of five main chapters (Canvas, Patterns, Design, Strategy and Process) and two additional chapters Outlook and Afterword, “Business Model Generation” should be read by those motivated to “defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow’s enterprises” (front cover). The objectives of the five mainchapters in the book are as follows: To present the Business Model Canvas – a tool which can be used to describe, analyze and design business models. To present leading business thinkers’ concepts in the form of Business Model Patterns. To present techniques to aid readers design business models. To show how business modeling is central to the discussion of strategy To present a generic process,taking advantage of the material described above and which is applicable to innovative process model design. “Business Model Generation” presents itself as a useful review of the literature (Kalula, 2010) on business models and still (in Outlook) presents topics for future exploration. Lastly, Afterword shows how the book was a co-creation effort thus enabling future authors to follow their examplein producing an innovative book relevant to academics and practitioners alike, around the globe. Before proceeding to do an in-depth review of “Business Model Generation” we shall first have a look at other publications by the authors (Osterwalder, 2004; Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2002; Osterwalder et al., 2005; and Fritscher and Pigneur, 2010) which led up to this book. A review of Osterwalder andPigneur’s work leading up to the book “Business Model Generation” Osterwalder, the first author of the book “Business Model Generation” we are reviewing, attained the degree of Doctor of Management Information Processing at the Universite de Lausanne – Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, in 2004, under the supervision of Pigneur (co-author), a Professor in the Information Systems Department. Asa research assistant, under Professor Pigneu, Osterwalder “taught and conducted research on business models” (Osterwalder, 2004, p.1) which is where he admittedly rediscovered his interest in developing countries, initially developed during his undergraduate degree in political science. The title of the PhD thesis is “The business model ontology: A proposition in a

design science approach”.Osterwalder’s higher education was all undertaken at the Universite de Lausanne, a notable institution located in the most competitive nation worldwide (World Economic Forum, 2010) – Switzerland – which continues its global leadership into 2010-2011 from the 2009-2010 rankings. Revealing himself to be concerned with social issues, Osterwalder dedicated his doctoral thesis “To all those people out...