Balancing customer and network value in business models for mobile services

Designing business models for mobile services is complex. A business model can be seen as a blueprint of four interrelated components: service offering, technical architecture, and organisational and financial arrangements. In this paper the connections among these components are explored by analysing the critical design issues in business models for mobile services, e.g., targeting and branding in the service domain, security and quality of service in the technology domain, network governance in the organisation domain, and revenue sharing in the finance domain. A causal framework is developed linking these critical design issues to expected customer value and expected network value, and hence, to business model viability.