Conceptualization of a Value Cocreation Language for Knowledge-Intensive Business Services

Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) are business-to-business services that are characterized as being knowledge intensive, relying on expert employees, and providing knowledge-based solutions to customers. As a context for service design, KIBS bring unique challenges regarding the need to communicate about value cocreation among companies entering into a service exchange. Unfortunately, until now, there have been limited contributions in the area of modeling languages to support the cocreation of value during business exchanges. In this paper, an abstract language (metamodel) is proposed to support IT designers in understanding value cocreation in the field of IT-related business services. A value creation metamodel is first structured around three dimensions: the nature of the value, the method of value creation, and the business object impacted by the value. Then, value cocreation is modeled as a specialization of the value creation metamodel. This new language is illustrated with a case study related to KIBS in the financial sector.