Designing an ICT tooling platform to support SME business model innovation: Results of a first design cycle

Business model innovation (BMI) is becoming increasingly relevant for enterprises as they are faced with profound changes like digitalization. While business model thinking in academia has advanced, practical tooling that supports business model innovation for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is still lacking. In this paper, we design, implement and evaluate an online platform with ICT-enabled tooling that supports business model innovation by SMEs. Based on interviews with ten SMEs and SME helpers, we define requirements for the BMI tooling platform. The implemented platform offers downloadable tools, decision support for finding the proper tooling, and interactive features for building communities of SMEs. Evaluation through log data analysis and informal interviews shows that the platform is usable and provides a relevant overview of BMI tooling, although several improvements are still suggested. As next steps, we will (1) create prefilled tools and templates to speed up the process of BMI; (2) create educational videos on how to use the tooling; (3) define paths on how to move from one tool to another; and (4) enhance the community features on the platform. The paper contributes to understanding how academic conceptualizations of BMI can be transferred into practically valuable artefacts for SMEs

How about Strategy?: A Survey into the Pitfalls of Strategic Alignment

The prospects are grim for organizations that manage organizational change through a new strategy. In the Strategic Alignment survey, conducted in the second quarter of 2014, 177 managers, consultants, architects, IT specialists, and others were asked about the strategic alignment efforts and experiences of their organization. This article presents findings concerning several aspects of the strategy process. Results from the Strategic Alignment survey suggest that organizations still experience significant difficulties during development and implementation of their strategies. Especially, ineffective communication and insufficient organizational capabilities are pitfalls that prevent organizations from reaching strategic alignment

Exploring a changing view on organizing value creation: Developing New Business Models

The relevance of Business model innovation (BMI) to survival and competitiveness of companies is largely acknowledged by academia and industry. Still, a recent study by Bouwman et al (2016) showed that 37% of Europe’s small and medium sized companies (SMEs) are engaged in BM Innovation. This means that almost two thirds of the SMEs do not change their business logic, thus staying within their familiar comfort zone. This can be fine for some, but many more SMEs will need to adjust and innovate their business model as the world changes around them especially due to digitalisation. Moreover, very few SMEs use formal methods to improve their BM - of those SMEs that do BM Innovation, only 19% make use of formal methods (Bouwman et al., 2016). This raises a question whether it is possible to support the BM innovation of SMEs by providing them tools that fit their strategic aims and practical BMI needs. In this paper, we present two design cycles for an online platform with ICT-enabled tooling that supports business model innovation by SMEs. The platform connects the needs of the SMEs regarding BMI with tools that can help to solve those needs and questions. The needs are derived from our earlier case study work (Heikkilä et al. 2016), showing typical BMI patterns of the SMEs needs - labelled as ‘I want to’s - about what an entrepreneur wants to achieve with business model innovation. The platform provides sets of integrated tools that can answer the typical ‘I want to’ questions that SMEs have with innovating their business models    </p

Nitric Oxide Isoenzymes Regulate Lipopolysaccharide-Enhanced Insulin Transport across the Blood-Brain Barrier

Insulin transported across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) has many effects within the central nervous system. Insulin transport is not static but altered by obesity and inflammation. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), derived from the cell walls of Gram-negative bacteria, enhances insulin transport across the BBB but also releases nitric oxide (NO), which opposes LPS-enhanced insulin transport. Here we determined the role of NO synthase (NOS) in mediating the effects of LPS on insulin BBB transport. The activity of all three NOS isoenzymes was stimulated in vivo by LPS. Endothelial NOS and inducible NOS together mediated the LPS-enhanced transport of insulin, whereas neuronal NOS (nNOS) opposed LPS-enhanced insulin transport. This dual pattern of NOS action was found in most brain regions with the exception of the striatum, which did not respond to LPS, and the parietal cortex, hippocampus, and pons medulla, which did not respond to nNOS inhibition. In vitro studies of a brain endothelial cell (BEC) monolayer BBB model showed that LPS did not directly affect insulin transport, whereas NO inhibited insulin transport. This suggests that the stimulatory effect of LPS and NOS on insulin transport is mediated through cells of the neurovascular unit other than BECs. Protein and mRNA levels of the isoenzymes indicated that the effects of LPS are mainly posttranslational. In conclusion, LPS affects insulin transport across the BBB by modulating NOS isoenzyme activity. NO released by endothelial NOS and inducible NOS acts indirectly to stimulate insulin transport, whereas NO released by nNOS acts directly on BECs to inhibit insulin transport