Do Some Business Models Perform Better than Others?

Do Some Business Models Perform Better
than Others? A Study of the 1000 Largest US
Firms


Authors:
Peter Weill,
Thomas W. Malone,
Victoria T. D’Urso,
George Herman,
Stephanie Woerner
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT Sloan School of Management Working Paper No.
MIT Center for Coordination Science Working Paper No. 226
2005



The paper defines four basic types of business models (Creators, Distributors, Landlords and  Brokers). Next, the type of asset involved (Financial, Physical, Intangible,  or Human) is considered and 16 specialized variations of the four basic business models are defined. Using  this framework, the revenue streams of the top 1000 firms in the US economy  in fiscal year 2000 were analyzed for their financial performance. The results show that  business models are a better predictor of financial performance than industry  classifications and that some business models do, indeed, perform better than others.

http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/pdf/wp226.pdf