Track Chair: Reima Suomi, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration

The new digital economy offers new business opportunities for old businesses but also gives rise to a plethora of new business forms. Because of the internet, few companies can leave their business models untouched, and the need to revise business models is met increasingly often in most organisations. Digital economy business models often differ radically from those in the traditional economy, and their elements may be hard to distill. After working out the business models, they still have to be “sold� to different stakeholders, such as business owners, suppliers, financial institutions, regulators, and, most importantly, – customers. A question by itself is whether a rational business model can always be developed, or whether business in the digital economy is just developing itself incrementally by learning. For academic researchers, new economy business models pose a big challenge, as, understandably, companies are often unwilling to document and publish these models very exactly. In addition, the tools to describe these business models might not be up to date – traditional tools for describing business models face a challenge in the Internet economy. Another interesting question is whether business models are a characteristic of an organisation, or whether they should actually be allocated to different value chains.

Suggested topics:

-	The concept of an e-Business model and related terms
-	Stakeholders of e-Business models
-	E-business and traditional business models compared
-	What makes the difference in e-Business?
-	Defining business models as a part of a value chain
-	Revolution or evolution – how do business models change?
-	Tools for defining and describing e-Business models
-	Methodologies for distilling e-Business models
-	Doing research on e-Business models
-	Educating e-Business models
-	Regulators and e-Business models
-	The differences between established companies and start-ups in business modelling
-	Fostering innovation in e-Business models
-	Case studies on e-Business models
-	E-Business model – delivering the promises