Customer–Resource Relationships in the Continuous Business Model Innovation of Technology Companies: Google Cases

Abstract

Research interest in business model innovation (BMI) has increased in highly competitive environments. However, there has been a relative lack of empirical case studies on how companies have built continuous BMI for sustainable success and growth in today’s complex technology and volatile customer environments. We adopted the “BMI Customer–Resource (CR) matrix” framework by focusing on the customer and resource as the critical determinants of sustained BMI success in technology companies. The first finding of this paper is to develop and expand a conceptual framework for analyzing the sustainable growth and success of leading technology companies. By examining Google’s 14 BMs with the CR-matrix, we derived five propositions about the success conditions for sustained BMI. We compared them to existing research on Amazon.com, finding four similarities and three differences. We also made an empirical contribution that reveals that conducting BMs while appropriately exploring and leveraging new or existing customers and resources can affect a company’s sustainable success.