Exploring the fit between business model design and the strategic planning process

The existing literature discussing how to frame and define two crucial concepts such as strategic planning process and business model is still controversial. Different arguments and approaches to these two concepts exist, and have already triggered the interest in examining the possible relation existence between them. However, only few studies explicitly addressed the fit between business model, as a concept and construct, and the broader strategic planning process; even more interestingly, no study exists which empirically tests this fit and possible relationship. This paper aims to find the relationship between strategic planning process and business model design, by focusing on literature-derived specific strategic planning steps and business model design blocks. Filling the significant gap which burdens previous researches, we try to analyze this relationship from different perspectives considering firm size, industry type and other attributes of firms, whether they are e-business/technology intensive. Approaching this relationship between strategic planning and business model through different attributes allows us to observe under which conditions planning steps and business model correlate with each other. Based on an empirical test carried out on a sample of 268 firms belonging to different industries, we find out that decisions on all business model design parameters are more likely to be positioned in the strategic alternatives implementation strategic planning process step than in other strategic planning process steps. In addition to this findings, e-business oriented firms which generally perform commercial transactions and the firms which commercialize new technologies are more likely to adopt the business model construct in their strategic alternatives implementation strategic planning process step than in other strategic planning process steps. Therefore, a strong correlation between strategic planning process and business model design is found, and the study empirically confirms that the business model can be framed in strategic planning, taking on a significant role in the strategy execution and implementation phase of the process.