Platform-based business models underlie the success of many of today’s largest, fastest-growing, and most disruptive companies. Despite the success of prominent examples, such as Uber and Airbnb, creating a profitable platform ecosystem presents a key challenge for many companies across all industries. Although research provides knowledge about platforms’ different value drivers (e.g., network effects), companies that seek to transform their current business model into a platform-based one lack an artifact to reduce knowledge boundaries, collaborate effectively, and cope with the complexities and dynamics of platform ecosystems. We address this challenge by developing two artifacts and combining research from variability modeling, business model dependencies, and system dynamics. This paper presents a design science research approach to develop the platform ecosystem modeling language and the platform ecosystem development tool that support researcher and practitioner by visualizing and simulating platform ecosystems.

The development of effective business models is an essential task in highly competitive markets like mobile ecosystems. Existing development methods for these business models do not specifically focus that the development process profoundly depends on the situation (e.g., market size, regulations) of the mobile app developer. Here, a mismatch between method and situation can lead to poor resource management and longer development cycles. In software engineering, situational method engineering is used for software projects to configure a development method out of a method repository based on the project situation. Analogously, we support creating situation-specific business model development methods with a method base and new user roles. Here, the method engineer obtains the knowledge of the domain expert and stores it in the method base as elements, building blocks, and patterns. The expert knowledge is derived from a grey literature review on mobile development processes. After this, the method engineer constructs the development method based on the described situation of the business developer. We provide an open-source tool and evaluate it by constructing a local event platform's business model development method.

Mobile shopping apps have been using Augmented Reality (AR) in the last years to place their products in the environment of the customer. While this is possible with atomic 3D objects, there is is still a lack in the runtime configuration of 3D object compositions based on user needs and environmental constraints. For this, we previously developed an approach for model-based AR-assisted product configuration based on the concept of Dynamic Software Product Lines. In this demonstration paper, we present the corresponding tool support ProConAR in the form of a Product Modeler and a Product Configurator. While the Product Modeler is an Angular web app that splits products (e.g. table) up into atomic parts (e.g. tabletop, table legs, funnier) and saves it within a configuration model, the Product Configurator is an Android client that uses the configuration model to place different product configurations within the environment of the customer. We show technical details of our ready to use tool-chain ProConAR by describing its implementation and usage as well as pointing out future research directions.

The continuous innovation of its business models is an important task for a company to stay competitive. During this process, the company has to validate various hypotheses about its business models by adapting to uncertain and changing customer needs effectively and efficiently. This adaptation, in turn, can be supported by the concept of Software Product Lines (SPLs). SPLs reduce the time to market by deriving products for customers with changing requirements using a common set of features, structured as a feature model. Analogously, we support the process of business model adaptation by applying the engineering process of SPLs to the structure of the Business Model Canvas (BMC). We call this concept a Business Model Decision Line (BMDL). The BMDL matches business domain knowledge in the form of a feature model with customer needs to derive hypotheses about the business model together with experiments for validation. Our approach is effective by providing a comprehensive overview of possible business model adaptations and efficient by reusing experiments for different hypotheses. We implement our approach in a tool and illustrate the usefulness with an example of developing business models for a mobile application.

Augmented Reality (AR) has recently found high attention in mobile shopping apps such as in domains like furniture or decoration. Here, the developers of the apps focus on the positioning of atomic 3D objects in the physical environment. With this focus, they neglect the configuration of multi-faceted 3D object composition according to the user needs and environmental constraints. To tackle these challenges, we present a model-based approach to support AR-assisted product con-figuration based on the concept of Dynamic Software Product Lines. Our approach splits products (e.g. table) into parts (e.g. tabletop, ta-ble legs, funnier) with their 3D objects and additional information (e.g. name, price). The possible products, which can be configured out of these parts, are stored in a feature model. At runtime, this feature model can be used to configure 3D object compositions out of the product parts and adapt to user needs and environmental constraints. The benefits of this approach are demonstrated by a case study of configuring modular kitchens with the help of a prototypical mobile-based implementation.

To build successful products, the developers have to adapt their product features and business models to uncertain customer needs. This adaptation is part of the research discipline of Hypotheses Engineering (HE) where customer needs can be seen as hypotheses that need to be tested iteratively by conducting experiments together with the customer. So far, modeling support and associated traceability of this iterative process are missing. Both, in turn, are important to document the adaptation to the customer needs and identify experiments that provide most evidence to the customer needs. To target this issue, we introduce a model-based HE approach with a twofold contribution: First, we develop a modeling language that models hypotheses and experiments as interrelated hierarchies together with a mapping between them. While the hypotheses are labeled with a score level of their current evidence, the experiments are labeled with a score level of maximum evidence that can be achieved during conduction. Second, we provide an iterative process to determine experiments that offer the most evidence improvement to the modeled hypotheses. We illustrate the usefulness of the approach with an example of testing the business model of a mobile application.

Mobile app stores like Apple's AppStore or Google's PlayStore are highly competitive markets for third-party developers wanting to develop successful applications. During the development process, many developers focus on the multitude of product functions but neglect the business model as an equally important part. As a result, developers often fail to meet customer needs, leading to unnecessary development costs and poor market penetration. This, in turn, raises the question of how we intertwine the business model and product functions during the development process to ensure a better alignment between the two. In this paper, we show this intertwined development by adapting the concept of Twin Peaks to the business model and product functions. Based on feature modeling as an abstraction layer, we introduce the concept of a Business Model Decision Line (BMDL) to structure the business model decisions and their relation to product functions structured in a Software Product Line (SPL). The basis of our feature models is the analysis of top listed applications in the app stores of Apple and Google. To create and modify both models, we provide an incremental feature structuring and iterative feature selection process. This combination of abstraction layer and development process supports third-party developers to build successful applications both from a business and a product perspective.

In the last years, store-oriented software ecosystems are gaining more and more attention from a business perspective. In these ecosystems, third-party developers upload extensions to a store which can be downloaded by end users. While the functional scope of such ecosystems is relatively similar, the underlying business models differ greatly in and between their different product domains (e.g. Mobile Phone, Smart TV). This variability, in turn, makes it challenging for store providers to find a business model that fits their own needs. To handle this variability, we introduce the Business Variability Model (BVM) for modeling business model decisions. The basis of these decisions is the analysis of 60 store-oriented software ecosystems in eight different product domains. We map their business model decisions to the Business Model Canvas, condense them to a variability model and discuss particular variants and their dependencies. Our work provides store providers a new approach for modeling business model decisions together with insights of existing business models. This, in turn, supports them in creating new and improving existing business models.